Flash Fiction: March 25, 2025
The writing prompt: Write a story where memories are able to be stolen.
Her last words haunted him every night when he woke with the chiming of his grandfather clock.
“Never speak to me again” rang through his ears, sometimes more loudly than others, but always with the same conviction. The man had believed her the first time she said it, but she repeated it that day on the phone, almost as if to convince herself that it was over, too.
Eight months earlier, the two of them had been whisked away in a whirlwind of dreams. They spent every waking moment together, painting pictures of what their future would look like – sometimes furiously – until the beauty of it became too much to bear. Once the woman had exhausted herself, pressing her lips against every inch of his body, they would both float freely – hand-in-hand – in the tornado that was their relationship.
After much consideration, the man had finally determined that the two of them were inseparable. Their love was unstoppable, and now, it was time to show that power to the rest of the world. One morning, he rang the woman and told her to meet him on the shore for a walk on the beach at sunset. She obliged, and he spent the afternoon floating slightly above the earth, carried by the golden band in his pocket.
It wasn’t long, however, until the band began to weigh him back down to reality. During the long drive to the coast, millions of thoughts raced through his mind.
Would their future look as beautiful as they had painted it?
What if she wasn’t ready to venture out from the whirlwind?
Could they grow old together without ever knowing animosity?
As soon as the man parked his car at the beach lot, he spotted her small figure already standing where the ocean met the sand. Her back was turned away from him, illuminated by the sun’s final golden rays of the day. The sound of gulls initially caught his attention, but the waves crashing at her feet eventually took their place in his ears. Minutes passed, and the woman never took her eyes off the churning sea. He started to give himself deadlines to open the driver’s side door.
Sunset.
The moment she looked in his direction.
The final cry of the gulls in the distance.
It was only when the shore had become shrouded in the dark of night that he realized the golden band in his pocket had turned into an anchor. With midnight fast approaching, he could no longer see the woman from where he was sitting. There were no signs that she had left, and he knew that starting his engine would only draw attention, escalating the situation.
He switched the ignition and turned on the headlights.
It was only a matter of hours before the woman rang, telling him that she never wanted to speak to him again. The magnitude of the situation had not been lost on her. While she had no awareness of the golden band that had been in his pocket, he was certain she felt its vibration through the ether when he threw it out his apartment window.
Months passed, and while the man did not expect to hear from her again, his heart ached from the void she left behind. It was a simple mistake, he told himself. If only she would try to understand.
Tossing and turning every night left him a nervous wreck. Somewhere between exhaustion and desperation, he knew that he had to do something – even if it meant unleashing a little-known secret he had kept to himself all these years.
Since he was a small boy, he had known that he possessed the power to collect memories. At first, he assumed it was something everyone could do. In addition to playing with his toys, he would fiddle with the thoughts of others, never putting anything back where it belonged.
One day after school on a lazy autumn afternoon, screaming ricocheted off the walls of his family home. The man could still remember it like it was yesterday, quietly observing his mother and father fighting from the top of the stairs. His mother accused his father of adultery, loud enough for the entire neighborhood to become privy to the situation. When the boy’s eyes fixated on his father’s absent stare, it was then that he remembered the memory he had stolen from him.
The silhouette of the other woman in his mind’s eye.
The feeling of a soft touch across his body.
A shade of red that he had never seen on his mother’s lips.
The bewildered look on his father’s face that day was enough to scare him into never stealing again. He had been shattered into a thousand pieces, and it took years for him to piece himself back together. The pain was so unbearable that he wasn’t sure he would survive—and that same pain came flooding back during the phone call after the incident at the beach.
The void left by the woman had shaken his core, releasing the hurt all over again. He knew what he had to do—unleash his power on the world that had treated him so cruelly, never relenting to his cries for mercy.
At first, he started slowly. The man walked into a local bar one Friday evening, fully intent on meeting a new face for a short-lived romance. It took little more than a few hours for him to win his prize, take her home, and release all of his frustrations in tandem with her sensuality in bed. When he was through, he kissed her forehead, sucking the memories of the evening into the cage of his own mind. It was like riding a bicycle, he told himself. Now, he could rinse-and-repeat at his leisure. No need to skip town or avoid people who ran in the same circles to save face. Their minds were his playgrounds, and his collection had no limit.
Drenched in a cold sweat, the man woke from a nightmare with an unfamiliar face sleeping next to him. Nearly seven months had passed since he last saw the woman of his dreams, yet she was the one he always expected to see when he opened his eyes. He knew he could no longer go on like this.
The following morning, he called her. She didn’t pick up on the first ring, but the second attempt convinced her to answer the phone. He kept it short and to the point – he wanted to catch up, nothing more. With little to deny, she agreed to meet him for a drink that Thursday evening after work. As soon as he hung up the phone, his mind began racing.
With no room for error, he knew this had to be the moment that everything turned around. He told himself that he would whisk her off her feet. Make her promises that would force her heart to fall for him all over again. Kiss her passionately and take her breath away, leaving her with no words to even speak. He would fill his void with the memories of their disastrous ending eight months ago that neither of them needed to remember ever again.
That night, the man took the time to make sure he looked his best. Running a comb through his hair, he took a final look in the mirror before heading out the door. He smirked at his reflection, feeling adrenaline steadily flow through his body while adjusting his collar. By now, the woman was likely at the bar, waiting for him as she did that fateful evening on the shore. This time, he wouldn’t let her down.
The cab ride over felt like an eternity. He could feel sweat building on his hands by the time he arrived, and anxiety surged through his veins as soon as he walked in the door. Faces greeted him everywhere, but the woman was nowhere to be seen. The man took a seat at the bar, unaware of how quickly his eyes were darting around the room. When the bartender asked him what he wanted to drink, he finally paused to catch his breath.
Minutes passed. Three gin martinis later, he realized those minutes had turned into hours. With little inhibition remaining, the man dialed the woman’s number. It immediately went to her voicemail, which was full. Another martini slid down the bar in his direction. It was on the house, the bartender said. As closing time approached, the venue started to empty. With no one else around him, the only sound the man could hear was his heavy heartbeat.