Who am I?
You may have never heard of me
You may never will
Or you have, but don't remember
That is okay
I don't remember you either
All people are very similar
You may correct me on that
Trying to find excuses for how you differ from one another
But what makes a person?
You might say it is their talent
Their hopes
Their dreams
But I say it's memories
The most valuable currency of all
So who am I?

A merchant of memories
A carrier of the very brimming of what makes a person
It's an odd job, I know
But a job I do nevertheless

Not many people remember seeing me
I don't appear to just anyone
Am I a myth?
A legend?
I honestly couldn't know
I am a merchant of memories
A memory merchant
The last of my kind
Many people seek me for solace
For answers
But never find me
I'm not easy to be found
Instead I usually appear to those most unaware
The lost
The broken
The ones searching, scavenging for a sliver of light in their darkened days
I offer them just that
They can sell me their memories, in exchange for new ones
Fresh ones
Happy ones
But there is always a sacrifice
You people don't understand
But I do, I see it clearer than ever
When you've been around for centuries you have no choice but to
Losing those fragments of mind can break a person
I've seen it with my own eyes
A choice that destroys you from the inside
But it isn't my choice to make

Some people find me cruel
They say I destroy lives
I find that funny, in a way
You know I never meant my memories to hurt
But I am not the reason for their misfortunes
But a cure
And all cures come with consequences

I bottle up their fragile memories
Wispy little things they are
So brittle, yet elastic and flowing like silk
The vials clink and jingle alongside each other
In a gentle tune not many can hear
And then I disappear
What happens then, you may wonder?
I do it all again
You may think it gets boring
Extracting and collecting memories for decades
And sometimes it does
But every once in a while, I meet a peculiar soul
Not on purpose, on accident however
Not an often occurrence for me

Many people seek me for knowledge
For experience
For a new life
It shocks me when I meet someone who wants none of that
An exception

A little girl
The polar opposite of I
Small, fragile, young
Not often do young children look for me
But there was something in her eyes
A sort of longing
I could tell from when I first saw her
This girl had no memories
Her mind was incapable of storing them for long
It didn't make sense why she was looking for me
I had nothing to offer her
She spoke, softly; barely loud enough to hear
But I heard her
"You're like me, aren't you sir?"
Usually people don't speak to me
Address me, nevertheless
Like her?
I was anything but that
I was an immortal deity
She is but a girl

But now I understand
I see what that little girl meant
The meaning behind her soft-spoken words
The empathy behind her pale eyes
We were alike
She and I
I have collected memories since the dawn of time
Trading, selling them
But never attaining any of my own
Life went on so fast around me, I never bothered
It's ironic in a way
A memory merchant without memories
Laughable, really
Yet sometimes, when the world grows dark
And the people sleep
And the only company I have is the gentle jingle
Of bottled-up memories
I ask myself

Who am I?