A journalist investigating memory prostheses who discovers through objective video evidence that his memory of a crucial argument with his daughter was completely reversed.

The narrator's adult daughter who uses retinal projectors to subvocalize writing, and who suffered through a difficult adolescence after her mother left.

The narrator's ex-wife whose departure devastated the family and became the focal point of a traumatic domestic argument.

A young Tiv man who learns to write from the missionary Moseby, becoming Sabe's scribe, but ultimately realizes that his literacy distances him from his culture's oral values.

A missionary who introduces Jijingi to writing, explaining how spoken sounds can be broken into discrete words and used to solidify thoughts.

The chief of the Shangev clan who makes Jijingi his scribe to avoid mission-educated youths, and teaches Jijingi that lived kinship supersedes written records.

The village's best storyteller who insists his tales never change over time, rejecting Jijingi's written proof of linguistic variations as missing the essence of the story.

A European woman who visits the village to learn about Tiv customs without trying to change them, cleanly transcribing their oral stories.