Passenger(5)

But—

The fact that there is a key hidden beneath the potted fern on a wooden pedestal beside this door occurs to me without hesitation. Before I lift the plant and discover the key, I know with unwavering certainty that it will be there—know, in fact, that it is a single bronze key affixed to the bottom of the flower pot with a bit of masking tape. But actually seeing the key beneath the pot causes a beam of hope to radiate throughout me. It is possible, after all, my memory will return. That this is only a temporary derailment.

I unlock the door and step inside.





THREE





The funny thing is I’ve been here before.

The funny thing is, it starts not with the disremembered but, strangely enough, it starts with déjà vu. The memory of memory. It starts with the confidence of subconscious recollection. Time immemorial. Looping, soundless footage projected straight into space. Dust motes spiraling dizzy in the spotlight.

This is how I would tell it, anyway.

If I had to tell it.

But it is an instantaneous and fleeting realization, wistful and clawing at hope, gone before I am able to get my mental fingers around it.

This apartment, like my life, is meaningless to me.

Helpless, I stand in the open doorway and allow my eyes time to adjust to the darkness. Automatic, one hand goes to the wall and feels for a light switch…and finds it. This thrills me, but it is a feeling that does not last. It has nothing to do with memory. Light switches, after all, are on walls. Where else would they be?

It is a square room with perfect white walls. The ceiling yawns up to twice the height of a normal ceiling. There is a bank of windows to my right, shaded by a pull of blinds, and framed in elaborate crown molding. The floor is faded hardwood—old, scuffed, the natural grain buffed to near nonexistence—and there is a blue shag throw rug, the size of a manhole cover, in the center of the floor. No table, no chairs. A cramped kitchenette off to the left, opposite the shrouded windows, where the dripping faucet is the only sound in the world. Other than my breathing.

The place smells empty.

The place looks unused.

I don’t live here, I am certain. No one lives here.

“Hello?” My voice echoes throughout the room. It is like tossing a rock down a well, or a gunshot in an open field. “Is anyone here?”

One other thing, which I do not see until I bump my left leg against it: a foldout card table beside the front door on which sits two flattened dollar bills, both with George Washington facing the ceiling, one dime, one nickel, three pennies. I stare down at this and do not move. Not because it means anything to me—this $2.18 summons no memory—but because it seems the only semblance of humanity in the entire place. These bills have been passed through countless hands, stuffed into pocket after pocket after pocket, tipped to strippers and used to snort cocaine. These bills have touched the lives of countless people involved in countless activities. They are real, tangible. And feeling this only makes me aware of how alone I am. Utterly; completely.

There is no wife, no girlfriend here to greet me.

No photos on the walls.

Only a blue throw rug. And $2.18.

So I do what I do to keep my sanity. For the moment, anyway. Because when you can’t find anything to hold on to and you are on the verge of losing it all, the last thing to do is pretend you are holding on until you follow yourself down into the black and realize you haven’t been holding on to anything. Or holding on to the wrong thing, a drowning thing. What you do is you create a life for yourself—an entire life—in the span of a nanosecond. Blink. There—see it? See it? You give yourself siblings—two of them, a brother and a sister. You make them both older because you find a misunderstood comfort in having guardian angels. You grant yourself two perfect parents, almost Brady Bunch perfect (and why is it you remember the Brady family but cannot recall your own?): a squinty-eyed, jovial father partial to decorative sweaters and suede elbow patches, and a mother, young, but who prefers her hair in a bun. And just for realism you curse one with cancer. Strike thee, cancer! But they suffer through and make it out alive. No, wait—no, they die. Because realism requires grief and grief requires realism. And there was plenty of grief, but you have all moved on in your own undisclosed and personal way. You share communal jokes. You share a big sloppy dog with large, black, wet eyes, and it lived a good, long life until, in the throes of some heartbreaking yet inevitable canine illness, it had to be put down. That’s how they say it: put down. As if it was previously up. But it was a good dog. Sure. Sure it was. There are the memories, after all. Always the memories. And did you always live in Baltimore, in Maryland? This does not have to be the case. Not at all. Because you are making this up as you go and it can be whatever you want. Anything—anything at all. Perhaps there is some remote and fantastic geography in your past—perhaps the Swiss Alps, or Paris, or a cattle ranch somewhere in Texas…

Sure. Why not?

Why not?

But this isn’t working, and I feel something inside me come crashing down to reality. It is like being pushed unprepared into a swimming pool. I am still in the unused apartment, still alone. Still blind to my memories, my past. My traitorous mind. I know not what is important to me. I have no faith, no belief system. It is miserable to walk into the middle of your life and find you are disappointed with the lack of things and people waiting for you. Blink-of-an-eye mentality. Everything I have worked hard for my entire life has ceased to exist in a split second. And have I worked hard my entire life? I do not know.