Flash fiction
First published in Toxic Avenger #8 by Ahoy Comics | April 2026
Ernest’s mother once told him about places called Towers of Silence: tall, circular structures used to dispose of corpses by means of carrion birds and everyday weather. He wished he could remember her exact words, but it was too late to ask her. She was dead, just last week. They hadn’t even had the funeral yet. His mother had died in debt, and funerals aren’t cheap.
He arrived at the auction house, thinking: it’s full of vultures too. Men and women sat on chairs in neat rows, each holding a numbered paddle. Ernest felt underdressed in jeans and a T-shirt, eyes red from crying, but no one paid much attention. They were all focused on the front of the room; on the auctioneer, behind his podium. Paddle in hand – Number 42 – Ernest took a seat and waited to bid on his mother’s memories.
Would they auction them off in chronological order? Or in order of importance? And, if so, importance to who? His mother used to talk about how she’d been in a car accident when she was young. The car had rolled, and she’d hung, upside down, waiting for help as the hot engine cooled. Ernest guessed that’s the kind of memory that’d go for a decent price. It had blood and danger – and that’s why these vultures were here, right?
But not Ernest. He was never the most attentive son, which obviously he regretted now. (The last few weeks had been nothing but regrets.) His mother had tried to tell him about all kinds of things: her childhood, struggling for money; his father, and how they’d fallen in love; her travels, all around the world. Travel was how she spent all her savings, and why she had nothing left when she died.
Nothing of value. Nothing but her memories.
Someone approached the podium and whispered in the auctioneer’s ear. He moved to the microphone: “Sold.” He pounded the gavel. Its smack was like a coffin lid.
“What just happened?” said Ernest, out loud.
The woman sitting next to him shrugged as she stood. “Someone bought the whole lot.”
“Everything?”
“That’s right. It’s a shame – I read in the catalog that she’d been to Naples, and I’ve always wanted to go…”
“Do you know who he is? The buyer?”
Her shrug became a smile. “I know that he’s rich.”
Ernest thought he’d been underdressed in the auction house, but this restaurant made him feel like he was wearing unwashed pajamas in public. It was dark inside, though it was three in the afternoon. Even the sun couldn’t afford to eat here.
“Ernest?” The man approached his table, his hand slicing the air before Ernest could shake it. “I’m Matt. Good to meet you. Especially considering… well, you know.”
“It must be strange,” said Ernest.
Matt nodded. He was dressed casually, too, but it must’ve been a calculated choice for him, and not just his limited wardrobe choices. “I can’t help but see you through your mother’s eyes. That’s why I agreed to come.”
“Thanks,” said Ernest, before he began to babble. “But she wasn’t anyone special, you know? Not special to anyone but me. I guess I just don’t understand.”
“Why I bought her memories?” Matt waved away a waiter who was about to interrupt. He scuttled away, a cockroach under kitchen lights. “I used to pick and choose. Just the memories that seemed most exciting, you know? The births and deaths. Even your mother had that car accident…”
“Yeah. She told me about it.” (Not that he’d listened.)
“But I realized I was missing the meat of it! We’re not just the big things that happen to us – we’re the small things, too. All the connective tissue. That’s what makes us who we are.” Matt straightened his cutlery, just so. “And I decided to start buying up entire lives.”
“It’s not fair,” muttered Ernest, before repeating it loud enough for Matt to hear it.
“Fair?”
“I didn’t even know what memory I wanted. I just wanted something. Some piece of her.”
“Look around the room. Add up the wealth of everyone eating here. It’s obscene. It’s the kind of money that makes monsters.” Matt picks up his fork just to gesture with it. He was used to commanding an audience. “But they’ve probably all bought some memories. They’re carrying pieces of others inside them. Do you know what that means? It means empathy.”
“Can’t you give up a memory? I don’t have a lot of money, but I just want something small. Something you won’t miss.”
“I’m sorry. No. Then I wouldn’t have them all. There’d be a gap. Like a mouth with a missing tooth.”
“How many people? How many people are you?”
“Counting your mother? Sixty-six.” Matt laughs, loud and unselfconscious. “No! I forgot myself! Sixty-seven.”
Ernest, deflated: “Can we get a drink?”
“Of course we can.” Matt waves back the cockroach-waiter and orders a bottle of something expensive. “What else can I do for you, Ernest?”
“Nothing, I guess.” Ernest tasted the wine; it was annoyingly good.
“You know the most important thing money can buy? Time. And you have me for the rest of the day.” Matt played with his wine, the glass singing under his touch. “Can I tell you a story?”
The two men sat there until the restaurant closed. Matt spoke of Ernest’s mother – little things, mostly – while Ernest listened. Sometimes the stories seemed muddled, with anecdotes from the other sixty-six bleeding into them, but it didn’t matter much.
Ernest committed them all to memory.