When she is saying these thing, I am thinking of the old woman and when I am carrying dead body to her and water is leaking from her eyes. She is sadding, but it is feeling like good thing to be doing this thing for her.

“The government in this country is forcing people to forget.”

It is the first time I am hearing Xifeng talking about government. Every time I am hearing or seeing government it is when people are wearing soldier uniform or people are shooting at people wearing soldier uniform. Always in rememberings. This is the first time I am hearing it with my ears.

“The government is using their powers to erase the memories of everyone in the country. Everyone is connected by way of their braincases like the one you have in your head. They are all linked to their net, which helps them live their lives. It helps them buy groceries, listen to music, study in school. But it is also a tool of surveillance for the government, and the government is peeking into the minds of every citizen and erasing their memories of the war. Do you know why this is bad, Uzo?”

I am watching Xifeng lifting my shirt and dabbing with antiseptic at the cuts on my side. And I am thinking of woman who is sadding over body I am bringing her. But I am also thinking of rememberings I am downloading into my braincase and things I am seeing in my mind, and sometimes seeing those things is making me angry and is making me to be sadding. Air conditioning in the trailer is chilling my skin. “It is hurting,” I say.

Xifeng is looking at me and stopping with my medicine, and I am thinking that she is thinking I want her to stop healing me, but I like it when she is touching me like this.

“The rememberings, I mean,” I am saying to her, and I am making sure to be speaking Taishanese too, because even though she is sadding at first when she is hearing it, she is then smiling, and I am thinking that this is a thing that is making her to be happy.

Xifeng is smiling and going back to fixing me. Cotton and gauze that is red-black with the oil that was spilling out of me is all over the floor where Xifeng and I are sitting. “The government thinks that if they erase all memory of the civil war, then they will have peace. If your neighbor kills your family, how will you be able to live next to them when the war is over? You will be consumed with anger and rage. You will want vengeance.”