The Raft: A Novel by Fred Strydom

memories (my own memories) like some thick weed. There are still other memories in my head, memories of events I know actually happened to me, but they are weak and frail things, barely attached.
    Now, you may think this the senile confabulation of an old woman. If you can look no further than this assumption, I am afraid there’s little I can do about that, but know this: there is something happening on this beach. Believe me. Something is happening to us—to all of us—and I think the fact I have someone else’s memory, so sharp and ingrained that it may as well be my own, is somehow linked to this something.
    This memory is also the reason I have decided to leave the beach. You can’t imagine what it feels like to realise that the one thing you remember about your life did not actually happen. It could be assumed that sharing someone’s memory could be understood as an enriching, communal experience, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is with loneliness that I am leaving this beach. Loneliness and regret. If the one thing I remember about my life is not actually mine to remember, I see no reason to prolong my stay.
    I didn’t tell you about this earlier, in your company, because I needed to say it out loud one more time as if it was my memory, to hear it from my lips, to know how I felt. If you are reading this, it means I have made up my mind. It means I have quit this lie. As I have already warned you, however, what I am telling you is somehow connected to what is happening on the beach, as well as in the rest of this unusual world. Beware of what they say. Examine it carefully to see, if you can, what it is they mean. Keep your eyes and ears open. Absorb each moment. One day, the world will no longer be recognisable to you. Without a memory or two you can trust, you will be forced to leave it a stranger.
    Finally
    Moneta
    Flipping the final page, I saw nothing else. I read her letter again and then fanned out the pages on the bed. I leaned back on my pillow and looked up at the ceiling. A moth was tacked in the corner—it had been there for two days. I stared at it until its furry body and flat grey wings became sharper—almost hyper-real—the perfect emblem of a tattered and unmoved world.
    It seemed ludicrous to accept that Moneta had somehow received someone else’s memory, like a radio transmitter picking up some unknown signal.
    It couldn’t be possible, I told myself.
    It didn’t make sense.
    I sat up on my bed and rubbed my face, wondering what to do next. My eyes swept the tent, seeking familiar things, things I recognised and could rely on to simply be what they were. My broken umbrella. My box of pictures. My blunt knife. But whereas once they might have served to balance me, they now sat like cold dead stones at the bottom of the ocean. Magic charms that had lost their magic. They held no power, didn’t mean anything, and I no longer knew why I’d once thought to keep them.
    Stepping outside, I looked about; the area was quiet and empty. I thought about telling someone about the letter, but who, and why? Besides, that seemed the wrong thing to do. And who would believe it? I wasn’t even sure I did, though the letter had suffered no lack of coherency.
    As I walked, the commune remained eerily still. Everyone was at the whale and many strange contraptions, rigs and workstations stood unattended. There was always an array of tasks to be managed in the commune. Anyone with a proclivity for handiwork had been assigned to the building of the tent frames and furniture. Evening meals were prepared by four men who recalled they had once been Swedish and had worked as chefs. A team washed our dirty clothes in vats of filtered seawater provided by the overseers of a rickety, clanging desalination system. A group of fishermen made and hauled the lave nets and three women sat on stools outside the infirmary, waiting to tend to the occasional broken bone or fever. Nothing was ever adorned or