I woke to a sharp metallic sound, like the clash of railway tracks inside my skull.
The world was still hazy from the bitter drink I had been forced to swallow the night before, but the icy cold seeping from the floor into my back compelled me to rise.
The guards prowled between the bunks, striking their ends with short batons; anyone who delayed by a second too long received a swift punch to the shoulder or stomach.
— "Everyone to the yard, now!"
I walked out with the others along the dirt path, the cold air slapping my face.
The yard looked larger in the morning, drenched in gray under a cloud-laden sky, the fog creeping over the ground as if it belonged to this place.
In the center, heaps of mineral rocks, heavy wooden logs, and rusted tools waited.
Forced labor began without preamble:
hauling stones from one side to another for no apparent reason, digging into dry earth with heavy tools, dragging metal barrels filled with some thick, foul-smelling liquid.
There was no logic to the order of tasks, as though the sole purpose was to exhaust the body.
Sweat mingled with dust; the coughs and groans became part of the day's rhythm.
Even the few words exchanged between men were like fragments of heavy air, sentences that never fully formed.
After hours that stretched like an entire lifetime, a short whistle was blown and movement halted abruptly.
We were ordered to sit along the eastern wall of the yard.
Our feet were too heavy to carry us; our muscles trembled beneath layers of dust and sweat.
The guards sat in the shade, watching silently, while we were given bottles of water and tasteless food—gray lumps of cold dough.
It was not a rest so much as a moment to breathe before the grinding began again.
But… something else pulled at me.
From where I sat, I could see the library in the far corner, its wooden walls out of place among all this iron.
Something in that place had glimmered in my mind since I saw it last night, as if it were calling me.
When the break ended and we were allowed a small measure of free movement before returning to the barracks, I turned slowly and began to walk toward the library.
No one stopped me—perhaps because they knew books opened no doors for escape, or perhaps because they thought curiosity was an incurable disease.
I pushed the wooden door open and stepped inside.
The air was strangely warm, the scent of old paper mingling with aged wood.
The few shelves were crammed with books of varying sizes, some dusty, others clean as if placed there only yesterday.
The faint rustle of pages was the only whisper in the room.
I began scanning the titles: translated religious texts, treatises on ancient philosophies, works on psychology, and volumes bearing cryptic names.
Then, low on one shelf, I found a book bound in faded brown leather, its title etched in letters whose gold had half-worn away: Homer – The Iliad and The Odyssey.
The cover felt cold, as if drawn from a deep well.
I opened the first page, finding lines about journeys, seas, wars, and heroes meeting their fates, as though the words had stepped out of a far-off world and were now reaching across time to touch me.
I sat at the wooden table near the narrow window and began to read…
With each sentence, my heartbeat quickened, as though Homer himself whispered to me.
The room was still—only the scratch of pages turning and the mingling of my breath with the scent of aged paper.
By chance—or perhaps not—I opened the book to a chapter, and my eyes fell on a strange line:
> "Then came Helen, holding in her hand a cup of drink mixed with the flower of forgetfulness, that which drives sorrow from the heart, silences weeping, and washes memory clean of its stains."
I read the sentence once, then again, as though searching for something hidden between the letters.
The Nepenthe flower—also known as the Flower of Forgetfulness—a drink that quenches not thirst, but memory.
I imagined its taste—would it be sweet, sliding down the throat without resistance? Or bitter like a medicine taken only out of necessity?
I turned the page, and the story unfolded before me like a slow river running through a distant land:
"In a faraway land beyond the seas, where fields stretch beneath a sun that never sets, grows a flower white as milk, its heart opening only at night and closing with the day. It was known among the wise as the 'Flower of Forgetfulness,' and the women of the king's court would mix its petals into a mysterious drink called nepenthe—a draught that poured calm over the soul like cool water on burning coals. Whoever drank it forgot his grief, and whoever forgot his grief found his heart as light as a feather in the wind."
The tale flowed smoothly, yet I paused at the phrase: "And whoever forgot his grief…"
Could sorrow truly be reduced to something soluble?
I read on:
"But ancient wisdom warned: nepenthe does not distinguish between sorrow and joy, between memory and wound. Those who drank too much of it lost their histories, walking the earth like men without shadows. Some kings, it was said, drank it to excess until they forgot the names of their own children, ordering the deaths of friends they believed to be strangers. And there was a sailor who, lost at sea, found the flower and drank its essence; when he returned home, he no longer knew it, and lived among his kin as a stranger until he died."
I lifted my eyes from the page, feeling a strange coldness creep into my fingertips.
There is a certain kind of fear that comes when you realize that what gives you your sense of self could be erased with a single sip.
I continued:
"And yet, hands never ceased to seek it. 'Forgetting is mercy, and memory a curse,' they would say, planting it in hidden gardens far from the eyes of guards. Helen kept it in a small silver box, bringing it out only when a distant guest arrived bearing in his heart more than he could endure. Then she would pour him the cup, smiling with the knowing that his salvation would also be his slow death."
I closed the book slowly.
It was not merely a legend about a strange plant; it was a mirror for something I knew all too well.