By Ryn Brierley
I place the soda and bag of pretzels on the counter.
“That’s twenty seconds, please,” the cashier says.
I drop the pack of gum I was just about to add to the pile.
“Twenty seconds? It should only be ten for all of this.”
“Inflation,” he says. “I don’t make the prices.”
I groan. I push in the vial behind my ear, and it clicks out with a soft ping. The small receptacle beside the keypad glows red until I place the vial inside. It glows yellow.
“Let’s see here.” He pulls something up on the register screen that I cannot see. “Anything recent you care to lose?”
He makes several swiping motions against the monitor before looking up at me.
“How about this bit on the train? That chick there is something, huh?”
He turns the screen to face me and I see the familiar image of a woman sitting on the train ride I took to work earlier. She is working on something on her laptop, her tan knees peeking out of the distressed holes in her jeans. She is only in my peripheral, but the cashier makes it the focus of the memory. He zooms in on her face and I look away.
“Sure, fine. Take that.”
He snickers quietly, pressing a few buttons on the register. There is a tingle in the back of my throat, a whisper of an image before it dissolves from my mind forever. What it is I cannot recall. In this way, it never feels like a loss. It feels like taking a breath. In and out. The vial glows green and ejects from the holder. I pull it out, wipe it on my shirt, and press it back into the vessel behind my ear. He pushes my purchase toward me on the counter.
“Bag?”
I take the pretzels and the soda in my hand and leave without answering. The door jingles before it slams.
I keep my eyes closed through the train ride home.
* * *
Rory greets me from the couch when I come in.
“Hey. How was work?”
She is wearing the flower-print scarf I had gifted her for Valentine’s Day. It is wrapped comfortably around her head with a loose knot in the back. A furry blanket engulfs her body, curled warmly around a mug of coffee. The book she has been reading sits on the table. I turn away to hang my jacket on the wall. Her tired smile sends chills crawling down my arms and legs.
“Fine,” I say, stretching the truth. “I have a feeling layoffs may be coming. I don’t think they’ll hit us, though.”
I take an exhausted seat beside her, pressing my back into the soft leather of the couch. She reaches out her free hand, and I take it, tracing circles on her palm with my thumb. The skin is dry, and her fingers are frail. This frightens me, but when I look up to meet her gaze, the same glowing eyes I remember are staring back at me. Her body radiates a blazing heat as if fighting to overtake the air around her. Her entire life has become a similar battle.
“Be extra good at work then, I guess,” she jokes. “But seriously. Your tenure is pretty airtight. They wouldn’t risk causing any legal issues while they’re down on funds.”
“I’ve seen the shit they’ve been dealing in. Marital affairs, violent fights. They’re doing it to themselves.”
“I still don’t understand how that’s legal.”
“Because it’s not their memories. They can claim that all of the memories they deal in are random events that the consumers voluntarily pay. Unsavory memories they want to forget. I’m just the record keeper, I don’t want to know what they do with them. It’s just they’re now realizing that those kinds of memories are losing their value.”
“It turns out providing a service to take away bad memories is not a successful business model. Who would have thought?”
I chuckle, leaning my neck to nestle my head on her shoulder. She puts her coffee mug down and runs her hand through my stress-greased hair. I can feel the boniness of her shoulder against my cheek. Her body only retains some of its original softness. She is still warm.
“What are you thinking?” I can sense the doubt in her voice. My palm bleeds sweat into her hand.
“Rory—”
The landline rings from the kitchen, startling me off the couch. Rory brings the coffee back to her lips as I pull the phone off the cradle in the other room. It is silent.
“Hello?”
“Jayce, my friend,” a raspy voice emits from the receiver. “How’ve you been?”
His familiarity worries me. I say nothing. Better to keep things business-oriented.
“Not too good, I guess,” he continues. “Listen, bud, there’s been some new developments with that program we talked about. The cost of medications has gone up, so the price of the treatment has to change as well.”
“Please.” I keep my voice low. “As if you get all your shit through legitimate sources.”
“Jayce, we’re a professional business. The fees have increased regardless of how we source our materials. If you want this to happen, we’ll need more from you.”
“Fine. Whatever. How much? I can give you ten minutes of my high school graduation. Fifteen of when I earned my master’s.”
“I don’t think you understand how bad it is out here,” he says. “You’re an accountant, right?”
“As of right now, yes.”
“Then you should know that standard observational and influential memories aren’t quite worth what they used to be. The Man values big things now. Foundational memories. Those core relationships, the milestones of life—that’s what sells now. It’s all social capital, baby.”
My eyes fall on the refrigerator situated in front of me. Pictures are fixed on the steel with magnets. Photographs of Rory at the beach, Rory on Thanksgiving, Rory eating a turkey leg the size of her head. Rory, Rory, Rory. There is a single image of my brother. The card we gave out at his wake.
“How close of a relationship?”
“Got someone in mind?”
“My brother. He passed three years ago,” I say, cursing myself for even considering it. “That enough?”
There is a pause on the other end.
“No can do, Jayce,” he says. “Foundational memories are an investment. They gain value with time, so a dead relationship won’t work. We’re looking for something a bit more… close to home.”
Rory coughs in the living room. I look through the threshold towards the couch. The coffee mug is on the table now, and Rory holds a hand to her chest—her shoulders slowly rising and falling. She looks up at me, nodding but unsure.
“I’m okay.”
I hesitantly move back into the kitchen.
“You still there, Jayce?”
“Yes. I’m here.”
“You know, the insurance companies have been hard on everyone,” he starts subtly. “If you can’t afford this treatment, then I’m sure there will be others lining up to take your spot.”
