Last week I sold a bunch of my memories
to help pay the rent. It was either that or my car.
I gave them 146 rarely used memories, they gave me $40.88…
I thought it was a fair deal. I mean, I wasn’t using them…
A couple weeks later I was curious
to see how they were selling, so I walked to the second-hand shop
that had made the deal with me. I saw an elderly woman looking
at my memories. She picked one up, stared at it disapprovingly, then
tossed it casually back in the pile. She did this a couple more times, then
walked away. I waited until she had left, then walked up and picked
up the one she was looking at. It was a memory of kissing and elbows.
Whispers and smiles.
I stood perplexed with the memory in my hands, wondering to myself what
brought about the look of disapproval. To each their own, I suppose…
I hung around that day, trying to get into the heads of
those who were looking into mine…with little success.
There were laughs, tears, and the occasional snarky comment. I watched a memory of driving
down an empty interstate with the windows down on an exquisite summer day sell
for 28 cents. I saw a memory of climbing trees and rope swings leave with an old man
who wanted to remember youth. A girl with dreadlocks in her twenties took a fuzzy memory
of less than legal implications.
I came by every day until they were all but gone, only a few stragglers here and there; One of a hospital bed,
another of a meatloaf dinner in January.
I really don’t like meatloaf.