志异 Draft by Drama box december 2013 (english) | Page 26

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f e at u r e
m e m o r y x s p ac e
dr a ft v ol 2 i s s u e 2

It is time to end this discourse — today, as I
was searching through my room, I came upon a
pile of old stuff.
Memory is a strange thing indeed. You may
not have revisited a memory, yet once you look
through your old belongings, the memory can come
back and swallow you whole. There are things I
thought I had forgotten; but now I understand
that the past cannot be forgotten, only sealed
and kept away.
As I examined my past in the dusty passage
of time, memories came back at me, but they
seemed strangely unfamiliar, as if they belonged
to someone else.
It was then that I realised that a person's
journey is rather similar to a snake shedding
its skin. Usually, as we look back at the past,
two things can happen: we realise that we have
already let go, but not forgotten; or we may
realise that we have never ever let go of
the past.
Such is life.
Then I found an old phone, which actually
lit up when I switched it on. I decided to put
in a SIM card. I wonder what that stranger from
the past left behind.
The tiny screen lit up again.