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There are things that she knows and things that she does not know. There are things that she forgets, too.
Namphueng knows she is being drugged. She knows this because at some point, she scratched away at the paint on her windowsill until it matched the shape of the stain on her dress from when she was younger, when someone had slipped something into her drink at a party. Her mind is funny like that. She can tell you that she won her first volleyball tournament at university. She can tell you that her name is Namphueng. She can tell you that she loves painting with colour. She cannot tell you what her birthday is, or how long she has been in this room, or what her husband’s name was.
Was, she knows, not is, because she leaves the cabinet door ajar to the same degree that the cupboard door was when her Porsche was hiding behind it, when her husband was shot. She cannot remember which of them shot him – Korn, or his brother. She has not left a reminder anywhere, but she knows she wants to kill the man who did it. She prays that desire lasts as many times as it takes until she is no longer… like this.
There is a textbook on human biology on her shelf. She has a minor degree in psychology, in the negative effects that physical and mental trauma to the brain can have on daily life. A sentence from the course stands out to her. When brain synapses are altered, the damage can be permanent. Brain plasticity grows tenuous past the age of 25, and repeated affirmation of this alteration can further cement its permanence. They had been talking about abuse, trauma responses. Namphueng wonders if it applies to her mind. If she will ever be able to remember.
Namphueng keeps a small model boat on her bookshelf, a ferry. It is the most important thing in her room, and it makes her sick to look at. Ferry was the name of Ferdinand Porsche’s son. It is her greatest shame – forgetting her boys. She- she doesn’t dream about it, because her dreams are swathes of cotton buds, voices just barely inaudible and a thick layer of dust. But she will drift, sometimes, and consider that ferry disappearing.
The worst part of it is that she knows she won’t feel angry, or upset, or confused or ashamed. She will not feel anything at all because she won’t even know that something is missing. She might see the displacement of dust and wonder, but her mind won’t be able to connect the dots. Her boys will just be gone, pulled away from her like paper boats in white-water rapids. Swept away, again, and she will not have registered their absence.
She is painting, the day Korn storms in. Birds in black and white. In her mind, they are full of colour – sweeping purples, dots of blue and humming orange. It is a bad day – a day when her brain is slow, when her hands feel atrophied and her legs are too numb to feel at all. The scuffing of shoes, and Korn enters the room. He sounds… urgent, she thinks, but if he wants her attention he can ask. He doesn’t ask. Instead, she hears another voice – his brother. He calls out her name and she turns.
There is a man standing in front of her when she does so, and another one a few steps back. They are holding guns. It’s so removed, so different from this room, from her world, that she splinters a little in her mind. It feels as though her routines have been shut down, interrupted. She cannot tell if it is a good thing or not. Her eyes flicker to the left, cabinet door, and she settles on it being a very good thing. Regardless of whatever changes come following this moment, there will be change. She has been trapped, stagnant for so long. She cannot hear what they are saying; her attention catches on movement behind the man facing her.
Two more men stumble in, and her first thought is blood and her second is that there are too many people in the room. In her room. The man – boy, really - with the bloodied shirt is staring at her so intently.
“Ma.”
It’s a single word, plaintive and unfathoming. Her world tilts once more, violently. She takes a breath, two, realises she’s forgotten how to breathe. This is her Porsche. A step behind the man in front of her – Korn, this is Korn – and her world blurs out. This is Porsche. He’s here, he’s so grown up. They speak more – mentioning her name, she thinks – but it doesn’t matter to her. He’s so grown up. He shouldn’t be here. Their argument comes to a crescendo and still, she cannot hear.
A gunshot – the man in front of her has a gun, has shot his brother. He shot his brother. She screams, takes a step back. Her hands fly up to cover her mouth. She thinks that that is the loudest noise she has made in over 15 years. The thrumming wrongness inside of her body is coming to a head – she slumps, eyes slipping shut. Not yet unconscious, and someone catches her. The person’s arms are warm, she thinks. The person yells, you lied, and she realises that this is Porsche. The click of a pistol’s safety – will she die, will her boy? But Korn doesn’t shoot. He responds in even tones; I did everything to protect you. Her fingers tighten where they lay on Porsche’s leg. Your brother. Porsché, sweet boy. Your mother.
She wakes up in her bed. Eyes flicker to the windowsill – she is being drugged. The cabinet – her husband is dead. The model boat – her boys. Her shoes – she cannot speak freely here. Her paintings – she is trapped. This is routine, she knows, but something has changed. For one, she can remember what happened with Porsche and Korn and his brother. For two, she is angry. Anger is- abstract, for Namphueng. She feels it, but not. She watches her anger through a dirty window, feels it like the bass of a house party next door. Now, though, she feels it. Real, technicolour like she used to. She is still being drugged – she still can’t remember her husband’s name – but something has changed. She has outlasted the storm, she thinks. Or rather – she has outlasted the eye of the storm. That murky stillness is over, and her world is livewire.