In Shani Mootoo’s novel, Cereus Blooms at Night memory becomes a concept that not only affects Mala emotionally, but also physically as Mootoo links Mala’s childhood to her adulthood as if they were lived by two separate people. As Miss Ramchandin’s house is being invaded by police officers and watchdogs, destroyed by machinery and large vehicles, she remembers running away as Pohpoh beginning to “feel what she was normally oblivious to: her face and neck, wet with sweat and tears, bruises on her legs, skin that felt as though it had been torn off her back in thick chunks…fear was breaking her, was unprying her memory”(174). Miss Ramchandin’s home reflects nature at its finest; free to expand, grow and develop without external influences. While it is being destroyed and invaded, Miss Ramchandin’s memory is directly related in that she remembers herself, her own natural body as a child being forcefully invaded by her father. “She was reminded of what she usually ignored or commanded herself to forget: her legs being ripped apart, something entering her from down there, entering and then scooping her insides out. Her body remembered” (175). The physicality of this text, mentioning her body parts – face, neck, legs, skin, allows the reader to understand that the pain from the memory affects her entire being. After being raped by her father, every limb of her body has been contaminated or destroyed. The action in this text – torn off, breaking her, ripped apart, entering her, scooping her insides out, is rough, vulgar, and violent. The word choice not only reflects the ways in which the police officers are treating her sanctuary of a home but also the way in which her father treated her. She had become so accustomed to not feeling or doing her best to forget, that the rush of memory was painful and physical – she felt the physical abuse that she had done her best to ignore.