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DIALLO: And so when you left, you just kept walking with no destination in mind?
RAYMONDE: As far as I know. I actually don’t remember that year at all.
DIALLO: None of it?
RAYMONDE: Absolutely nothing.
DIALLO: Well, the shock would have been considerable.
RAYMONDE: Of course, but then we stopped in a town eventually, and I remember everything from that time onward. You can get used to anything. I think it was actually easier for children.
DIALLO: The children seemed awfully traumatized.
RAYMONDE: At the time, sure. Everyone was. But two years later? Five years?
Ten? Look, I was eight. Nine, when we stopped walking. I can’t remember the year we spent on the road, and I think that means I can’t remember the worst of it. But my point is, doesn’t it seem to you that the people who have the hardest time in this—this current era, whatever you want to call it, the world after the Georgia Flu—doesn’t it seem like the people who struggle the most with it are the people who remember the old world clearly?
DIALLO: I hadn’t thought about it.
RAYMONDE: What I mean to say is, the more you remember, the more you’ve
lost.
DIALLO: But you remember some things.… RAYMONDE: But so little. My memories from before the collapse seem like dreams now. I remember looking down from an airplane window, this must have been sometime during the last year or two, and seeing the city of New York. Did
you ever see that?
DIALLO: Yes.
RAYMONDE: A sea of electric lights. It gives me chills to think of it. I don’t really remember my parents. Actually just impressions. I remember hot air coming out of vents in the winter, and machines that played music. I remember what computers looked like with the screen lit up. I remember how you could open a fridge, and cold air and light would spill out. Or freezers, even colder,
with those little squares of ice in trays. Do you remember fridges?
DIALLO: Of course. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one used for anything other than shelving space.
RAYMONDE: And they had light inside as well as cold, right? I’m not just
imagining this?
DIALLO: They had light inside.