a postcard story about a bacterium that eats memories

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Oblivium

a postcard story about a bacterium that eats memories



There were concerns when Oblivium first hit the market. A bacterium that eats memories-what could go right?

But initial reviews were positive. Oblivium would set up camp in your hippocampus, waiting for the electro-chemical whiff of a painful memory to light up your grey matter. And then it feasted.

For the end-user, it felt like the memory faded as fast as it flared. Eventually it would stop flaring at all.

The philosophers wrung their hands over this. We are the sum of our memories, good and bad, they claimed. Pain is a teacher, and if we feed our memories to oblivion, then we feed our very selves to it, too. And maybe there is a measure of truth in that.

But it was the trauma survivors who shared another truth: that we are more than the sum of our wounds. Yes, pain is a teacher, but not all teachers want us to flourish. Not all lessons are worth remembering. And when you are given the dignity of choice, there is nothing wrong with choosing to forget.

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Short story written by Peter Chiykowski

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Story prompt taken from a photo by Camilo Jimenez

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