[ WP ] Poor people are able to pawn off their memories .

They used to say you could n't buy happiness. But humans are ingenious creatures. We found a way. 
 
 The technology had fascinated me for as long as I could remember- which, to be fair, was n't a very long time at all. I had been one of the first to sell off my memories, back before the market flooded and the selling price for a happy reflection went way down. Maybe I'd realized that my memories would never be worth more than they were at that moment. Maybe that was why I'd sold them all. 
 
 Not that I could remember selling them- that was the nature of the beast. But the folks who handled the Technology were great about giving me a little personalized brochure, complete with my name, social security card, amount I'd been paid... enough to keep me from stumbling around the street. 
 
 Now, I lived a comfortable life. Nice penthouse apartment, paid for in full, enough money to never work another day. And were there empty moments? Sure. But I thought it was worse for the folks who sold their memories piecemeal instead of all at once. They were left with context, threads that connected to nothing at all... I think that's what really got to them, having an incomplete picture. Better to wipe it all, become a blank slate. Tabula rasa, baby. 
 
 Still, sometimes I found myself wondering. I'd hear an old song on the radio, and I'd think `` Did I like this when I was a kid?'' or I'd get a card from the woman I knew was my mother, and wonder what it would be like to remember loving her, or if I'd ever loved her at all. I guess the sort of person who did what I did was n't the type to have a close relationship with their parents. All I knew was that when I'd tried to meet her now, she told me that seeing me the way I was would be unbearable, that she could n't understand or accept what I'd done to myself. 
 
 I think that's why I started going to the support group. Talking to other people who'd given away pieces of themselves... I thought maybe it would help. But it did n't. In a weird way, it just made me feel guilty for not missing what I'd given away. Like the fact that this had n't broken me meant I was broken on an even more fundamental level. I began to long to escape from myself. 
 
 That's why I bought someone else's memory for the first time. To escape. And to see what all the hype was about- to maybe understand why there was such a demand to feel someone else's joy. I inputted a request into the Technology's Simulator. I wanted a memory of childhood, of being loved. For a few moments, I was a little girl on Christmas morning... waiting up for Santa, but struggling to keep her eyes open. Falling asleep to the sight of her father, dressed in a red suit and a scraggly beard, placing a blanket over her small body and kissing her cheek. Feeling grateful for having someone bring magic into her life. 
 
 I was n't hooked, not then, not instantly addicted the way you hear some people get. The memory did n't feel quite real, and a part of me was always at least one step removed. But it was enough to get my mind off whatever was bothering me, so I kept coming back to the Technology's Simulator, buying another memory every now and again, after a particularly bad day. 
 
 Sometimes I wonder- if I had realized what was going to happen, would I have stopped? 
 
 One day, weeks after I had quit group, months since I'd heard from my forgotten mother... the memory I got was one of my own. I felt it, felt the difference, right away. It was me, around age sixteen, kissing a boy for the first time, laughing and blushing through it all... feeling him sweep a strand of hair from my face. Hearing him whisper in my ear that he loved me, at an age and an innocence where I trusted in his every word and felt that love could last forever. Shaking as I leaned in to kiss him again, trying to remember the way my books had told me it was supposed to go, but distracted by how good it felt to touch him, to feel the warmth of the heat that radiated off him. 
 
 When the memory ended, I was crying, big horrible wretched sobs, sobs that shook me to my core. How? How had I ever given up this? 
 
 Those few moments in the Technology's Simulator had felt more real than any moment of my life since I had given up my memories. I had assumed, on some level, that I must have had a painful past, to give it all up like I had. But the girl I'd just been- me, I reminded myself, that was me- had felt so... well-adjusted. Happy. She glowed. 
 
 I became obsessed. 
 
 At first, I tried to get lucky again, to happen upon another of my memories in the Simulator, but of course the odds of that were impossibly small. That I'd even gotten the one was inconceivable. So I started to look into more expensive, less legal options. I went back to group with the express purpose of talking to a woman who had once mentioned, in whispers, that she had been approached by a man who told her he could get her memories back. From her, I got his card- Trevor Rodriguez. Eventually I tracked him down. 
 
