The Memory Police

The narrator makes arrangements to throw the old man a birthday party in R’s cave-like room. Food is scarce, and she only manages to gather a few foods—chicken and fish as well as pea soup, salad, sautéed mushrooms, and a tiny cake. She also finds a wine-like variety of moonshine made behind the hardware store.

R gifts the old man a music box—this is an object that has disappeared, and the music seems like a magic “trick” to the old man and the protagonist, who adds, “as I listened, transfixed, I felt the same slow, spinning sensation that I felt every time something disappeared” (144).

Even though the object doesn’t trigger any memories, R urges the old man to keep it and listen to it from time to time. They discuss how seeing objects that have disappeared can be “disturbing,” like “tossing something hard and thorny into a peaceful pond,” for the narrator (147). The old man agrees to try to listen to the music box. When it stops playing, there is a knock at the door.