I is an island

Five women who used to be girls together land on a small island and drink rum punch in the sun. No one remembers or knows she remembers until they begin talking, except the one who has brought them there, the one who lives on the island, the one who knows and remembers everything. They climb to the heights and walk with the monkeys and swim with the turtles and buy bracelets and bags on the side of the road. They drive until they get lost in the pouring rain in the center of the island. None of the streets have names. The directions are to turn left, then when they see the cricket field, turn left again. In every direction they see the sea. They find their way back. They tell all the stories of all the times when they had been there and hear all the stories of all the times when they had not been there. It is now as if they had all been there every time. They do not remember some of the times when they had been there, according to the others, so it is all the same. They had been there. They were there now. “Memory is a sense of the other.” What would have become of them if they had not been told? One speaks; one becomes a subject. There was one keeper, the one who brought them there. The girls grew up in a cold northern place and the women’s memories are buried on an island near the Equator. They landed on the island. They drank rum punch as they made new memories.