In the Waking Hours I Know My Name is Nessa

My name is gone from my mind. I had it before I came here, but now that I need it, it seems to have fallen away -- like a dead leaf from a hibernating tree. 'Tis the season of forgetfulness.

Forgetful-ness. Forgetful Ness. There's something so familiar about that, but I can't recall what it should be.

I'm staring at this stranger who's staring right back at me, expectantly. I mumble something, but even I do not understand what I mean to say. She cocks her head, raises an eyebrow, and leans in as if the inches between us are causing the confusion. 

The cold wind blows. More memories fall away. I can almost see them, just for a few seconds, flitting away, tumbling across my timeline, dissipating into the emptiness. Flames flickering into ash.

Shit.

Well, at least that word is clear in my head. I haven't forgotten language altogether. I try to say it to my curious reflection, but she, too, has evaporated. 

This is worrisome. I lift my hands and stare at my fingers. They seem resolute. I wiggle them. I feel them. I am not fading away like everything else around here. I am solid and strong and loud and bold.

The freezing gusts slice into me like blades of ice. I stand against it. I turn to face it, and even though it takes all my strength to find my voice and bring it into my throat, I howl my name into the mighty darkness. 

The sound brings light and the light brings color and the color ripples through the memories, through the leaves of my life, printing words on every page and singing every song. 

I inhale light. I exhale warmth.

I know who I am now. I am Olivia, Forgetter of Names.

Trip to Mars

 After all that, we still make it to the plane.

We are hurried and exhausted and relieved and looking forward to sitting down in relative comfort. Does anybody else see that this flight is not full?

I guess the others didn't make it through with us.

I'm not sure where we're going. Somebody says Australia. Somebody else says no, it's London. I'm disappointed. I'd rather go somewhere I've never been. Ireland. South Africa. Mars.

Isn't it odd the way people speak more when there are fewer people to receive it? Small talk for small groups. 

I listen to the chatter across seats, across aisles, across rows. These two are married. This one is alone. Those over there are all friends. I'm with some folks from work. The pilot misses his wife.

You wanna know who's on this flight? That guy. He's about five rows back sitting across the aisle from a woman from my office, chatting it up with her one-year-old baby. I can hear the softness in his voice, but I don't look back to see the laughter in his eyes. 

Somebody has texted me, but I can't make out the words.

Ready to launch, someone says. I should strap in, but I can't find my seatbelt. Let me find another seat. Don't take off yet, I'm not safe.

The aisle is cluttered with laundry, packed full so nobody can walk. I have to climb over the seats and eventually I must walk over the laundry, which is putrid and mushy, like a swamp. My bare feet disappear into the piles. It's so difficult to make any progress. I notice there are no snakes.

Hurry up, we need to go, they urge me to find a seat. I move to the back and sit next to the baby. Her mother has disappeared. She is not secured either, so I try to help, and I wonder why she brought this baby, but not the rest of her family. I can't remember the baby's name, so I make one up. Shh, Lily, let's buckle up. She's not a difficult child, but I am not the one she wants. 

That guy says the mother is gone. She fell out the back of the bus.

Did you say bus? We're on a plane. We're going to Mars. 

He gets a text, and I wonder who's texting him right now? We've got other things to worry about. I glance over, but I can't make out the words. I don't think he can either. I realize I've lost my phone. It must be in the other seat. 

Somebody at the front of the bus starts to sing. I know the song. We all sing as we push through a long dark tunnel. The baby cries, but when I turn to soothe her, she has already fallen out the back of the bus. 

Exodus

 Listen, lady, I'd love to help but I don't work here. 

I can tell by her expression she's not going to take that for an answer. She sighs and asks me again to get her a monsaco, all she wants is a simple monsaco.

I don't know what that is, and I'm late for checkout. I'm a guest here, lady, just like you.

Perhaps she is a little touched with dementia? I think it. I don't say it, but her friend pipes up and asks me why I can't just help her. Just go back there (wherever there is) and get this woman a monsaco! (Socialized dementia?) 

I try to say I don't have the authority to go back there. I'm limited to the guest areas, and I'm late. I don't want to be rude, but I haven't packed yet, and checkout is happening now. 

She wants to speak to the manager. The real manager. 

I'm not sure why I'm still standing here, polite, softspoken, and late for checkout. I need to pack, and we all know how it goes when you need to pack, and you're late, and you're probably depending on somebody else to also pack their things, and they aren't even aware that it's time to checkout.

When I get back to the room, I think, man oh man, this is going to take forever. Why would I even bring this much stuff with me to a hotel? Like I had planned to move in and live here forever. There are things in drawers and under the bed, and I'm not sure if this is mine or my roommate's. This stuff is not going to fit in the one suitcase. I might need extra bags.

Or maybe throw some stuff away? Leave this shit behind. I don't need it, and it's holding me back. I gotta get outta this  place. 

I have done all I can do here. Why did I stay this long?

What was I thinking? What was I thinking? What was I thinking? 

The Purification Cycle

 Choppers. (woosh, woosh, woosh)

We got 'em, and I'm feeling a bit chopped up today.

You shove me, skin and bones and everything in between, into your chopping machine and set it to puree. You let me marinate in my own self-loathing, self-doubt, self-destruction.

