The Refrigerator That Wanted to Be Forgotten

There was a refrigerator in our courtyard for years that was never plugged in.

No one remembered who brought it there.

It wasn’t old, but it wasn’t new either. It looked… tired.

Like an object that knew too much.

The children had a rule: never open the door all the way. Just a little.

Just enough to see if something inside had changed.

There was never food inside.

Only bags.

Thin, transparent bags, like the ones from pharmacies. Inside each one—something soft. Always warm. Always slightly damp, like a hand that stayed on you a second too long.

If you stared long enough, it took a shape.

Not the same every time.

Sometimes like a tongue.

Sometimes like an ear.

Once, like part of a face—but without holes.

The adults said it was “nonsense” and “children’s imagination.”

Still, no one ever threw it away.

Some tried.

Once they dragged it out to the street. By morning, it was back in the courtyard—only closer to the building. As if it had taken offense.

I opened it fully for the first time when I was nineteen.

There were no bags inside.

It was empty. Clean. Perfectly white.

On the inside of the door, written in small letters, it said:

This is not for keeping.

This is for forgetting.

Below that—my name.

Not my full name.

A nickname only one person ever used.

The one who disappeared before I learned how to ask the right questions.

I closed the door.

I didn’t scream.

I didn’t cry.

I just felt something in my stomach realize it was no longer alone.

In the days that followed, I started forgetting small things.

Where I left my keys.

What my soap smells like.

Which part of my body I liked the most.

And the refrigerator began to fill.

Not with bags.

With voices.

If I opened it at night, I could hear people trying to remember me.

They said the wrong things.

Mixed me up with others.

Got the order of my face wrong.

Every time I forgot something, one voice became clearer.

Now the refrigerator is in my apartment.

It’s plugged in, but it doesn’t cool.

People who visit say it’s cold the moment they walk in.

They say my place erases something from them.

I don’t open it anymore.

But every morning, I check that it’s still there.

Because I know—

if it ever disappears,

it won’t mean I got rid of it.

It will mean I’m inside.