Passenger(6)

I am, in all actuality, an infant.

Could be a blessing.

Could be like starting over.

For a moment, I am rattled by a divine conviction: that there is a God, a Lord, a giant floating Sloth in some galactic void, and I have been granted a do-over. Like children playing games in a schoolyard, I am granted by this all-powerful, invisible Lord a do-over, a redo. Foul ball and wait for the next pitch.

The kitchenette is small, too bright. I open the cupboards one by one, leaving each one open as I move to the next, and find that I am the owner of only a few plastic plates, some utensils, and a few mismatched drinking glasses. There is a dishwasher, but it is empty. Also, there is nothing in the sink. Except the spreading puddle from the dripping faucet. Leaning over, I unstop the stopper and listen as the water gurgles down the sink’s throat.

My intention is to open the refrigerator next. I even reach out one hand to grab the handle. But I stop before I ever touch it, one hand—my right hand—frozen and held out directly in front of me, as if in preparation to shake the hand of the Invisible Man. I stay like this for perhaps a second. Or perhaps twenty. I do not know; I have lost all track of time.

Taped to the front of the refrigerator is a note.

Taped at eye-level, on a blank white sheet of unlined paper.

Says—

Says?

Says nothing. I blink my eyes. There is no paper, nothing taped to the refrigerator. Still, I remain standing with my hand held out, still shaking the Invisible Man’s hand, still staring at the blank face of the refrigerator. I allow more time to pass, hoping my mind will be able to come up with some answer, some reason. The best I can come up with is: the note must be part of some disremembered memory. Something that was once taped to the refrigerator that my mind is struggling to remember. Perhaps this is how memory returns, sudden bit by sudden bit. Perhaps like randomly placed explosions across a vast desert landscape.

The memory of memory.

Inside the refrigerator: bits of food that no longer resemble what they once were. Stuff wrapped in tinfoil and other items culled into balls of plastic wrap. It is not a full refrigerator. Like the cupboards, there is hardly anything inside.

Foul ball. Next pitch.

I walk down the small, darkened corridor and pass a bathroom on my right. I pause and lean into the bathroom, flick on the light switch. Again, I find satisfaction in the immediate discovery of this light switch. It is the one thing that I know to do, the one thing that keeps me anchored, keeps me grounded and sane. You can always count on light switches.

The bathroom is tight, cramped, white-tiled floor and spotty blue paint on the walls. A water-stained mirror hangs above a white porcelain sink. The toilet runs continuous while a transparent plastic shower curtain is flush to one side. I grip the mirror above the sink and, in opening it, discover it is a medicine cabinet. I stare, zombie-eyed, into its guts. Empty. Not even a toothbrush, toothpaste, a stick of roll-on deodorant.

The bedroom is the final room at the end of the small, darkened corridor. The door is shut, nearly all the way. Beneath my feet, the hallway groans. I prepare myself to learn everything or nothing, each one having the potential to be equally damning, equally rewarding.

Because when you don’t know who you are, you could be anyone.

Anyone at all.

But I am no one; I learn this upon entering the bedroom. The walls are blank, sightless, the single window above the single bed drawn against the nightlife of the city. There is a lone comforter on the bed, heaped like a carcass at the foot, and a few random wads of tissue scattered indiscriminately about the carpet. There is an open double-door closet, but it is empty. There is no smattering of shirts and folded slacks hanging inside like fresh kills. Empty. A squat little table stands on one side of the bed, half covered by a mound of pillow, and there is nothing on the table. Nothing I can see, anyway.

With little emotion, I peel off my clothes. I am panicked doing this, fearing I’ll find some bodily abnormality. Lesions on my chest or a knife jammed into my abdomen to the hilt. My clothes drop listless to the floor and make a sound like the popping of a soap bubble. All seems how it should be with my body. Back down the hallway, I pad into the bathroom and stand before the spotty mirror above the porcelain sink. This is the best look I have had of myself since I awoke on the bus. The floating visage of my face belongs to an Auschwitz Jew. There are dark, scrubby patches of stubble peppering my chin, the sides of my face, my neck. My eyes are so retracted into their sockets, I am cautious not to rub them for fear I will press them loose into the back of my skull where they might tumble, like two gumballs, down the pit of my neck and into the cavity of my chest.

I stick out my tongue. Examine it. I have no idea what I am looking for. What can a tongue tell you?

“Who are you?”

I do not answer myself. I have no answer.

I shower. I soap up my body under the stream of pelting relief, washing the city’s dirt and grime from my flesh. Mottled gray water, corrupt with hair, swirls toward the drain. I remember the famous scene from Psycho, the chocolate-syrup blood funneling down the drain, but I cannot remember when I saw it, where, or with whom. I cannot recall if I have a job or a favorite color. I am aware the population of Manhattan is approximately eight million people, yet I do not know what food I like or dislike. If I am allergic to peanuts or shellfish or anything else.

When the sound begins, rumbling up from my inner core and bursting through my mouth, I am unsure whether I am crying or laughing. It is a wavering, shaky sound, but there is some musical tonality to it, so I decide it must be laughter…although there is no humor in it so it may as well be crying, too.