It's a Warm Word.

I wake up and see the familiar lights of the otherwise dark operating room. I know that a memory has been taken from me. I do not make an attempt to remember what it was; how can I, if it has been taken from me?

I lift myself off the operating table and the doctor gives me my belongings and leads me to the exit door. As I watch the door slowly closing behind me, I see that another person has been placed onto the operating table inside. Just like that. The process is fast. Too fast to the point that I never really know the words I want to say and I simply begin walking back to my apartment under the same, gray sky. Each time.

But I exhale deeply and feel the ends of my mouth lift when I realize that I have not forgotten Azkabab: the word–the concept–that I have safeguarded for years. I wonder if there are others like me out there who still remember its concept through the same process I used, but I believe that no one else was fast enough to do the same; I believe that I alone remember the concept hidden behind the word.

Azkabab is utter gibberish. But because it is gibberish, the Institute could never realize that this gibberish means anything. So they have never managed to delete it from my memories.

The meaning behind Azkabab was originally attributed to another word: a word that was one of the first to be eliminated from people’s memories.

Azkabab is a word that’s… well, how would I describe it?

It’s quite hard to describe this word. I lack vocabulary. I assume that it’s a result of the Institute’s probing into people’s brains. Sometimes, I find a note hidden in strange places that contains words that have been erased from my mind. But unless I copy the meaning of the word onto some strange gibberish like I have with Azkabab, it is quickly forgotten.

There are other concepts that I’ve successfully encoded into my mind thanks to this process–but no other concept matters as much as the one held by Azkabab.

… It’s a warm word.

A word that warms my cheeks as I walk to work every day.

A word that lets me continue working even as I get yelled at.

A word that causes me to do a co-worker’s work for them.

I lack the proper vocabulary to really describe what it means. But my body knows.

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or the day after. But I think that as long as I remember this word–as long as I remember the concept, and it continues to fill me with warmth–I can wake up and go on.

Perhaps one day, I can tell someone else the meaning of Azkabab. Perhaps then, we can both be warm.