The Memory Shop
by Melissa Ren
Zine #40 — April 2025
The Memory Shop is a speculative fiction short story about the complex reactions to grief and loss one can have, especially with memory-altering technology. Read the feature below or listen on the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness podcast.
Live your best life. The slogan of The Memory Shop flickered on tablets that lay on ottomans, as if they were clients luxuriating in an experience.
While I waited for my host, I sipped the last of my complimentary pomegranate juice, swiping through the menu of Life’s Offerings. A shadowless day at Machu Picchu. Swipe. Swimming hand in hand with your partner through a blue lagoon. Swipe. Perhaps something less adventurous. Growing your own food. Swipe. Hosting a dinner party.
The allure of these images nearly had me daydreaming.
But that wasn’t why I was here.
I first learned about The Memory Shop from my sister Arden. To face her fear of heights, she purchased an experience to zoom up the CN Tower in a glass elevator at top speed. She pinched her eyes closed as her heart leapt in her throat. At 1,220 feet from the ground, she walked its famous glass floor on the observation deck, all from the comfort of a chaise. She threw up immediately after. But that’s all it took, and that memory was now hers, as if she’d experienced it herself.
“Constance Cheng.” A woman with a fringe that framed her face smiled at me, the way friends do when too much time has passed.
For a moment, I wondered if we had met before.
“Welcome to The Memory Shop. I’m Penelope, your link host. Will you be experiencing or relinquishing?”
“Relinquish.” My voice wavered. I cupped my belly out of habit, only to catch the air, sending a pang to my chest.
Penelope ushered me through the lobby, dripping with orb lights and S-shaped lounge chairs, past the main reception desk, through a dimly lit hall lined with manicured trees rooted in basalt stones. Two signs adorned the wall where it split:
<< EXPERIENCE RELINQUISH >>
Penelope turned right.
A wave of nerves crashed in my gut. This would all be over soon.
At the swipe of a key card, a door slid open to reveal a square room with a raised chair, the kind you find at the dentist’s office, except bigger and upholstered in velour. A desk with three screens and an aromatherapy bar hugged the walls.
I scooted on to the chair while Penelope dropped oils in a diffuser. “Lavender and orange create a calming atmosphere,” she said.
The room’s warm lighting had the opposite effect. “This is my first time.” I slid my hands down my thighs. “Will it hurt?”
“Not at all. You won’t remember a thing.” Penelope smiled in that same familiar way, as if she knew something I didn’t.
She glimpsed at my hands as I shook them out. “Can I offer you a chamomile tea? Or something stronger? A gin and tonic, perhaps?”
She knew my drink of choice.
Over the last nine months, I grew accustomed to refusing alcohol. At least now you could get shitfaced, Arden had joked. A shitty consolation, she said, wrapping her arms around me as I wept.
“Make that two gin and tonics,” I said.
Once the drinks arrived, I attempted to relax, focusing on the tang of the lime, the cool drag down my throat, the warmth in my belly.
Penelope affixed squishy tabs to each of my temples. “These will link you to the system.”
A jolt seized my body. My vision zapped white for a split second. I gasped just as my body fell limp in the chair.
“We’re connected,” Penelope said.
A green line splashed across the first screen, stopping at today’s date. A timeline of my life. The next screen had nothing but a search bar. The last was a fog of blurred images—my memories.
“What experience are you relinquishing?” she asked.
I downed the first drink. “My pregnancy.” I tapped on the tumbler. “I may need a few more.”
“Of course.” Penelope smiled. “For pregnancy, we request clients to wait at least six months so the body harbours no physical evidence of your memory.”
I had lost the baby weight, and the swelling abated months ago. “It’s been about that long, plus I’ve had regular check-ups with my doctor—and I don’t have any stretch marks.”
“I’ll need your dates, keywords that trigger the memory, and those who were aware of your experience, unless that doesn’t matter.”
It did.
The grief consuming my heart was an agony that left me crying in bed for days, but the pity on people’s faces needled me as if I’d failed at something I ought to have done right.
I pulled out my phone, having prepared for this, and read off the dates of my pregnancy, including the day I gave birth to my stillborn son. Ignoring the sting in my eyes, I rambled off keywords including baby, son, child, crib, car seat, and Peanut—his nickname. Most importantly, I named everyone who knew of Peanut: spouse, parents, sister, in-laws, friends, relatives, colleagues, neighbours, the doctor, her staff, and even my dentist.