“I don’t have anyone else, Knox,” I say a bit too loud. I soften. “I’m not the most social man. You know that.”
“Of course I know that,” he says. “But there is one person, isn’t there?”
The fridge taunts me. It is not an option. When the insurance told me that she had two months, it was not an option. When they cut thousands of patients off, it was not an option. When the recession started, it was not an option. When the pharmaceutical scientists went on strike, it was not an option.
Then I found out through an old acquaintance that my high school dealer was now a black market medicine man. I get my insulin through him, he had said. Only costs me my relationship with my step-daughter. Hate that brat.
That was insulin. This is an experimental treatment. It is not an option. She is not an option. It may not even work.
But it might.
“Her?” I ask.
“What other choice do you have?”
* * *
I told her the insurance company took us back. It took a lot of convincing. I had Knox make up a few documents to give to her. She did not believe it at first—she looked at me as if I was the sick one—but that insignia looked so genuine it might have even fooled me. The date was set. Rory’s coughing fits became more frequent. Waiting for her procedure felt as if I were waiting for the world to end.
When the day comes, I drive her to the place where I first met with Knox about the treatment plan. A stout, brown-bricked building. “Faith General” is plastered above the door. The sign is in the back.
It has all the appearances of a real hospital. The inside is white and shiny, sterile. There is even a receptionist out front in the small lobby area, a gray-haired, moldy man that smells of smoke. His name tag reads “Mark.” We are the only ones waiting for quite some time until a younger woman comes in with a scar running down the length of her left arm. She exchanges a few soft-spoken words with Mark before being handed a small paper bag and leaving the building. She glances at me as she walks out the door. Her eyes seem hollow.
“Pretty slow today, huh,” Rory whispers to me. “Thanks for coming with me, by the way.”
I swallow, attempting to stash the anxiety in my chest. She moves closer and takes my hand, squeezing it with a casualness that sickens me. I want to pull away. To make it easier. I know it will not.
Eventually, Knox enters the lobby through two large medical-looking doors and opens his arms out to greet me. I approach him as I would a steep ledge.
“Jayce, it’s good to see you.”
I force a smile and receive his hand in a cold shake. After planting a rough pat on my shoulder, he turns his attention to Rory.
“You must be Mrs. Savas,” Knox pulls her into an eerily friendly embrace. “I have heard such good things about you. Your husband is a lucky man.”
“He sure is.” Rory smirks at me.
“I want you to know that we will do everything in our power to make your visit a comfortable one,” Knox turns to me. “Your husband and I have made arrangements for you to stay as long as you need following the procedure, but please do not worry. You’re in very good hands.”
A man dressed in scrubs bursts through the large doors, propelling a wheelchair. He brings it to Rory and encourages her to sit. When she does, the man swiftly wheels her away and through the doors into the greater sector of the hospital. I do not even get to say goodbye. Knox wraps an arm around me.
“Alright, Jayce, it’s time. Let’s walk on down to my office.”
Knox’s office is more like a utility closet. It is dark and there is only enough space for a desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. On the desk, a large old-looking monitor sits among disorganized mounds of papers. He goes in, but I stop at the door.
“Having second thoughts, are we?” He turns on the monitor and it hums loudly as it begins booting up. “I can cancel the procedure if you’d like. I’m sure Gabe has only just started putting your wife’s IVs in.”
“We’re not canceling,” I say. I can feel my heart in my neck, beating around the vial implanted by my skull. Preparing itself.
“Very good.” Knox sits at the desk. “Have a seat then, won’t you?”
I sit. The light of the monitor illuminates his face in the dark. I can see a mole on his right cheek that I never noticed before. He taps away on the keyboard for a few seconds, then looks up from the screen. He is all business now.
“Vial?”
I raise my hand to my neck. It is warm. I keep it there, hovering, for a brief moment, letting the images remain trapped there a little while longer. Knox clears his throat. I press it out. He takes the small thing from me and twiddles it between his fingers. My whole world is in his hands.
“Thank you, sir.”
I cannot see it because it is hidden behind the monitor, but I hear the faint clicking sound of the vial being placed in the receptacle. I see the soft yellow glow cast on his chin.
“This might take a moment,” he says. “Bear with me.”
I do not hear him. My mind is racing to recall every single detail of Rory before it is gone forever. Her smile when she recognizes a face in a crowded room. The muffled sigh of her snores when she sleeps. How she claps at the ends of movies even if she hates them. My memory lands on a single moment in time, pinning me there as Knox scrolls through my files.
Rory is half-awake, trying to keep her eyes open long enough to finish the book she has been reading for a few weeks. I am sitting on the couch beside her, sorting through memory records of parents abandoning their children. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee floats around the room. She gasps, and I turn. She closes the book.
What? I ask. I can see her eyes beginning to fill with tears. Hey, it’s okay. What happened?
The main character lost her husband, she says. And now she is going to take the trip that they always talked about together, without him.
That’s sad, I say.
It is. She leans her head on my shoulder. Her cheeks are round and full of color. But it’s also sweet. She is going to go on this trip, and he will still be with her. In a way. In her memory.
Yes, I say. Sounds like a good book.
It is.
The light from behind the monitor glows green. Knox pulls the vial out and hands it back to me without saying anything. I put it back in the space behind my ear. Click.
It feels like taking a breath. In and out. There one moment, gone the next.
Author Bio
Ryn Brierley is a multi-genre fiction writer from Peabody, Massachusetts. He enjoys experimenting with different mediums of fiction, especially playwriting and video games. Science Fiction and drama are his most-written genres, although he takes an interest in many kinds of stories. His “tortico” cat, Kira, is the most precious thing in his life, immediately followed by the savory bliss of nachos.