Artwork by Zen Lam

Content warning: mentions of death.

I don’t remember anything at all. Not even my reflection, which I haven’t seen in a while. Bits of it in black, maybe. No, I’m sure I haven’t. I don’t keep count of how many seconds or months go by, but I don’t keep count of anything these days. I remember that I don’t remember anything at all, now that I’m trying to. My retinas hurt, but then again, I think they always have. That’s just what the metals do to you, it’s no biggie. Then, by God’s steadfast hand, a feeling. A memory. It comes to me, gusty yet tranquil, like the winds in Point Leon. Or was it, Leo? I don’t remember anything at all.

Sometimes I forget, but my dry eyes remind me to blink and I’m brought back to the haze. A never-ceasing fog that lingers like the stench of roadkill. I can’t recognise the shapes and colours on my screens anymore. They try to convince me that they’re just like me and that I need to run, not walk, to get the next big thing. But I know they just want my fucking wallet. And my brains. Brains and wallet. Wallet and brains. My right thumb moves with a mind of its own—I’m used to that by now. I’m not quite sure where it takes me, and like Point Leo once more, a familiar feeling encompasses me wholly. Only this time, it’s bouncing and swirling all inside my eardrums. What is that melody? It loops itself on my screen and then, something I swore was impossible. Divine intervention, recollection of a world long extinct. I begin to remember when I remembered. Before the metals maintained their iron grip on me, when I was eager to count down the minutes and days. That drive, that insatiable curiosity. It’s all been killed. Ah, of course it was—bullet by bullet, I remember the smoke of the chromoly barrel so plainly now. I pulled the trigger, after all. The metals of poison told me to, their words venomous and vicious, though they don’t have tongues or teeth. It was for the greater good, I think. I don’t remember anything at all.

I rise and out of the indent of my body and I try. I did this all the time when I heard the bells ring for lunch. When it was all I lived for. Maybe it’ll come back to me, like riding a bicycle. Seated upright, I stare at my frail fingers, waiting for them to do anything. Anything at all. Anything that comes to mind. Yes, yes, I feel it now. The graphite is cold and the charcoal sullies the paper. A smiley face. A tiny kitty cat. Yes. An ex-lover’s nose bridge—the one whose blue Bic lighter I still use. A horse, its hindlegs a little lopsided. That tiled roof of the house where my ankle laid fractured from running too quickly. My baby brother. My older brother with the haircut he had when he was eleven and I was seven. All three of us, when we were kings of the world. Me and Paul McCartney, but literally. Mum, when she could still walk. I remember it all now; the way the air smelled like salt and the way I just was. Where my roots first proudly planted themselves with pride, before the metals of poison tainted my mind and told me to kill them, which I did. Though I don’t remember why. 

Like foliage, the rot has grown in every which way. Diagonally, in the crevices and cracks, straight ahead and in cylinders and trapeziums. I don’t recall why I’ve allowed the metals to decay me for as long as they have—for multiple lifetimes it seems. But something persists despite all the destruction. It must, because I now remember it all. Yes, I do.

My toes lay soft on the sand with every step, intertwined with seaweed left beached among the wrack line. In between white billowy wisps painted across the bold sky, I see rays of the light that shoot right through. They cut deep, like arrows sticking out of a fawn; thorns affixed on Christ’s crown. There’s a young girl with a surfboard splashing in the waves with her father whose smile I mistake for one of the rays in the sky. The hairs on my arms stand up. The winds are blustery and bitter this time, yet I find a loving solace in it. I remember when I didn’t remember, but now I can’t seem to remember why I couldn’t. The metals beckon me no longer. Only Point Leo does.