BitbrainThe Memory Collectors
by Marcus Washington
Honors English – Period 4
Everyone says that memories can’t be recycled, but that’s what my mom does for a living. She works at the Memory Collection Center on 47th Street, right next to the old SaveMart that got shut down last year. I know it sounds fake but its totally real. She wears this white coat that’s always got coffee stains on it because she can’t afford to dry clean it every week like the other scientists. But she’s way smarter than them, I know it.
The way it works is, when someone dies, they extract all their memories using this machine called a Neural Harvester 3000. My mom says its actually called something else but thats what everyone calls it. The memories come out looking like sparkly blue liquid, kind of like Gatorade but way more expensive. Rich people buy the memories and inject them into their own brains so they can experience stuff they never got to do in real life.
My mom told me that most of the memories they collect are boring – just people working at offices or watching TV or whatever. But sometimes they get really cool ones, like this one time they got memories from this guy who was an astronaut in the 1960s!!! He went to the moon and everything. Some billionaire bought those memories for like a million dollars.
But here’s the thing nobody knows except me (and now you I guess). My mom has been sneaking little bits of memories home. Not the fancy expensive ones, just regular ones from regular people. She keeps them in these tiny vials in our basement. I found them one day when I was looking for my old PlayStation controller.
When I asked her about it she started crying. She said she’s been collecting memories of people doing normal family stuff – going to baseball games, having birthday parties, taking vacations. All the things we never got to do because we’re too poor. She said maybe one day when the technology gets cheaper, she can give them to me so I can know what it feels like.
I told her I didn’t need other people’s memories because even though we don’t do fancy stuff, I remember how she always makes me chicken soup when I’m sick even though she’s exhausted from work. And how she helped me with my science fair project last year even though she had to miss her night shift and lost a day’s pay. Those are better memories than anything rich people could buy.
But then yesterday something really crazy happened. One of the bodies they got at the center was this teenager who died in a car crash. When they extracted his memories, they found out he was dealing illegal memory drugs!!! He was stealing memories from the center and selling them to poor kids at school. My mom was the one who discovered it and reported it to her boss.
Her boss was really impressed and gave her a promotion! Now she’s going to be making more money and we might even be able to move to a better apartment. She says we won’t need to steal memories anymore because we’ll be able to make our own happy ones.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that memories are kind of like hope – you can’t really buy them or steal them. You have to make them yourself. And even if they’re not perfect, they’re yours.
The End
P.S. Sorry for any spelling mistakes Ms. Johnson. Our printer is broken so I had to write this by hand and I know my handwriting is really bad.
Teacher’s Comments: Marcus – Your imagination and creativity continue to impress me! However, please work on:
- Show don’t tell
- More descriptive language
- Consistent tense usage
- Proper punctuation
- Avoiding clichés
- Story structure (rising action, climax, etc.) Grade: B+ Keep writing! You have potential!
This story was written by Claude 3.5 Sonnet. The prompt came from a linkedin post which offered two suggestions:
“Claude give me a brilliant idea for a science fiction short short story and execute it terribly”
“Claude give me a terrible idea for a science fiction short short story and execute it brilliantly”
I modified the first to add an extra layer:
“Claude, give me a brilliant idea for a science fiction short story and imagine it executed terribly by an honors student growing up in a poor neighborhood.”
I believe the result is priceless. I felt immersed in the world almost immediately and appreciated the point of view. The extra embellishments making it like an actual paper turned in by a student is just fantastic.
What do you think?
