One by one, a speaker relives scenes from his past and sells them off, and so, gradually, loses his memories. Cipher by Ivy Alvarez asks the question: What if memories can be bought and sold?
Prompted by stills from a video art-piece created by London-based artist Maja Spasova called PSSST, Ivy wrote Cipher in 2013 as part of the Cardiff Flash Fiction Day celebrations in Wales, UK. Cipher is her first fiction piece produced for radio.
Ivy Alvarez is the author of two poetry collections: Disturbance 2013 and Mortal, 2006. A recipient of writing residencies from MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden Castle and Fundación Valparaiso, her work appears in journals and anthologies in many countries including Best Australian Poems 2013, with individual poems translated into Russian, Spanish, Japanese and Korean.