I woke up that morning and didn't know where I was. The sun was ugly and yellow as it streamed through the torn and faded sanguine curtains and illuminated the dirt and grime in the air. I could smell the strangely familiar scent of dust and piss and mothballs, the smell not unlike that of the many motels I'd crashed in as a drunk teenager. The sheets had an unfamiliar scratching texture to them and as I sat up straight in the old bed, the springs in the matress groaned in protest, weak from the hundreds of people who had slept and fucked and fought on it. My mouth was also dirtied with a bitter taste I couldn't place- like a strange mixture consisting of the bitterness of blood and the sweetness of something else that I wasn't sure of.

I didn't know my name.

The realization didn't come suddenly as you might imagine. There was no jolt of panic, no spasm of horror as I realized that I no longer had an identity. The thought slipped into my brain like an unimportant memory, the way one remembers about an appointment they had made for later in the day and vaguely stores it in the vaults of their memory. Knowing that I no longer knew my name or my birthday or where I lived was much like that clumsy forgetfulness one gets when they can't remember where they left their car keys or what they had for breakfast. It wasn't that it didn't matter- it was that I was simply apathetic.

I didn't feel right in my body. It was like trying to fit a hand in a glove that is too small. My insides (my soul, if you will) felt much too large. There was something there that hadn't existed before I had woken up inside the unfamilar room with, what seemed like, amnesia.

I didn't know what I was.