It took me seventeen days to collect all the forms, but in the end, everyone had signed, forfeiting the right to acknowledge my ‘experience’ in my presence. Forever.
No more pity faces. Well, they’d probably still make those expressions, but at least then, I wouldn’t know why.
Penelope handed me a tablet. “Please review and sign the waiver while I sort through your memories.”
It read: You hereby grant The Memory Shop sole proprietary of your experience.
You hereby acknowledge all memories of your requested experience to be extracted from your conscious and subconscious. As a result, The Memory Shop will extract the following memories:
Events leading up to the experience, triggering the outcome of the experience.
Events following the experience as a direct outcome of your experience.
Any emotional attachment or detachment to the experience, the subject and / or context, persons involved.
Further down, I read: Relinquishing experiences is permanent and irreversible.
My face warmed. I sipped the gin and tonic.
The night before, Eric had asked me, Are you sure, Constance? As painful as it is now, if you go through with this, you won’t remember anything. It wasn’t the easiest pregnancy, and I’d lost more than a child; I was infertile. He slid a warm hand over my cheek. You won’t remember him. Eric could compartmentalize his feelings. Whereas I couldn’t remember the joy of our son without reliving the pain of his absence. I knew the sacrifice Eric was making, never being able to speak to me about our son again.
But he also understood this was something I needed to do. For me.
I took another sip of the gin and tonic, glanced down at the tablet, and signed the waiver.
“So, I was thinking.” I set down my fork on the kitchen table and swept the stray hairs from my face. My pulse fluttered beneath my skin. “That maybe we try for a baby.”
From the way Eric stilled, I knew this wasn’t the right time in our lives.
My stomach grew taut. “Have you changed your mind?”
He swallowed the eggs he was chewing. “No.”
I stared at him, expecting more.
Eric removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I thought you wanted to check in with Dr. Ling.”
“I did, a year and a half ago. She said I was healthy and yes, age is a factor, but we still have a slight chance of getting pregnant.”
His brows shot up. “You remember that?”
I laughed. “Why would I forget?”
He cleared his throat. “That was a while ago.”
It was, and yet, I didn’t think to talk with him sooner. It’s all we ever discussed, and then, suddenly, we didn’t. And I wasn’t sure why.
Eric stood and came to my side to bend down and kiss my forehead. “I’d feel better if you checked in with Dr. Ling again.”
He pressed my cheek to his stomach, wrapping his other arm over my shoulders as he breathed into our embrace.
Not yet releasing me.
I pulled back to look at him. “Are you okay? What’s going on?” Maybe he had changed his mind.
He half smiled. “Just work stuff.”
Now that he mentioned it, dark circles rimmed his eyes. He’d been quieter the last few days, but I thought it was the lack of sleep. He always withdrew when he was tired.
But as I studied his face, I wasn’t certain if that’s all it was.
I squeezed his hand. “You sure?”
He brushed a palm over my hair and smiled.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll book an appointment with Dr. Ling.”
“I’m afraid it’s not good news.” Dr. Ling said. “Since we last met—” she flipped several pages in the folder, her finger drawing a line down the page “—in March of last year, your health has changed.”
I glanced at the dangling pages held together by a staple. Were those appointment pages?
“Changed how?”
She closed the folder. “Constance, you’re infertile.”
Her words slapped me across the face. “How did I go from a slight chance of getting pregnant to zero?”
She pressed her lips together. “Too much time has passed. You’re older and health-wise, your body is not what it used to be, before.”
Everything went cold.
Overhead, the fluorescent lights shone brighter than the sun. I closed my eyes as Dr. Ling’s voice hollowed out.
“Constance?”
I snapped my eyes open. “So, what are my options?”
“Surrogacy.”
Surrogacy had always been on the table, but that’s not what I had wanted.
Reality sunk its fangs into my infertile body: I would never carry my own child. That dream was over.
Dead.
“Say something.” I was sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting.
I had expected Eric to promise me that everything was going to be okay, like he always did. Instead, he barely reacted to the news of my infertility, as if it wasn’t news at all.
Eric stood staring out the window, arms folded across his chest. “What do you want me to say, Constance?” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “This is what you wanted,” he whispered.
I shot to my feet. “Why would I want that?” The insinuation crashed into my mind. “You think I secretly wanted this?”
