The Memory Sculptor

In the part of Oakhaven, where the air is really clean and the sunlight is directed to shine on the tall buildings at just the right time Julian Vane lives. He is not a businessman or a politician. He is a Sculptor.. Julian does not carve stone or make metal statues. He shapes memories.

The rich people of Oakhaven get bored easily because their lives are too long and too predictable. To escape this boredom they go to Julian. They sit in his studio connected to his special machine called the Neural Loom and tell him the memories they want to have. They want to feel like they have had experiences like escaping from danger or missing someone they love or learning something new from a long journey.

Julian takes these ideas. Turns them into real feelings and sensations putting them directly into his clients minds. He is very popular in the city because he can make people feel like they have really lived through something even if they have not.

One day a client named Lysandra comes to him. She is a woman who has never had any problems in her life so she has never felt truly sad or heartbroken. "I want to feel like someone I love has left me " she says. "Give me a memory of a person walking away from me in the rain. Make me feel regret like it is hurting my bones."

Julian adjusts the machine. "This is a choice Lysandra. The brain remembers pain clearly and it can leave a scar."

"That is okay " she says, closing her eyes. "I am tired of feeling nothing."

Julian starts working. He takes feelings of rain and thunder the smell of streets the sound of a door closing and the sharp pain of a broken heart. He puts all these things into Lysandras mind. She gasps, opening her eyes. She cries,. Not because she is sad. She cries because she finally feels something

Julians life is not easy. Every memory he creates for his clients he has to feel. To give Lysandra the feeling of being left Julian has to feel that pain himself. He has to live through it feel the sadness and then take it out of his mind and put it into hers.

His mind is like a mix of many different lives. He has felt many things but he does not really know who he is. He has no memories that're just his own; he is like an empty container always being filled and emptied by the memories of others.

One evening Julian realizes that he cannot tell what is real and what is not. He looks at the Neural Loom. Sees how beautiful and terrible it is. It is full of the sad feelings of the people in the city. He searches for a memory that's just his own something from his childhood his first kiss or a moment when he was truly happy.. There is nothing. He is like a piece of paper erased by the memories he has created for others.

"I need a memory " he says to himself.

He sits at the machine. Does something he has never done before. He creates a memory for himself not for a client. He reaches back into his mind and finds a memory of a cold clear night looking up at the stars and feeling small but alive.

As the machine works Julian feels the memory become real. It is sharp and clear. It is his. He puts it into his mind and it feels like a explosion. His brain is not used to feeling things that're real and true so it reacts strongly. He falls down feeling dizzy as the memory grows like a flower. He remembers who he is and why he started creating memories in the place. He did it because he loved the feeling of truth without anything added or taken away.

He stands up looking ahead for the first time in years. He looks at the Neural Loom, the machine that has given him wealth and fame. Also taken away his sense of self.

He does not destroy it. That would be too easy. Instead he changes the machine. He puts into it the memories he has been keeping for himself the quiet nights, the hard lessons, the true feelings of being alive.

When his next client comes Julian does not ask what they want. He does not offer them a memory. He connects the machine to their head. Says, "This time you will remember something real."

He starts the machine and the client gasps struggling to understand the feelings of a real life. Julian walks out of his studio leaving behind his money, his tools and his life as a sculptor. He walks into the streets of Oakhaven, a man with one memory in his mind.

He is no longer a creator of memories. For the time he is a part of his own life.. As he walks towards the city gate he realizes that a life, without fake memories is the only kind of life worth living.