36After a night of restless sleep, my head feels heavy and my heart is numb. Lying curled on my side in Ah-ku’s bed, I wonder if I’d just heard her voice as I was drifting out of sleep. Was it a shout from a neighbour’s flat that woke me up? Or an echo in the walls? Could it be a part of me, unwilling to accept death, is hoping against hope to catch something to confirm that the body in the casket is not Ah-ku’s? She’s still in my head. I can’t forget the strident voice, the tone and words calibrated when provoked to cause maximum hurt to its listener. Why my brain chooses to remember such fragments of encoded pain, stored in the memory cells only to burst open like livid pimples during moments of shock and grief is beyond my comprehension. Is this how others remember the past, or is it ju
