Stolen Memories

I awoke from a bizzarro dream this morning.

My daughter and I were traveling in an RV--you're kidding, right? I wouldn't even drive our Ford Expedition when we owned one!--across the country. After rolling through a cemetery, we came across a small side road and I managed to turn this thing around and parked it in a cozy wooded area--that suddenly turned into an RV park. We went to a Silver Dollar City type amusement park only to return to find the RV had been broken into.

The only item stolen was the fishing tackle box that held my earrings.

Someone had stolen my memories, because that is what mementos are all about--that, and memento is on my daughter's vocabulary list this week.

I tracked down the thief by looking at everyone's earrings. If you didn't read my blog about my earrings, you wouldn't know that most of my earrings are unique, to say the least.

And I remember where I got each pair. There are memories stored in that box along with earrings.

So I find the thief and ask to take her picture. Stupid woman allows me to take a front pic and a side pic--BTW: she was wearing my trapeze frog earrings. I wasn't happy about this. She got her ear funk all over my stuff. I also asked her where she got the earrings. She responded that she couldn't remember.

You're kidding, right? If you're wearing funky looking earrings at least have the courtesy to make a story up!  

I also followed her to her camper with a armed security guard. My earrings were intact in their box, but she wanted me to prove they were mine--I had pictures, of course. I told her I wouldn't prosecute if she returned them. She did. Cop arrested her when I got my stuff. She yelled at me, and my response was, "I'm not prosecuting, but they are," I said pointing to a group of other campers who had stuff stolen.

This brings me full circle to the idea of stolen memories. This happens a lot in books, movies, and real life.

--the flashy thing in the Men in Black movies--takes memories of an alien occurrence.
--zombies in Warm Bodies don't have memories of their own, but when they eat the brains of their victims, the zombies will remember their memories.
--early Alzheimer's is a horrible disease. . . for those associated with the loved one who has it. The person with the disease can't remember that they've forgotten, except vaguely in a frustrating sort of way. But it is devastating for those left behind, since they remember all the good times and their loved one doesn't.
--in my stories, my goblin mentor will do a Vulcan mind wipe on some of my secondary characters, which also removes any good memories of the times they had with my protagonist. This leaves my protagonist more lonely than ever . . . except now, their memories are returning.

Well, gotta story to write.

Later, Peeps!