Hypnopompia

You know that feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night and don’t recognize where you are? Like when you forgot you were spending the night at your grandmother’s house. Or when you expect to wake up in your childhood bedroom, but you’ve lived by yourself in an apartment for the past two years.

I know that feeling very well.

The first sensation is simply waking. It must start mundane for it to be startling a second later—which it is. Then the panic starts. But just as you realize your heart is beating heavily, you take a slow, deep breath. You know that lamp. The way the windows are positioned is familiar. The shadow that looks like a grizzly bear is just the blanket at the end of your bed. It all comes together like walking through the front door of your home. And then you feel rather silly for panicking.

I was hoping that the feeling of silliness would hit me soon. But it never came.

The first thing I sensed was the powdery smoothness of a concrete floor on the palms of my hands. My vision opened on a sideways world. I was lying belly down on a very hard floor. The first thing I could make out were stacks of crates in front of a dimly lit window. The panic in my lungs grew as nothing became familiar and the unfamiliarity started stabbing my gut.

Where was I?

I started to lift my body to get a better look at my surroundings. But as I began pulling my legs in, there was a sudden and sharp pain. And once it started, it didn’t stop. I regretted moving and missed the moment of bliss before the pain. After the minute when the pain seemed to be coming from everywhere, I was able to pinpoint the source to my right ankle.

Despite the shooting pain, I still longed to know more about where I was. Slower, and with more care, I again attempted to stand. But in the middle of the attempt, I settled for sitting up.

I looked around and found that I was in some kind of warehouse. The walls were corrugated tin, the floors dusty concrete, and there were wide paths through stacks of wooden crates. The only light was coming from the high windows lining a nearby wall. The dimness of the light made me guess that it was a rainy day, it was nearing dusk, or it was dawn. From the angle of my seat, I couldn’t see which it was.

As my eyes adjusted to the grey light, I could also make out big red words spray painted on the crates. I expected to be able to read them. But when I went to, I found that I could not.

Among all the large and looming questions turning my stomach into electric jelly, the one overshadowing my frazzled mind was the question of my last memory. I could not quite place it

I did remember things. I remembered, for one, that I was a girl. Although, that would have been easy to figure out anyways. I remembered going to college, taking two years of French and medieval literature, my childhood home in Maine, and the face of my mom and grandma. I remembered my apartment and its industrial chic stylings, its lofted bedroom that I had to use a ladder to get to, and its exposed beams and pipework. There were other glimpses of memory too. Grocery shopping in an open market. Passing money to a vendor selling oranges. Taking a bite of a deliciously sweet orange.

But just as I was feeling secure in those memories, I realized there were significant gaps in them as well. Where was my apartment? Where did my mom and grandma live now? Did I finish college? And the other, very significant, gaps like: How old was I? And what was my name?

I could sense my past like it was a wall I could lean onto. Trouble was, I couldn’t tell how far away that wall was.

While I was trying to grabble with my missing pieces, I heard a mix of voices coming from the far end of the warehouse. At first my heart leapt at the thought of people to discuss my problem with. But then the happy leap sunk to the back of my spine. Those were not happy tones in the voices.

I had gotten an injured ankle somehow. And angry people were in the habit of causing injuries. Rational or not, I started lifting my body onto my one good foot. I felt the urge to run. But running was out of the question. Luckily, I didn’t think the angry voices knew I was there yet. But they were definitely getting closer.

I made it to a solid standing position almost quickly. I could see more of the warehouse from my standing height. Some of the crates were open and I could see what looked like straw inside them. I guessed that it was packing material for delicate objects of value. But I didn’t stick around to poke my nose inside to see.

I began a painful limp towards the door at the other end of the warehouse. Just as I pulled the door open, I could hear the door on the other end of the warehouse opening. I just caught the voice of a large man saying, “no need to be so suspicious Darrel. They’re all going to be here,” before I closed the door behind me.

I wondered what that could mean. Was he talking about people? Or the objects in the crates? I only had time to wonder because the other side of the door wasn’t very exciting. It was a grey day in an alley between several warehouses. And it looked like it had recently rained judging by the large puddles in the asphalt roads. I started turning down different allies wondering if I would see any other people. I wasn’t sure if the beating of my heart was excitement at the possibility of a friend, or the fear of an enemy.

“I could really use a friend right now,” I told myself.

I set my brain on trying to muster a picture of a friend. All I could come up with was a feeling of friendship with no face to attach it to. I think I could also muster the vague feeling of someone patting me on the shoulder, but nothing more.

Eventually, I passed through an alley next to a red barnlike building where I heard distant voices again. This time the voices sounded like a bustling crowd. I decided to follow the noise till I walked out onto a wide street filled with storefronts and vendor stands. There were mostly mothers with children and groceries walking the street with a few other shoppers here and there.

I started off down the street to my left while trying to hide my limp from the crowds. I should have been paying attention to which shops I was passing, but I was trapped inside my head. It felt like my memories were fading rather than sharpening the further I walked. I had woken up with a feeling of completeness despite my startling surroundings. But now that feeling was fading like a fleeting dream.

I made it, slowly, a few blocks when I locked eyes with a hurried looking man in the middle of the street. I didn’t recognize him, but he came rushing toward me. I couldn’t run from him, but I shrank back as he stood facing me. He had dark brown hair, a five o’clock shadow, and wild looking eyes. He was panting like he’d been jogging around for hours, and his clothes were a bit wrinkled. Otherwise, he looked like a guy you'd want to notice you in a nightclub.

