Maldives. Turquoise water, white sand, nothing but books and wave sounds for the next week. First proper break after exam season and the Noé launch madness.
Plan was simple: read trashy novels, sleep twelve hours a night, forget what a deadline feels like. Maybe work on my tan instead of my TBR pile.
That lasted exactly two days.
Couldn’t help myself. Started scribbling ideas in the margins of my paperback copy of Station Eleven. The entrepreneurship module from spring term keeps buzzing around my head, won’t leave me alone even in paradise.
What if memory could be commodified? Not just edited like in Gunpowder Saturday, but actually packaged and sold. Premium memories, budget memories, subscription services for experiences you never had.
All those business case studies we analysed – startups disrupting traditional industries – got me thinking about disrupting the human experience itself. Brothers running competing memory companies. One ethical, one ruthlessly commercial. Classic sibling rivalry but with existential stakes.
The Maldivian sunset looks different when you’re wondering what someone would pay to remember it perfectly forever. Or forget it completely.
Should probably put the notebook away and actually enjoy the holiday. But this idea feels big. Retro-futuristic setting, maybe 1920s aesthetics with advanced tech. Brothers Cain and Abel… too obvious?
Paradise is supposed to quiet your brain. Mine’s running at double speed. Occupational hazard of being a writer, I suppose.
The waves don’t care about plot structure. Maybe I should learn from them.
Daria Ryzhikova Writer