Ryder entered the shop near the center of town. It felt foreign despite the fact that he had walked past it countless times in pursuit of the afternoon bus or running late for the office. But what use had he had to notice a diamond exchange before meeting Celia?

Ryder walked up to the case where the luminous stones were displayed and waited for the dealer to acknowledge him. Fifty years ago, the idea of buying an engagement ring would have been an occasion full of joyful apprehension. He remembered his father told him about selecting his mother’s engagement ring when the Keepers had come for her mother’s belongings the week after her death. One of the new normals, being stripped of all material reminders of the dead under the pretext of protecting the population from the idleness of grief. His father described seeing it in the window, and being reminded of how clouds reflected in his mother’s blue eyes. He had not even been thinking of proposing, his father said, but when he saw that ring he knew it was right - the ring, Ryder’s mother, the life they could have together. Ryder saw a shimmer of joy in his father’s eyes for a moment before he placed the ring in the vessel held by the Keepers. They never saw it again. Ryder never saw joy in his father’s eyes again, either.

The dealer had taken out the first ring in the case. There was no need to select the one that gave him the feeling his father had felt, certain and jubilant. After all, Celia would not be putting this ring excitedly on her finger when he proposed. Engagement rings had been stolen by the Powers of the Keep, bought now to give to brides only to be surrendered at the culmination of their wedding ceremony. Along with the memories it would cost.

Currency of consciousness, they called it. The exchange of memories for goods, services - life. Cruel and calculated, the system perfectly encompassed the essence of the inhumanity that was life in Mallowkeep ever since the uprising. Ryder knew nothing different, and even if he had his memory of it had long been ceded to obtain a loaf of bread or copper pot. You learn quickly what you actually want when you have to surrender a part of yourself to obtain it. And Ryder knew he really wanted Celia.

The scanner had been placed over Ryder’s head while he was lost in thought, but he very much doubted the diamond merchant had asked for consent. A process everyone in Mallowkeep was now familiar with, they called it culling. The devices scoured the contents of one’s memories, valued them and selected ones that met the criteria for the worth required. Memory of brushing your teeth? Give it up for a postal stamp. Your first kiss? Could probably get you a designer ski jacket. More significant, the more it made your heart soar or your palms sweat, the more power it held and thus the greater the value.

The familiar buzzing sounded, telling him the apparatus had made its selection. He felt the heavy weight being removed from his head, and he stepped to the side to see what his price would be. The dealer connected the device and Ryder looked in front of him to see what memory scene he would know for the last time before he surrendered it. He had been bracing himself, knowing that to meet the cost of the ring the significance of the memory would have to be one of the highest he possessed.

Slowly, the image came into focus in the empty space in front of him. But rather than an active scene, it was a still image. One of the most familiar Ryder had ever know. His mother.

“What is this?” Ryder stammered? “Which memory of her? Is the device stalled, why isn’t it continuing to play out?”

“It is not a single memory, sir,” the vendor said coolly, “It appears that you do not have any single memories of enough value to meet the cost of engagement. If you want the ring, it has determined that you will have to surrender a category of memories, everything that relates to a certain emotional recollection. Any memory, it would seem, of her.”

Ryder stumbled backwards a step, too stunned to speak. It felt like a sick joke, but he knew better than to think that anything about the Power of the Keep was a farce. People in pain were people under control, and everything about the currency of consciousness was designed with pain in mind. In order to obtain a future with the woman he loved, Ryder would have to relinquish the very memory of the first woman he ever loved. Every embrace, every kind word, every story- as if they had never happened. Losing her when he was ten, Ryder had gotten through on the memories of love and laughter, knowing that because she had loved him, somehow, he mattered. This was the price for his future. Everything good about his past.

Would he even be the same without it?

The door to the shop opened behind him. Someone else entering to make the same exchange, just with different stakes. “Shall I finalize the exchange, sir?” the merchant asked Ryder, clearly impatient to get the process finalized so as to move on to the next consignment.

Ryder picked up the proffered pen, and made his selection that would forever seal his fate.