Fact: Every memory is a code, layered into our brains.
Truth: Memory is a ghost in the machine.
Truth: Sometimes the body remembers what the mind cannot.
I woke with a start in the middle of the night. There was a noise. Rustling. A whisper. A creak in the wood floor. A faint voice: Help me, find me, Safiya. When I sat up, everything was quiet. Everything was still. There was no one else in the room. But a small, quiet part of me knew I wasn’t alone, even when the rest of me was screaming liar at the part of me that knew the truth.
Listen. Listen.
It’s soft. A twist of the air that entered my ear. Waves of light and sound, but bent. My own inner voice, the feeling in my gut, mingling with the other voice I was hearing.
My voice: You know what it was. Scholarship rat. Swallow your poison. God is dead. The scratched face. The bruised temple.
A whiff of incense swirled through my bedroom.
The other voice became louder, and so clear: Jackson Park. Please. Help me. It’s cold. I’m so alone. I don’t want to be alone.
I closed my eyes. Listened to the voices puncturing the silence. I didn’t know what to make of it all. What I did know: There was a singular voice that kept telling me to go to Jackson Park. An echo. Help me. Find me. Be careful. And I needed to listen. I had to go to Jackson Park.