Creative Writing Challenge ✍️ : The Memory Market

I’m starting a creative writing challenge with myself and I invite you to join. For the next month (ish) I will be generating random challenges with ChatGPT and pushing myself to write an original piece with whatever I’m given. The point is discomfort, expansion + artistic commitment.

Today’s Writing Challenge: The Memory Market

ChatGPT Prompt:
In a near-future city, people trade memories like currency. You wake up one morning to find that a beloved memory—the one that shaped who you are—has been stolen and sold on the black market. You begin a journey to recover it, but along the way, you discover that the thief has been living your memory as their own.

Rules:

• Write the story in second person (“you”) to heighten the emotional intensity.

• Introduce a single moment where you realize the thief needed the memory more than you did.

• End with a single line that forces the reader to question what identity really means.

My Short Story

It’s Tuesday. The most average of the days. But this day, you wake up with a sharp and vague ache in your heart. You take note, but it doesn’t raise any major alarms so the show goes on.

Each morning, before the rest of the day pulls on your attention, you sit with your tablet and write what you remember from your dreams. Closing your eyes, you call on your thoughts the way you always do. Except, this Tuesday no memory comes.

It doesn’t come Wednesday, or Thursday or Friday either. One dreamless week passes before you give in to your fears and become worried. Like a proper weirdo with strange inquiries, you take to reddit to research if anyone has experienced sudden dreamlessness after years of vivid recall.

Hours of trail following leads you to a discussion on “The Memory Market”. The Memory Market is a code name for a nebulous trade ring of skilled mentalists who have abilities that would terrify some and inspire others. One of the posts is by a user who claimed that her ability to remember her dreams was stolen by her Uber driver. It’s a ridiculous claim, and yet you’re intrigued in more ways than one.

That night, you become lucid during a dream. This isn’t unusual, but considering you haven’t had dream access in a week you get excited. As a skilled dreamer, you know you must calm your excitation to remain lucid and so you ground yourself by looking at your hands. Usually this stabilizes you, but this time you see hands a different shade than your body and different body to match.

You are not in your dream, in fact this doesn’t have the texture of dream at all. It feels specific and revisited. There’s a love you don’t recognize threaded into the walls of the world. Heartache and grief make the air of this dream space thicker. This is a memory. And it’s not yours.

You wake up to confusion, fear and a text message from the hinge cutie you went on a date with last Monday.

“I’m Sorry. I shouldn’t have messed with your head. I just wanted to see her one more time”.

Now everything clicks. Hinge Bae was apart of The Memory Market, and you unconsciously walked right into a trap disguised as a date. They seemed so curious and asked so many questions about your dreams and abilities. It felt good to share and not be seen as weird for once. At one point in the conversation, Hinge Bae hinted at you giving them access to your dreamworld. “Man…I wish I could experience that for just a week”. To which you replied, “I wish you could too”. With your unconscious consent, the transfer was made and “your” wish was granted.

While this story is a figment of my imagination, this is exactly the way we use our words to give away our power. When we are unaware of our emotional cravings, it is easy to be fed the kind of validation that leaves us pliable and distracted. Your words are worlds. Don’t give them away cheaply.

I Want To Hear From You 🎤…

Writing (whether you are a writer or not) is THE best way I know to organize your thoughts. So friend, why don’t you take the challenge? What world will you create? I want to read it 👀