word from his past, as a memory fluttered past. Once, there had been a life where the pod didn’t even exist,
before he was five at least. For some unknown reason, the moving figures on screen, which had always meant so
much to him, seemed to lose their meaning.
Pod check day came along eventually. He kept his pod dirt on purpose this time, though two weeks of
junk was not exactly pleasant to live in. He accepted the fitness training punishment with almost gleeful
acceptance. He panted up and down the wall, almost... what was that word? Running. He got to the square
battalion, and couldn’t help shouting out loud, “Hey, Nobody! You there?”
A head poked out, looking right and left before it spot him. It quickly ducked back in. Then the whole
body appeared, cautiously, as if the person had not walked for many days.
“
Hello!”, he said again. Then paused, and stared. The person before him looked different from the
other men he saw at the base during roll-call and pod checks. “Is there something wrong with you? Are you ill
or something and that is why your voice is so high?” he blurted out.
The person stared at him, before breaking out into laughter again. “Wow, you really did forget...”
before carefully sitting down again against the wall. “Sorry if I’m a mess, have been living in here for... oh a
long time.” The person threw her head back and flung her hair out, “Barely get out of that hellhole usually,
scared someone might spot me, you know.”
Liang barely heard her last words, instead, concentrating on the sweep of hair as it cascaded down. A
memory seemed to stir. He remembered someone carrying him and running. He remembered gently playing
with the hair that kept rising and falling as they ran and ran...
“
Mommy...” he said, quietly, “Are you my mommy? Wait... no, you aren’t...” He struggled to
remember as she looked curiously at him. “You are a woman right?”
“
So it is true? That you forget? That all the men up at the base are forgetting?”
“
Forget what? What base?”
Tears stared dripping down, trickling down as he stared at her. “You don’t remember me...”
“
I do,” he protested. “I met you last week, didn’t I?”
The tears cascaded down, a waterfall now. He looked at her eyes, familiar somehow. “Who are you? I
know you, don’t I? I knew you? But they took me in when I was five... you can’t expect me to recognize you,
you know...”
“
Five! Five! Five...” she spluttered. “They really make you forget don’t they? How can you’ve
forgotten? When they dragged you away from me, you swore you would never forget. You liar, liar, liar!”
A memory... no less than that, a ghost of a recollection gently floated up, the way a sunken body would
eventually resurface: that same voice, screaming and screaming; those same hands, clinging and clinging on. He
tried to grope further but something blocked his way. A fog seemed to cloud his memory, diffusing the tendrils
of the past that tried to shout out at him.
“
Do you know what happened? Do you know what they did all to fulfil one sick man’s fantasy? ‘A
wall’ they said, ‘we need to build a wall’. Why? Why? Why? We all shouted that then, when they came to our
homes in the dead of the night. And they would drag you all away...”
Again his mind made that running leap, trying to cross that fog bank that seemed to completely
envelope his memories... yet he only plunged into the fog that stifled him in complete incomprehension and
disorientation as he tried again and again...
“
Did we just let you go? No... we hid you, at first and it worked. Remember that awful old closet with
the spiders and those old dresses that belonged to my mother? You hated it but it was the best place...”
Not even a hint of remembrance came up to meet him this time... she was beginning to rant. He looked
away, slightly embarrassed by his incompetence to remember anything. However, he did remember an aversion
to spiders.
“
And when they found us out, we fought remember, tooth and nail. It was hopeless of course, all
hopeless from the start. What could we do, armed with kitchen knives against their guns and their lasers... The
tranquilizer guns... bang, and then you were out like a light... They didn’t try so hard with me though...
Tranquilizers were running out after all. A normal, old fashioned bullet wound in the knee was enough...”
He instinctively touched his arm, where he had a scar. He had been told it was an injection wound... but
it didn’t look like one... maybe...? He finally forced himself to speak, he could not bear this litany of half
remembered ghosts anymore. “Why did they take us away? What did they want from us? What was it, money?
Labour? Oh, is it because of the war going on?”
“
War? What war?”
“
They make us fight every day in our pods, every waking moment. They say if we don’t kill enough of
the enemy...” What was it they said? He didn’t remember...only that it was something very bad.