It’s funny what people don’t mind when they know they’ve only got so much time left.

Normally, when I swallow swords and hook wires through my nose and out my mouth, they gag. Or they puke on my shoes. Which makes sense. Most people don’t think about swallowing dangerous objects, let alone see it happen. Under normal circumstances, their reaction is a combination of horror and curiosity. Mainly horror.

The day the Sondering Circus went to the Splinter Dimension, there was almost none of that.

We didn’t have time to set up our usual big-top tent, because the dimension was going to collapse in less than twelve hours. But we set our caravan of fancy wagons into a semicircle and drew a nice bonfire. It was enough for the locals who’d braved the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado to see our show.

The rest was up to us.

After our leader, the faceless Magician, did a small act with roses and doves, Celia juggled alongside Benny and Belial, our clown duo. Joseph, our tattooed strongman, lifted our wagons one by one over his head, which impressed the crowd. He was followed by our contortionists, The Medusa Sisters, who were then followed by Dax, our slackline walker.

Then there was me.

No crowd were as wonderstruck as the Splinter folks. They never averted their eyes, as if they couldn’t get enough. It didn’t matter what I swallowed or what I threaded through me. Each daring act was a miracle.

In the Sondering Circus, we have an unspoken rule that whoever gets the most applause does the encore. That evening, the encore was mine. Ordinarily, I swallow an unusual object. I’ve got a whole bag of fun stuff for such a performance. But before I could reach for it, the Magician stopped me.

“What is it?” I asked.

He pulled something out of his red robe— a ball painted to resemble Earth.

“This? You sure?”

A nod was his only response. He rarely ever spoke and he never unmasked himself. It didn’t matter, I always trusted his judgement.

I held out the Earth for all to see. Every heart in the crowd seemed to stop when they realized what would happen next.

The Earth slid down my throat.

My gulp might as well have been a gunshot. Every person jolted, as if the world had ended right then and there. Before they could fret too much, I regurgitated the Earth and presented it to them, intact and unchanged. It reflected the sun’s dying light as their bittersweet smiles tore at my heart.

Our eyes were blinded by their annihilation as we transported back to our dimension.

That same annihilation will find us one of these days. When it does, I’ll swallow and bring back the Earth one last time. If nothing else, to tell the universe that life is as inevitable as death.

She auctioned away one of her favorite memories on Instagram for a profit of 10,000 memory credits—a substantial sum. The memory had been of a reception for content creators, and she’d pitched it well. It felt like a royal ball, she said on Instagram Live. If you’ve ever wondered what a celebrity gala is like, this memory is for you. She timed the auction well, too—on the heels of the Met Gala, when people were frenzied over designer outfits and the parade of social wealth.

At the auction’s close, she launched the application linked to her memory harvesting implant. She selected the memory, which she’d titled PROOF THAT YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL, and sent it via link to the winner, who would download it to their implant.

She felt the shape of the memory’s absence, but the filling was gone—like a cavity’s rot being sucked out of a tooth, leaving behind an empty chamber. Panic, a side effect of the procedure, welled up in its place.

She looked at her phone’s screen to anchor herself. The wallpaper was a vision board, a collage of images surrounding the name Natalie. It didn’t matter who Natalie was, except that she was determined to become Natalie.

Surrounding the name were images representing Natalie’s memories: a condo in Malibu, the ocean a turquoise gem; the manicured slope of Canadian ski resort; a Mercedes with paint so glossy it was June-bug-iridescent; toasting wine glasses, women’s smiles blurred above. Natalie was wealth, Natalie was joy, Natalie was life at its finest.

And she was determined to buy memories like Natalie’s with the profits made from her drab memories.

But she didn’t have enough credits to acquire memories as expensive as these, to transform her brain into Natalie’s. She must keep selling. Perhaps even her own worst

memories—her parents’ divorce, her car breaking down in the snow, blocking her now-ex partner for the last time—could be twisted into something enticing. My dad said WHAT to my mom? Win the auction to find out! Survival tips you NEED from someone who escaped death in subzero temperatures. The Saga of a Psycho Ex.

She filmed a video thanking today’s winner, which took two attempts to get the background right—a clean white wall with succulents arcing overhead. Her followers often asked where she’d gotten the plants and their chic wooden baskets. She never replied. She filmed her videos on the bathroom floor, phone propped on the toilet. The succulent wall was a posterboard. Her followers did not need to know this, because soon she would be Natalie. Soon, she would have a filming room and a real succulent wall.

The emptiness where the memory she’d sold was caving in, becoming less raw. The pain, the panic of it, always faded. She turned to the harvesting app, scrolling through her memories, searching for her next extraction. One day—when she could afford memories of gemstone waves and friends’ parties—this would all be worth it.