 I did n't know what I expected. Some sketchy area, maybe, or for him to refuse to meet in person. Instead, we met in a nice office in a high rise, a room with windows looking out on what had to be one of the best views in the City. 
 
 `` I'm surprised you found me,'' Trevor said. 
 
 I told him about the woman from group. 
 
 `` Ah, back when I was small time. As you can see, hacking the Technology for people has been a very lucrative business for me,'' he said, gesturing to the office and to the nice looking suit he wore. `` I'm afraid you might find my rates a bit... excessive.'' 
 
 I had been prepared for that. I wrote him a check, and it barely made a dent in my account. 
 
 It took weeks. In the mean time, I had stopped eating, showering, leaving my apartment... I sustained myself on hope. On the memory of that memory, that small taste I'd had of the person I'd once been. 
 
 When I went back to Trevor's office and he strapped me into his bootleg simulator, I was excited. I had spun for myself countless fairy tales of what I was about to see. 
 
 But I was n't prepared for the truth. 
 
 At first, I waded in beautiful memories of a beautiful life. There I was as a child, so proud at reading my first book. There I was with my mother- god, she looked so young. There I was in a lab coat... had I been some sort of doctor, before? 
 
 Then, suddenly, a memory, forceful and unwanted, bubbled to the surface. 
 
 `` You ca n't do this!'' I was screaming, screaming at a man with slick hair and sharp eyes. His name popped into my head, unbidden- Brendan Morris. I realize my arms are being held by two burly men, holding me back from attacking Morris. His security guards. 
 
 `` I'm afraid I can do whatever I like,'' says Morris. `` I now own all rights to the Technology.'' 
 
 `` This was n't supposed to happen! When I sold it to you, you said you'd use it to help people! To take away their memories of pain!'' 
 
 `` That may very well be a service we offer,'' Morris replies, inspecting his fingernails and not looking me in the eye, `` But our research reports that the selling of happy memories will be a far more profitable business.'' 
 
 `` That's not what I invented this for! That's not... I'll fight you. In court. There must be something in that contract, some loophole, some...'' 
 
 `` I know you'd try. And that could be very messy. At the very least it would delay our launch,'' Morris said, looking utterly unconcerned. `` Which would be a shame since we've already entered beta testing.'' 
 
 `` Beta testing?'' 
 
 `` What's that, Miss Jones? You'd like to see your wondrous technology at work first hand? Yes, I believe that would be an excellent idea. Gentleman? Please take Miss Jones to the technology, and strap her in. I'll be along shortly.'' 
 
 The men begin to take me away. `` No! No! I'll stop you, Morris. Even if you take my memories, you ca n't change who I am. I'll always be the type of person who fights to stop this.'' 
 
 `` You say that now, Miss Jones. And maybe you're right, maybe you'll still be a threat. Or maybe, stripped of your memories, given enough wealth and convenience to make you comfortable and soft... you'll live a life of complacency. Follow the easy path. Personally, I like my odds.'' 
 
 I emerged from the memory, ripping myself out of the bootleg simulator. I remembered the years I'd spent in complacency, barely leaving my apartment, never giving a second thought to what the Technology was doing to the world, assuming out of hand that I could n't change things even if I wanted to. Morris had been right about me. Without my memories, I'd been a nobody. 
 
 `` Jesus! I've never seen anyone bolt out of a simulator like that,'' said Trevor. `` You OK?'' 
 
 `` No. I have n't been OK for a very long time,'' I was panting, my body shaking. A panic attack? I pushed down the urge to cry, to run from this. `` Put me back in Trevor, I have more I need to learn. Then, we have work to do.'' 
 
 ________________________________________________________________ 
 ________________________________________________________________ 
 Thank you for reading. Constructive criticism welcome and appreciated.
