Fiction
The Man Who Couldn’t Remember
On a dark corner of a dark street in a city people don’t talk about there is a man with a curious shop.
Most of the people didn’t have a penny to spare.
Most didn’t have a penny at all.
Food was scarce, clothes too. And most didn’t even bother heating their home.
Until the man with the curious shop showed up one day.
There was little fanfare.
No grand opening.
Just an older man cleaning out a shop on the corner of street where all the other merchants had abandoned, as a destitute customer base is not good for business.
And yet the man seemed determined, and the next day he opened his shop.
It was filled with everything they needed: food, books, clothing. There were toys for the children.
The people rejoiced at first. Their small gardens weren’t feeding them anymore, and all the animals had disappeared for miles around.
But the happiness quickly faded, when they remembered that none of them had money to patronize the shop.
The curious looking man looked out at the forlorn group and realized what they were thinking.
“Don’t worry,” he called from the counter, “you don’t need money here.”
Well, that changed the feelings of the townspeople. They thought the man might be crazy, but they might as well look around.
They poured into the store, a ramshackle bunch. Most were far too thin, and their clothes were tatters, a patchwork menagerie. Each shirt and pair of pants were mended to the point where there was little clothing left. Some had run out of string to mend them, and were forced to walk around with torn attire.
The first man grabbed some food, just the basics, but more than his family had in months, and some shirts for his boys.
“How do I pay?” he asked, “I’ve no money.”
“It’s easy my friend. Step right up,” the shop owner said. “Come right here.”
And he brought the man to the front of the store where there was a funny looking register.
“Now do you have something you’d like to forget?” the owner asked.
“What?”
“Trust me,” the shop owner said, handing the man a pencil and a slip of paper. “Just write down some bad memory. Something you’d like to forget.”
The man did so.
The shop owner looked at the paper it read, my father’s funeral.
“Good choice,” the owner said.
The shop owner motioned for him to place his hand on the machine. He pressed a few buttons. There was a momentary whirring noise, and then nothing.
“You’re all set.”
The man looked around. He couldn’t tell why but he was happier than before.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Soon a line formed. People exchanged their bad memories for goods. Some bought clothes. Most bought food. One woman came in to buy a toy for her daughter’s birthday, and all it cost her was the day she broke her arm.
And for the first time in a long time, people were happy. They filled the man’s store, who they started calling the Memory Man, store nearly day and night.
For a while.
But, after a while they started running out of bad memories.
They had to be smarter about their choices.
Soon they had to start giving things they didn’t want to forget.
Their child’s first steps.
Their first day of school.
Their favorite movie.
It went on and on until the town started to change back. For a brief respite they looked happy and healthy, but now they were slowly returning to the days before the Memory Man.
People went hungry until they could no longer stand it.
No one bought clothes.
They went back to being cold.
Only in desperate times did they visit the Memory Man.
And before long everyone was desperate.
Too desperate.
One day a man and his son walked into the shop.
“Food for the boy please,” the man said.
The Memory Man handed him enough food to last the boy a while.
The man scratched out something on the paper slip, it read Charlie. The Memory Man nodded.
He put his hand on the machine. It whirred, and that was it.
The man turned to exit, “Come along.”
And the man who couldn’t remember his son’s name left the shop.