He blew out a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “No, that’s not it.” His brows cinched together, the way they did in frustration.
“Then say what you really want to say.” He’d never been one to cage his thoughts.
Eric approached me, slid his hands down my arms. “I’m trying, I really am.” Quieter, he said, “This has been harder than I thought it was going to be.”
I sensed his reluctance, but only now did I know where his heart stood: he struggled with becoming a father.
When did that happen?
His gaze drifted down to my stomach, then back up to my face. He met my eyes with an urgency in his, pleading almost. “Do you remember?” He clutched me by the elbows. “Do you?”
I froze. How could he ask me that? He’d never admitted he didn’t want a family until now. I wouldn’t have gone to these lengths if he did. “No,” I said. “I would have remembered.”
Eric stepped back, breathless.
Hopeless.
As if I’d lied.
“It’s really gone, isn’t it? All of it.” He scrubbed his hands down his face. “We’re never going to be the same.”
My chest ached. This wasn’t about children, he was talking about us. “What are you saying?”
“It doesn’t matter, Constance, because it won’t make a difference.”
A knock came at the bedroom door. I pulled the duvet from over my head and winced from the brightness tainting the walls. My eyes were still sensitive from this morning’s cry. I squinted to check the time on my nightstand. 2:43 PM.
Another light knock. “Connie, you awake?”
I whimpered a yes and sat up on the bed.
Arden entered, clutching two takeout bags. “All-day dim sum.” My comfort food. I smiled; the first of the week.
My sister had moved in shortly after Eric moved out. Though I never brought up children with him again, he carried out that conversation through shrugs, one-word replies, sleeping separately, to him moving out. Somehow, we grew apart, as if being tugged in opposite directions, and I wasn’t sure how that happened.
When I allowed myself to view the past objectively, I knew I was missing a piece of the puzzle to fully understand the complete picture. It’s that same feeling when you enter a room, and everyone stares at you, whispering among themselves.
The distance separating us started before I ever brought up children that morning over breakfast. He was going through something, though he always denied it, saying it was work.
Arden climbed onto the bed and made a picnic of the food. “Have you thought about it today?”
She knew I had. It’s all I ever thought about. I tossed a har gow in my mouth and nodded.
“You still don’t want to do it on your own?” she asked.
“No.”
“I’ll be here, too, you know. Cool Aunt Arden or should they call me Āyí?” She waggled her brows at the honorifics.
I had always imagined Eric by my side, parenting together. All too soon, my eyes stung with an aching sadness. I yearned for something different, to live through it: the swell of my growing belly; the feel of him inside me, kicking and hiccuping; that pregnant glow.
“I’m not going through with surrogacy.”
The entrance doors slide open to reveal a kaleidoscope of ivory, rose gold, and chrome furnishings. Overhead, the lights glitter like stars falling from the sky. I could bite the air; the saccharine fragrance of tangerines beckons me forward with the curl of its finger.
A prickling sensation courses through me.
After I check in, I order a pomegranate juice and peruse the menu of Life’s Offerings on a nearby tablet resting on a ottoman.
Welcome to The Memory Shop, where our clients indulge in authentic experiences relinquished by epicureans like you. Your life is waiting.
Arden still raves about her experience at The Memory Shop. She ooh’d and ahh’d, clasping her chest as she recounted the thrill of her first step onto the glass floor of the CN Tower, as if she’d actually done it herself, despite never having been to Toronto. She’d faced her fear. Because in her mind, she had.
It was real.
My palms are sweaty.
A woman with a fringe approaches me wearing a warm expression like she knows me, as if we’re good friends. I search my memories, but I don’t recognize her.
“Constance Cheng. Welcome to The Memory Shop. I’m Penelope, your link host. Will you be experiencing or relinquishing?”
Butterflies dance in my belly. “Experiencing.”
I circle a palm over my navel, skin tingling.
The corner of her mouth ticks up in a knowing smile. “Of course, follow me.”
END
About the Author
Melissa Ren (she/her) is a Chinese-Canadian writer whose narratives tend to explore the intersection between belonging and becoming. She is a prize recipient of Room Magazine’s Fiction Contest, a Tin House alum, a grant recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts, and a senior editor at Augur Magazine. Her writing has appeared or forthcoming in Grain Magazine, Factor Four Magazine, Fusion Fragment, and elsewhere. Find her at linktr.ee/MelissaRen or follow @melisfluous on socials.