Diallo asks Raymonde about the period after the Georgia Flu, when Raymonde left and kept walking with no destination. Raymonde says Raymonde remembers none of that first year on the road, suggesting the shock may have erased the worst parts.

Raymonde explains that once the group finally stopped in a town, Raymonde’s memory resumes clearly. Raymonde argues that people who struggle most in the current era are those who remember the old world vividly, because remembering makes the loss sharper.

Pressing the point, Diallo notes that Raymonde does remember some things. Raymonde describes pre-collapse memories as dreamlike fragments: seeing New York from an airplane as a sea of electric lights, vague impressions of parents, and sensory details of modern life like hot air from vents and machines that played music.

Raymonde lingers on specific vanished conveniences—lit computer screens, refrigerators and freezers that spilled cold air and light, and trays of ice cubes—and asks Diallo to confirm these details. Diallo affirms that refrigerators did have interior lights, underscoring how distant and unreal the old world now feels.