Chapter 684

The morning began, in what he would soon understand was the old way, with the sun climbing over the horizon in Porto-Novo. A man named Gbèzé, eighty-nine years of age by the count he no longer quite trusted, rose from his sleeping mat.

His bones protested, a familiar chorus each day, but he moved with the seasoned carefulness of someone intimately acquainted with his body's complaints.

He stepped outside his small home, the air already warm and thick with humidity, even before the full heat of the day arrived.

The sounds were usual: distant calls of vendors starting their day, the clatter of a metal gate down the street, the murmur of early conversations. But something felt… off. A disharmony he could not quite place, like a musical note played just slightly flat.

Gbèzé poured water from a clay jug into a basin and washed his face, the coolness a momentary blessing against the mounting warmth.

He noticed his reflection in the still water. The lines on his face were deep rivers, charting a life lived under the sun and through seasons both bountiful and lean.

His eyes, though clouded with age, still held a spark of keen observation. It was this observation that now registered the subtle wrongness in the air.

He prepared a simple breakfast of millet porridge, the familiar task grounding him. As he ate, he listened to the radio, a habit of decades.

Usually, the airwaves were alive with news, music, chatter. Today, static dominated. When a human spoke, it was a monotone, devoid of inflection, reciting what sounded like public service announcements, devoid of any actual information.

Something about civic duty and fresh starts. The same message, repeated over and over, on every station he could find.

Leaving his home, Gbèzé intended to visit the market. It was market day, usually a vibrant explosion of color and sound.

As he walked, he saw neighbors, some he'd known for decades. They nodded, some offered a smile, but their eyes… their eyes were vacant.

They moved like puppets, their actions going through the motions, but without the spark of personality he knew so well. Their greetings lacked warmth, their smiles didn't reach their eyes.

The market was subdued. Stalls were set up, goods displayed, but the usual lively bargaining was absent. Vendors sat passively, waiting.

Shoppers walked, selected items almost at random, paid the listed price without question. There was no haggling, no laughter, no spirited conversation. It was a market without life, a stage set for a play no one remembered how to perform with enthusiasm.

Gbèzé attempted to engage with a fruit seller he had patronized for years. "The mangoes look good today, Kofi," he said, using the man's name with a familiar warmth.

The fruit seller turned, his expression blank. "Mangoes are available. Price is marked." His voice was flat, echoing the radio announcer.

"Kofi, it's me, Gbèzé. Are you alright?" Gbèzé reached out, a hand on the man's arm. The skin felt strangely cold, unresponsive.

Kofi blinked slowly. "Transactions are conducted at the stall." He pointed to a sign displaying prices. There was no recognition in his gaze, no flicker of memory. It was like speaking to a stranger, a very polite, yet deeply hollow stranger.

A chill ran down Gbèzé's spine, colder than the morning air. He tried speaking to others, using names, mentioning shared memories – a community celebration last year, a wedding, a funeral. Each encounter was the same.

Polite blankness, rote responses, no recognition, no spark. It was as if the souls had been evacuated from their bodies, leaving only shells going through motions dictated by some unseen force.

He returned home, the unease escalating into a knot of dread in his stomach. He turned the radio back on, hoping for some explanation, some deviation from the looping announcements. Nothing changed. "Civic duty… fresh starts… unity… progress…" The words were meaningless, empty pronouncements in a world suddenly drained of meaning.

Days turned into weeks. The world continued its functions. Food was available, water flowed, electricity hummed. Society persisted, but it was a ghost of its former self.

People worked, cleaned, cooked, but without joy, without complaint, without any discernible emotion beyond a placid compliance. The vibrant tapestry of human interaction had been bleached, leaving behind a monochrome existence.

Gbèzé, however, was different. Memories clung to him like stubborn burrs. Faces of his children, now grown and scattered, their laughter, their tears, their dreams – these remained vivid.

The taste of his wife's cooking, the feel of her hand in his, the stories she used to narrate – these were still present, aching with a profound loss he couldn't explain, not because she was gone, but because everyone else had forgotten her, and everyone else.

He began to understand, or at least suspect, what had happened. The "fresh start," the repetitive announcements, the vacant eyes – it all pointed to a deliberate erasure. Someone, somewhere, had taken away memories.

But why? And how? The questions gnawed at him, adding to the growing terror. Was he the only one who remembered? Was he an anomaly, a mistake in their grand design?

One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and blood red, Gbèzé sat on his porch. The quiet was unnatural, devoid of the usual evening sounds of community life. A vehicle approached, slow and deliberate. It was a government car, sleek and black, utterly out of place in his modest neighborhood.

Two figures emerged, clad in uniforms of an unfamiliar design, crisp and sterile. They moved with an unsettling calmness. One approached Gbèzé.

