On some particular days, Jieun feels the wrath amnesia causes not just for her but to others a bit more harder and a bit more aimed at her core.

                It had been a Saturday when she had coincidentally ran out of milk and had to go buy some from the nearest convenience store, it had been coincidence that she had decided to use the stair instead of the elevator because she thought she needed to exercise some more, it had been pure coincidence when she saw an old lady have trouble moving some boxes inside to what seemed her flat, it was grave coincidence that she had decided to help the lady, and it had been chaos when the lady had the look of recognition in her face and slowly caress the girl’s face tenderly with such a loving face. With such an unfamiliar loving face.  

                Oh how much Jieun wanted so desperately for the spark of recognition to flame up in her own eyes.

                Because no matter how many time hers the nice old lady who moved in just recently to the flat next floor below hers tried to pacify her bawling with ‘I understand. No need to feel bad that you can’t remember an old wiener like me.’ She just couldn’t stop.

                After excusing herself, she ran up the stairs, not bothering wipe the tears nor hide the trembling in her voice and legs. Fidgeting with her keys as fresh, hot tears slid down her cheeks, she tried so desperately to hide the shame that was her and wallow in her room.

                It had been half an hour since the encounter, but Jieun hasn’t stopped since then. Because it was not alright for someone to merely forget the very person who had cared for you like you were her own when your parents were too busy making money for their precious child. Some people may have pardoned her for the grave mistake due to her condition, but she of all people would know how much pain there was in that person’s eyes.

                She stuffs her face with a pillow and bawls even harder. She wonder how many people she had knew feel this way; the horrible mixture of disappointment and pity bottled up in awkward pats on the back and uncalming shushes  and whispers. She wonders how many more people must she make feel like this and how much long till she could feel the pain no more and go on with life numb and unfamiliar.

                She can’t seem to calm down, because every time she did, she would remember the old lady’s regretful eyes- the old lady whose name she doesn’t even know-all the eyes of the people she had once claimed had no recognition of.

                After another hour or so, Jieun had finally sobered up. The tears she had painfully swallowed back and the blurring vision of when she had abruptly stood up were etched onto her brain, a memory for Jieun and only Jieun.

                It was fortunate for her that she and finished all her work the night previously and had the whole weekend to laze around. Except, she wasn’t going to laze around, though not anymore. Because somehow the last encounter was the one that had added fuel to any flame Jieun had concealed within her.

                Rummaging through her neatly kept items, she searched top and bottom of her flat for any old remains of her previous life.

                Though silly her had only kept looking hoping for a box of a stimulant hidden away in the nooks and crannies of her flat. A stimulant that could magically give her memory back to her, answer the many questions she had buried deep within her mind, and finally give that boy an identity.

                Because she was missing the whole story except for him. She knew him. Knows him even.

                He was the only present she could dig up in this dusty past of hers.

                Though the wild goose chase ended when she heard the phone ring, waking up from her delusional thoughts, she goes out of the room and picks up the phone. It was, as always her mother checking up on her.

                The phone call had ended far too long by the time she had been bored and struggled to answer her mother in full sentences. Bored out of her wits and eyes were hurting because of the swelling she had began playing with the telephone’s base when a lose piece of paper had slipped out from it.

                In took Jieun a while to realize it was actually a photo – a worn out photo at that. And it took her a week of staring at to realize the words scribbled at the bottom of it.