第六章 風的盡頭Chapter Six · Where the Wind Ends
城裡的風，永遠往同一個方向吹。
夷光以前沒有注意過。輕的人才會注意風，因為風會帶著他們走；重的人感覺不到，風推不動他們。她現在重了，可是她決定，跟著風走一次，走到風停下來的地方。
風把她帶到城的邊緣。
那裡沒有燈。那裡是城一格一格熄下去，最後熄到的地方 —— 一道矮牆，牆外面是夷光從來不知道存在的、很大的黑。
黑裡面有東西在動。
不是人。比人輕。像一片一片被讀薄了的紙，浮在半空，慢慢地、沒有方向地飄。夷光看了很久才看懂：那些是人。是那些交得太多、輕到被風帶到這裡來的人。他們沒有滅，也沒有死。他們只是輕到沒有任何東西可以留住，所以一直飄，飄在這座城記不得的地方。
其中一片，飄到離她很近。
那是一張臉。夷光認得 —— 是以前在第七區，幫她修過回收單夾子的一個老人。叫什麼來著。她努力想。
「妳還記得我？」那片很輕的東西，用很輕的聲音問。
夷光想起來了。「五四〇。」她先說出那個編號，然後搖頭，把它丟掉，「不對。你姓周。大家都叫你周伯。」
她說出那個名字的瞬間，那張臉就重了一點點。
只是一點點。原本要飄走的，停住了，往城的方向，被拉回來半寸。周伯的眼睛裡，回來一點點那種久違的、亮的神。
「妳記得。」他說，像在確認一件不敢相信的事，「只要還有一個人記得，我就……還在。」
夷光站在風的盡頭，看著那一整片飄著的、被城忘記的人。
她終於懂了。
被回收的，從來不是記憶。
是「被記得」。
In the city, the wind always blew in the same direction.
Yiguang had never noticed it before. Only the light ones noticed the wind, because the wind carried them along; the heavy ones never felt it, for the wind could not push them. She was heavy now — yet she decided, just once, to go with the wind, to follow it all the way to the place where it came to rest.
The wind carried her to the edge of the city.
There were no lights there. It was the place where the city dimmed, cell by cell, until the last of it went out — a low wall, and beyond the wall a vast dark that Yiguang had never known existed.
Something was moving inside the dark.
Not people. Lighter than people. Like sheets of paper read thin, drifting in midair, slow and aimless. Yiguang stared a long while before she understood: those were people. They were the ones who had surrendered too much, grown so light the wind had carried them here. They had not gone out, and they had not died. They were simply too light for anything to hold them, and so they drifted on, drifting in a place the city no longer remembered.
One of them drifted close to her.
It was a face. Yiguang knew it — an old man who, back in District Seven, had once mended the clip on her reclamation slip for her. What was his name. She strained to remember.
"You still remember me?" the very light thing asked, in a very light voice.
It came back to her. "Five-four-zero," she said first, giving the number — then shook her head and cast it away. "No. Your surname was Zhou. Everyone called you Old Zhou."
The instant she spoke the name, the face grew a little heavier.
Only a little. The drifting that had been about to carry him off held still, drawn back toward the city by half an inch. In Zhou's eyes there returned, faintly, that long-lost brightness.
"You remember," he said, as if confirming something he dared not believe. "As long as one person remembers, I'm… still here."
Yiguang stood at the place where the wind ended, looking out at that whole drift of people, forgotten by the city.
At last she understood.
What was reclaimed had never been memory.
It was being remembered.