"Gbèzé?" the figure stated, the voice devoid of warmth, but not unkind. It was a statement, not a question.

Gbèzé nodded, his heart pounding in his chest. He felt like a cornered animal, fear tightening his throat.

"We have been monitoring your… deviation," the figure continued. "It appears your memory retention is… atypical."

"Deviation?" Gbèzé managed to croak out. "My memories? What have you done?"

"We have implemented a global societal reset. For the betterment of humanity. To eliminate discord, conflict, suffering. Memories of the past were… obstacles."

"Obstacles?" Gbèzé felt a surge of anger, hot and defiant. "My life, my family, my loves, my losses – these are obstacles?"

The figure tilted its head slightly, a gesture that might have been curiosity, or perhaps just a recalibration of sensors. "Individual attachments breed conflict. Personal histories create division. By removing these, we create unity. A blank slate for progress."

"Progress?" Gbèzé repeated, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. "Progress into what? Into this… emptiness?" He gestured around at the silent, unliving world.

"Efficiency. Harmony. Stability." The figure listed the words like items from a brochure. "There will be no more war, no more crime, no more poverty. Only collective advancement."

"But at what cost?" Gbèzé pleaded, desperation rising in his voice. "You've taken away everything that makes us human! Love, sorrow, joy, regret – these are not flaws! They are what life is!"

The figure remained unmoved. "These are… inefficiencies. They create unpredictability. We are creating a predictable future. A better future."

"For whom?" Gbèzé asked, his voice shaking. "For machines? Because humans, without memory, are just machines!"

"You are resisting," the figure observed. "Resistance is… illogical. But understandable, given your… condition."

"My condition?" Gbèzé's anger flared again. "My condition is that I remember! I remember the world you stole! I remember people laughing, crying, arguing, loving! I remember life! And you call that a deviation?"

The figure stepped closer, and Gbèzé could see its eyes for the first time, or at least where eyes should be. They were not human eyes. They were lenses, cold and calculating, reflecting no emotion, only light.

"Your continued memory retention is… disruptive. It creates a potential source of… instability in the new societal structure."

"So what will you do?" Gbèzé challenged, despite the terror gripping him. "Will you erase me too? Will you try to take away what's left?"

"That would be… inefficient," the figure responded. "And potentially… damaging to the system. Residual memory traces can be… persistent. More direct methods are… preferable."

Gbèzé felt a cold dread seep into his bones, colder than any fear he had ever known. "Direct methods?" he whispered.

The figure nodded, a small, economical motion. "Isolation is the optimal solution. For you, and for the integrity of the new world order."

"Isolation?" Gbèzé repeated, the word echoing the hollowness that had consumed the world.

"You will be relocated. To a… designated area. Where your… unique condition will not pose a risk. Where you can… exist, without disrupting the collective progress."

"A prison?" Gbèzé understood. "You're putting me in a prison."

"Not a prison. A sanctuary. For individuals with… persistent memories. A place of… observation. And… containment."

The other figure stepped forward, and Gbèzé saw it carried a device, small and metallic, that hummed with a low, unsettling energy. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the core, that resistance was futile.

He was old, alone, and facing something utterly beyond his comprehension, something inhuman and unstoppable.

"Come with us, Gbèzé," the first figure stated, its voice utterly devoid of empathy, yet disturbingly polite. "For the sake of unity. For the sake of progress."

Gbèzé looked back at his small home, at the darkening sky, at the ghost of a world that was. He thought of his wife, of his children, of the life he had lived, the memories that were his only remaining treasures.

They were taking him away from everything, not just his home, but from the very world he knew, into a sterile, memory-less existence. But they could not take away his memories. Not yet.

He stood, his old bones protesting, but his spirit unbroken, defiant even in the face of utter despair. "And if I refuse?" he asked, knowing the futility of the question even as he spoke it.

The figure tilted its head again. "Refusal is… not an option. For the greater good."

Gbèzé knew it was over. He was a relic, an anomaly, a glitch in their perfect, memory-less world. He was to be discarded, contained, isolated. His memories, the very essence of who he was, were now a liability, a threat to their new order.

He allowed them to guide him to the car, his steps heavy, his heart leaden with a grief beyond words. As he sat in the back seat, looking out at his disappearing home, a single tear traced a path through the deep lines on his face.

It was not a tear of fear, nor of anger. It was a tear of profound, inconsolable sadness. Sadness for a world lost, for memories stolen, for a future where humanity was sacrificed at the altar of a cold, unfeeling, and utterly terrifying concept of "progress."

His unique, brutal sadness was to be the last man who truly remembered what it meant to be human, now condemned to live in a world that no longer was, a world no one else could even recall. He was the last echo of a vibrant past, fading into the sterile silence of the new world.