Self-incarnation.

or...not self-incarnation.

Reincarnation says it better, I think. 

You reincarnate me by pouring me into your cute little mold and setting me into the icebox.

You open the door and look at me every once in a while to see if I've solidified. Or maybe you see past me, toss me around a bit until you find something else you desire. Something just beyond me. Something store-bought and easy. Something that wasn't so much hard work. 

I think I'd rather be poured down the drain than into your molds. I'd rather swim through the sludge and the darkness than to be trapped here until you decide it's time for a tasty snack. I'd like to change my own shape as I move along, not to satisfy anyone else, but to adapt to my path. 

I'd rather endure the harsh and putrid stench of so many hidden passages, seeking escape at the other end, the freedom of spilling out into a pool of all the other light seekers, finding a calm and level world where the slime and the scum evaporate into a fantastic nothingness, and I can purify into myself once again. 

Self-satisfaction, self-empowerment, self-incarnation.

The room with all the fish tanks

First of all, there are too many fish tanks back here.  They are probably left over from when my mother decided to collect aquatic animals. She's never done a damned thing by halves.

Wall to wall and all different sizes. There are more than a hundred and all arranged like a maze. I wander between them. I'm not sure where the light comes from. 

I like to stare at the swimmers with their different shapes and colors, but they don't seem to care for it one bit. They bump their noses against the glass, trying to get at me. Some of of them are pissed enough they're smashing themselves into bloody messes. Some of them are spitting.

I guess I'm meant to care for them. Feed them, keep their walls clean, don't let them eat each other.

It's not that easy, though, when one of the damn things grows at an exponential rate and flops right out of his tank and into the next one with his multiple rows of giant, razor teeth gnashing away at whatever it lands on. 

And this other one, the one that looks like a giant earthworm has big, brown, thorny teeth. It flops about as well, but takes a little care to preselect his victims. I suppose he must go by smell. He hasn't got any eyes.

The water splashes all over me, and now I smell just like them, and that's no good because there's not enough time to sort out how to avoid the earthworm. He has preselected my left arm. (I am left-handed. I need that arm.) He latches on with his big thorns deep in the fleshy part, right over the scar I got when I was twelve and I burned myself with hot oil while cooking french fries for the siblings. 

Let me believe there's no pain, I tell myself. And I must be a magic person, because there is no pain. There is just my arm and the fish. 

And all the teeth. Those are definitely there. 

I raise my other arm up to cover my eyes just so they don't betray me into thinking there must be pain after all. If I can't see it, I can't feel it.

And that's all there is to that.

This isn't the dream I selected

This is not my dream. It belongs to somebody else. It buzzes against my skull trying its damnedest to get out of there as I have a look around at a world I've never seen before.

These strangers and I are packed together in this slow car, and the cars are packed together in this roadway, and all we want to do is get the hell away from the explosions.

Even the smoke is packed. Thick and hot, almost solid. 

Methodically, we all push forward, and every once in a while we must hop out and actually push the cars through the mud and the muck. All together now. Heave! All together now. Ho!

Watch out for the little ones. It's so hard to see them once they are covered in mud. Big eyes blink up at me from below. I pluck her up and tuck her into the hatchback. Not really safe and not really sound. But it's what we got.

These are not my people.

This is not my language.

But I understand plenty. 

A mama is screaming in one of the other cars. It's the car that's trying to edge past ours as we go around the corners. We let it through. There is a boy who is bleeding in the back seat. 

Get out and help! Hurry now, we are all crying, even though it doesn't help. I can't be sure, but I think some of us are also praying. 

Is he dead? Is that bleeding boy dead?

Of course not. Of course not. You stop bleeding when you die. 

This is not my nightmare.

I tell somebody this is not my world.

Hey, I don't belong here. I shouldn't be here.

But they can't understand me. This is not their language.

And I am certain they do not care where I belong, because I am here now, and we need to push through the sludge and the smoke.

All together now. Heave! All together now. Ho!

Cross Words

Some plumbing or other seems to always be clogged, and that's the biggest thing I'll recall later, but right now...

Right now, it's the bathtub. Only, it's not filled with water like normal. Nothing's backing up, and nothing's swirling around my ankles as expected. It's just stuffed with various pieces of firewood and newspapers. Bone dry.

And something else about the newspaper, I think somebody was trying to read it to me earlier, but he couldn't read it, and I tried on my own, but that wasn't working out either. Shame. I'd really like to settle down and do the crossword.

I'm not dressed yet, but somebody's banging on the door. I think it's one of the siblings. Or maybe the landlord. (Do I have a landlord?) And that reminds me of the line in that old Metallica song that came out when I was fifteen.

"Power wolves beset your door / hear them stalking" 

Am I 15 again? Is that why the siblings are here? Am I late for work? Am I late for school? Are the siblings late for school? Did I do my homework? Did they eat breakfast? Are they even dressed yet? Do I have money for gas? 

SHIIIIT!!!!!

Later, my mother would make a big damn deal of babysitting my kids. She'd tell her friends about the sacrifice she was making for me, for my kids, so I could get to work every day and hold down a job and get the rent paid, because, let's face it, I couldn't do it without her help.

She was right, but let's talk about when I was fifteen.