After a second of me looking at him confusedly and him looking at me intently, he shouted “Janet!” and planted a kiss right on my lips.

I was so shocked I didn’t even feel it. He leaned back and I stood frozen.

“There is no way I am a Janet!” I shouted and pushed him to the ground. Then I started limping toward the nearest cluster of people.

I looked back just before entering the crowd to see him reaching one hand towards me.

“Katherine, wait!”

Katherine didn’t feel right either. But if he knew my name was Katherine, why did he call me Janet?

As I made it to the other side of the cluster of people, I was sure it had been enough time for the strange man to have made it back to his feet and start pursuing me. I continued hobbling along. But there was no way I could outrun him with my ankle in the state that it was. I hugged the edge of the street between the back of the vendors and the storefronts. Maybe I could duck into one of the shops.

           While I was looking back to see how close my pursuer was, a girl in her late twenties stepped outside of a shop and blocked my path. She looked at me and nodded to herself.

           “Come inside,” she said without raising her voice.

           I followed her into the shop. It was quiet, with no other customers in it. The shelves were lined with jars of what looked like teas and spices. The shop was long and narrow. The girl, who had thick brown hair pulled back in a long ponytail, kept walking past me towards the end of the shop. I didn’t follow her. I kept my eyes on the frosted glass door of the shop.

After a second, the peaceful silence of the shop let me relax into my thoughts again. I began running my fingers through my own thick brown hair checking for any bumps or scrapes. Surprisingly, there were none. I did find a few pieces of straw in my braid. Had those been there the whole time? That was embarrassing. I watched the straw fall from between my fingers to the short green carpet of the shop. From between the falling straw I saw the girl facing me again. I felt bad about dropping the straw on her floor. But only before I realized that she was pointing a gun at me. My arms flung up.

           “I am sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

           She cocked her head at me. “They said that you had gone wacky.”

           “Who said?” I asked.

           She shook her head. “Sorry, but I don’t need you remembering anything more.” She said with a serious frame around her eyes. She never let her gaze split from me as she cocked her gun. Her expression was stern, but also seemed troubled. At least I could take comfort in the fact that she didn’t look pleased while preparing to kill me.

           She sighed. “Sorry girl-o.”

           Was that an Irish accent? Was the last question playing on my mind before I heard the bang.

           Drops of warm blood splattered across my face causing my eyes to slap shut. But I wasn’t in any more pain than I was before. I opened my eyes to see the girl lying in a growing pool of blood. My eyes were transfixed on the growing edge of the red pool. Just when I thought it couldn’t grow anymore, it grew. I didn’t think blood bothered me, but a sensation of queasiness was growing in the back of my throat. But I couldn’t look away. It was like watching a flame burn. Then the sight became ugly as the blood sank into the carpet turning it a puke brown.

          Where had the shot come from?

           I whipped my head around to see the man from before with his sights focused on the body on the floor. He was unnaturally still as he held both the gun and his focus with unmoving firmness. Once he seemed satisfied that the body wasn’t going to move again, is demeanor dropped back into the same fidgety chaos as before. He stuffed his gun somewhere in the small of his back as he switched his gaze over to me.

           “That was a close one, eh Sharell?”

           Sharell was the worst name yet. I cringed at the sound (no offense to any Sharells out there).

           “Um, I don’t think I know you.”

           He looked at me with an intense gaze. Then he looked back at the door. After he turned back around, he traced his tongue in front of his teeth before he started hurriedly scanning the jars on the shelves.

           He began tracking the jars with his pointer finger as he picked up on some kind of organizational system. “That is no way to treat one of your closest friends.” He patted my shoulder as he stepped passed me while also keeping his eyes on the shelves. I savored the sensation on my shoulder as I tried to comprehend his words.

           I put my hand on my hip as I shifted my weight off my bad leg. “Closest in proximity maybe. You don’t even know my name.”

           He looked over at me and smirked. “Honey, you don’t even know your own name. . .Tammy.”

           Whoever he was, he at least seemed to know me well enough to know what names I didn’t click with. Except maybe Katherine. That one had a nice regency era feel to it.

           “Well, a name is but a word you tell others to signal you with.” He raised his eyebrow at me because I was obviously full of it. But I rolled with it anyway. “And currently I have decided to be signaled with. . .” I rolled my head in circles as I thought of possible names. “Alexandria,” I enunciated slowly.

           He kept eye contact with me as he pulled a jar off the shelf. “Well, by your own definition, a name could be anything as long as the person knows you are signaling them.” He walked over to me with the jar tucked under his right arm. “Isn’t that right, Phyllis.” He booped my nose.

I scrunched my nose like he had just rubbed pepper on it. As I was wiping the tingle off the tip of my nose, he sidesteps behind me and pulled the lid off the jar and let it fall on the floor.

           “Sorry, Andria, but we really need to go.”

 In one swift movement he reached one hand into the jar and pulled out a handful of light blue powder and shove in my face as he used the rest of his body to hold me still.

           I felt the burn of his hand covering my mouth and nose. I couldn’t help but breathe in some of the powder. It smelled like soggy logs with a hint of peppermint. I had enough time to reach my hands up to my face. But his other arm was pinning my elbows down, so I had no leverage to pull his hand away. And both his arms were pulling me against him so that there was no room for me to thrash. While it was constraining, it also almost felt like a nice hug.

           My eyelids were growing heavy, and my arm started slipping down.

           “There, there, Andria.” He said as he repositioned his hands to hold my head and back. The last thing I could feel were his fingers digging into my hair as he held my head from hitting the floor.

           I wonder if I'll recognize where I wake up this time?