A number of birds filled the sky. A melancholic trace of something in their song, almost bittersweet. No one else seemed to have any interest in them. Instead, their eyes skittered across the mound, searching. 

It was still the hazy rose and purple of twilight. The mound took up a corner of the heavens, blotting everything out like a scab. The birds were circling its black-capped peak, tiny from the ground, blinking in and out of view. 

Several years ago, the rain started stripping people of their memories. With every rain a memory or two would dissolve into oblivion only to later reappear, suddenly, in physical form, at the edge of the city. Cats, childhood homes, a beloved dead houseplant… Some believed it was a weird symptom of climate change. Others said it was divine punishment, that the rain was actually godly spit, an amnesiac. Hard to believe, but they claimed it true. There was something vengeful happening here, they could feel it.

At the end of the day, no one really knew why it was happening. Forgetfulness afflicted everyone. We were haunted by the ghost of all we could not remember. The ghost was squatting at the edge of the city. 

The mound was the size of a city. It was the size of a country. It was the size of all the special and tragic moments of all our living, the once shapeless burdens we carted around until the dimness of old age, as if our burdens could save us. The mound was a growing monument for the signs of our existence. It was beginning to eclipse us all. 

Sometimes, people noticed the obvious gaping holes in their lives. They would come to the mound to dig for whatever had been there before. But they usually stood at a distance and stared a little dumbly at it, not knowing what they were looking for. 

They left with pale, empty hands. They understand that this was a kind of betrayal. 

Most never even bothered.

+

A heavy storm came last night. More than the usual numbers came to the mound the morning after, arriving in twos and threes. There were all sorts of new things: an avocado tree, a can of shells, baby teeth, a stuffed bear streaked with berry juice, a stationary desk, a pink communion dress, a shoe with a little hole at the big toe. The shadow at the base of the mound had deepened and lengthened enormously.

From a distance, I watched the woman drifting around the dark. Every so often, the woman turned and retraced her steps for no apparent reason. She made several trips back and forth between one edge of the shadow to the other. There were wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, and she had her hair done up in a bun that reminded me of a metal pot scrubber. She had the face of a woman long past fifty.

I was wearing a jacket the woman once owned, a red one with a rip at the right shoulder. I knew she stopped celebrating her birthday after her ninth, age being the one thing she didn’t know and couldn’t forget. I knew she once lived with six siblings in a house the size of a big box but was terrified of large open spaces. The woman liked to remain small around others to not draw so much attention to herself. I had her eyes, her mother’s nose, and her grandma’s slightly downturned mouth. 

Not that any of this was familiar to her; the woman had witnessed many storms in her life.

The number of people around the woman seemed to increase as she walked, which made her steps slower and tighter. Pretty soon the crowd sucked her inside itself, and I quickly lost sight of her. 

I imagined that it was incredibly dark in there and, panicked, something inside me felt the need to call out. “Where are you? Where are you?”

For a time there was only the flood of people knotting into each other, lonely with the present, coming from all directions like water in the ocean. And then, not five minutes later, the woman’s head emerged from the endless human stream. Her eyes made a few trips back and forth between this and the next person before glancing in my direction. When her eyes met mine, she stood so still it was as if breath had been taken from her. 

An image of a younger version of the woman squinting at the horizon floated through my mind. “What do you see?” I asked. 

A long gap was between us and I knew the woman did not hear, but she nodded slightly. I waited for her to head towards me, but she remained totally still. She had the gentle smile people got when a breeze alighted on their skin. I could see her breathe deeply, and the remainders of whatever she held dropped like a heavy coat. Suddenly, I could feel the total pressure of her life. At times it was quite acute, at times quite faint. A feeling of flight rose in me. Then, one of falling. It came from deep within the woman’s body, from all she remembered.

It was then that the woman left the shadows. She left the crowd. She left the earth. Massless now, the woman started to sing over and over again, loudly and freely—like she was a kid. The rushing air ran through her hair like fingers, uncoiling her bun and hoisting her higher and higher towards the heavens. 

From the base of the mound I listened to her every song as she grew smaller and smaller, her moon-backed body receding into the night, studded with light. 

I watched as the night borne her away, the stars growing whiter and more intense.

+++

Uyen Dang is a first-generation Vietnamese American from Saigon, Vietnam, where she writes from. She is currently on a Fulbright grant, at work on an archive of the intangible. Her work has appeared in and is forthcoming in Fugue, Sundog Lit, Passages North, among others. Find her on Twitter @_uyendang.