By Loli Molina Muñoz
Lucero walked like her mother, her feet turned slightly outward and the rest of her body swaying to a rhythm like the music her ancestors loved most. The streets of Guatex were covered in reddish sand from the last storm, and windows and doors remained tightly shut so the heat wouldn’t sneak in like an unexpected visitor during siesta time. Sometimes, she liked to go for a walk when no one else was out, perhaps because she preferred solitude, perhaps so she could focus on the light and shadow of her memory, a place she had recently been able to access via a path previously unknown to her. He walked to the deserted park and sat down, pressing his temples so hard that the beads on his bracelet tinkled a tubular melody and the circular currents opened a hole in his memories. Let me tie your shoelaces; you’re going to fall.
In recent months, rumors had been circulating that it was possible to temporarily deactivate the memory chip that had been implanted in them upon arrival, but no one could confirm how to do it or whether anyone had actually succeeded. Lucero, who always listened and kept quiet, was surely one of the few who was beginning to experience flashes of non-implanted memory. The problem was what to do with those threads from the past—disconnected and with no reference to the present—that were coming in more and more frequently. Don’t cry, everything will be all right.
The sun was beating down, but Lucero knew that from that moment on it would begin to lose its intensity, like a headache being relieved by a single paracetamol. Fortunately, the temperature would drop enough for her to stay there a little longer. She had sat on the edge of the park’s only fountain because a thin stream of water was flowing from it, and she could dip her hands in to cool her temples. Cool down and press again. She’s only four years old; let us be together. Cool down and press again. Don’t cry; I promise nothing bad will happen to you. Cool down and press again. Mom! Cool down and press again, and the fountain’s stream stops because water is scarce and the rules regarding its use are very strict. Making the most of the last drops on her hands, she spreads them over her arms, feeling a slight coolness so fleeting that it has almost vanished before it even arrived. She still remembers when the fountain overflowed and the children played at catching the goldfish. Boys and girls who, under the care of adoptive families from the city, populated the streets of the future at the expense of false memories.
“Daughter!” A lash struck her forehead. She wasn’t very tall—five feet three—with hips shaped like a papaya on the verge of ripening. The woman was hugging her with all her might while men in black uniforms and carrying assault rifles tried to tear her away without much ceremony. Why did a memory so foreign to her suddenly feel familiar? Which were her true memories, and which had been implanted? Lucero hopped down from the fountain and smoothed out her skirt because it always rode up whenever she sat down. Then she sighed as if every day were the same. She glanced at the clock in the square and felt the urgency to get back before running into Teresa, who took pleasure in scaring her every time she passed beneath her window.
"Sweetheart… be nice to these gentlemen." She felt a twinge in her neck and thought it would be best to keep walking to distract herself from her fear. Her father had always told her that you had to avoid fear so it would never catch up to you. Lucero had learned to smile when she felt panic about to take hold of her. A forced smile, and her brain managed to trick all possible fears. Step. Smile. Step. Smile. Step. And the short woman blew her a kiss, drenched in her own tears. She slowed her step, and the sensation of pressure throughout her body made her want to vomit. But she didn’t vomit. She opened her fists and resumed walking so slowly that she could barely feel the movement of her feet. She was barely aware of her fingers splayed like a starfish, or her hair beginning to dance in the first breeze of the afternoon. She barely realized she had been walking so long that she had reached the very edge of Guatex. There, at the border, the cacti defended themselves as best they could; it was their nature, like that of all those who had tried to reach that point and had to turn back. Stripped of their dreams and their only future, they were sent back after being injected with the serum of oblivion. It was much cheaper than the chip and took effect just long enough for them to reach their places of origin.
"Daughter… daughter… daughter…" AndLucero remembered her dirty red T-shirt, her black pants torn from falling, and her untied shoelaces, which her mother had tied just before the border agents took her away. For a moment she wavered between bursting into tears and running away, but she felt arms wrap around her and carry her to the old booth displaying a sign that read Guatex Visitor Reception Center. Lucero put up a fight, but she was no longer a cactus; her last memory was of an agent approaching with a device that looked like a gun, but wasn’t. Click, and her brain reset. Then she burst into tears like the little girl she once was and began to scream. “I want my mom! I want my mom!” “Don’t worry, we’ll take you to her right now.”
When she got home, her mother greeted her with a look of fear on her face and a glass of cold lemonade in her hand. Lucero breathed a sigh of relief and hugged the woman standing before her without asking any questions. On the television, some children were playing an old game that involved jumping over squares numbered one through ten. They seemed happy and carefree, just like Lucero.