Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

When he woke up, he remembered nothing. All he knew was that the orange in his hand was sweet. His mentor told him his name was “Stranger,” and that his daily tasks were to eat fruit, observe the twenty cells on either side of the corridor, and record how he felt. But he didn't know this was the 348th time he had woken up.

Every time he lost his memory, it was extracted intact and placed inside another body. In every cycle, he walked to the end of the corridor and pushed at a wall with his right hand, but it wouldn't budge. He thought he was searching for a way out. He didn't know that on the other side of the wall stood 347 versions of himself, each carrying a piece of the life stolen from him.

And the mentor, who always wore a white coat and called him “Stranger,” waited every day for him to ask that question: “Have you tried?”

When the truth is exposed, when copies of his memories crawl up from underground, when twenty “Li Fang”s all speak his name at once, he must face a question more cruel than losing his memory: If a person can be repeatedly erased, copied, and restarted, then who exactly is “I”?

Oranges aren't the only fruit. And you aren't the only you.