Someone Else

I was groggy. Groggier than a depressed pirate. That’s a lot of grog. Yet I was comfortable. I started to look around and none of the objects around me seemed compelled to make themselves distinct, so my eyes left them to it. It was a very white and blurry place – and the sort of place where you get the impression you’re going to be there for a long time. Like a waiting room, or a queue in the bank. The sort of place that makes eternity shudder. Still, moving wasn’t exactly a pressing thing at that moment, so I allowed myself to drift back to sleep.

I permitted myself to have a dream. I was on a pavement. It was a pavement next to an exceedingly wide road, with more lanes than the mind can comfortably conceive. Across the other side of this obscenely wide road was a shop. The stop was glittering pleasingly, with a neon sign mounted above it. The sign wasn’t tacky, it was tastefully garish and almost frighteningly alluring. I felt drawn to it and all the wonderful sparkling shapes in the window, I didn’t know what these objects were but I was damn sure I wanted to own them. The road looked clear for miles around and I started to cross. I had to get to the shop. Suddenly, a rumbling! I looked down the road to see car after car after car all streaming towards me. I know how rabbits feel. One car knocked me into another and that one knocked me to another. And so on and so forth, were it not for the genuine terror, this sort of thing would’ve become somewhat tiring after a while. All the time the cars were bumping me further across the road, but the shop looked no closer. Another glimpse of headlight…

And I woke up. Hours had presumably passed. The place was blurry but a dimmer shade of white, like it was winding down to sleep. I felt momentarily smug, I had slept before the room. Then I reminded myself that this wasn’t really anything of a victory.

I noticed that next to me there was a brown shape. I looked at it intently to see if it would acknowledge me. It did.

“You’re awake.” It said
“I’d noticed.” I responded attempting to remember what terseness sounded like.
“No need for that.” It murmured. “Go back to sleep.” It commanded after a moments thought.

I was in no mood to argue and duly did so. I was again plagued by a dream, it was strikingly similar, only I was closer to the shop, and it did its best to glimmer and glitter and dazzle. I felt myself yearning to be there even more so. The road was a chilled turkey and the shop a grubby needle – to offer up a grim and tortured metaphor.

When I awoke again later, things had seen fit to further order themselves. Objects had discernable edges – I was in a hospital bed and the brown thing to my side was a man in a well tailored suit. This man was occupied with eyeing my weary face with a lazy and contemptuous gaze. I was oddly hurt, I had only just awoken and yet I was already a reasonable direction in which to send contempt.

“I take it you’ve some sort of problem?” I ventured to sigh.
“No. You have, however. I just thought I’d inform you.’ The man drawled with the uncomfortable stench of confidence around him.
“What?” I said, remembering incredulity.
“You’ve got a problem.” Said the man, getting up
“Do you usually behave like this?” I enquired
“No. Consider yourself a special case.” Spat the man as he strode from the room.

****

A few days later my body had sufficiently resolved whatever ailment had landed me in hospital and I was discharged. No one seemed eager to explain my particular condition and I had no real desire to find out. What did concern me, however, was my lack of any memories of my life whatsoever. Most other people appeared to have lives so I, not unreasonably I thought, had assumed that I too had one. Still, finding out what I could do again would be an experience.