CHAPTER 1
The Stunned Queer Moment
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"And there was someone invisible who just pushed, and the girl fell into a large pit so deep that she waited ages to hit the bottom. When she did, she felt she had forgotten things. She didn't know who she was. She now had a quest ahead, a quest for two things. First one being to reach up to the ground from where she'd been pushed by nobody; and the second one being to find out who the hell she was exactly."
I seemed to hear that from a woman. Her voice was croaky, and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I opened my eyes to nothing. It was dark. I could smell something so rotten, I blanched. Phew! I was suffocating. What a bad smell! Where was I? Why couldn't I see things? I had a bitter taste in my mouth from something liquid, maybe liquor or some medicine. I'd had this taste so long, I couldn't remember for how long. I felt I was going crazy.
I shut my eyes. A lot of people were talking, some even laughing. Someone was commenting badly about me. I couldn't see them. My eyes were shut, and I couldn't open them because someone was telling me, "Keep them shut, keep them shut, keep them shut." It became a sort of an order that I not open my eyes.
I didn't know if someone was splashing water on to my face or not. I felt like I was floating all this while. Then my face was dry and I felt it was covered by something granular, like mud. I just lay there listening to people talking about me. It felt like I was paralyzed and that I had stayed there for months. Then I had a tingling feeling that someone was coming my way to help me, for this person so strongly had that desire to help me. After that, I felt light.
"Eww! She's done it!" someone said. "Stinking puke!"
With my blurred vision, I couldn't see much. I fell asleep.
When I woke from this possible hangover — I didn't know if that was what this was or I was just claiming that it was; nothing made sense whatsoever, so it did not matter — I found myself on a rather large stone. A good portion of it was covered with mud and dry leaves, and it was uncomfortable with all those broken twigs and crunchy leaves poking my butt. I sat up, remaining there as dead as the dead leaves and as dead as the cold stone and as dead as the dead can be ... freak! I was scared now. How many times had I used the word dead? I reckoned I must have been paranoid about such stuff. There I was, quiet, the leaves rustling in the dry, cold wind of a lonely night. Then something happened. It took me some time to realize the feeling. It was pain. A sickening pain had shot up into my head. I clutched it as I felt the world spinning around me, even though I sat stationary in the same spot for what felt like ages now. There was something really wrong happening in my head. It was hurting so badly, hammering me to death!
Slowly, the spinning stopped, and I was okay, but then it started. There was a marathon of questions I could not help asking myself. What in this damn world was I doing here in the middle of the night? Why was I here? Where was my home? Where was I? Worst yet, who was I? I had to control my thoughts. I breathed in, one lengthy inhale, and then I was at it again. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? What is my name? My name ... What is it? I was blank and I was scared and I was worried. How could I not remember me, my own self? How was it that I could make all these sentences in my mind and yet not remember a simple thing such as my name? It was the basic identity of everybody. There, I knew that, so why not my name? Incredible! I hit my head, taunting it and urging it to remember things about me. It simply did not respond.
I almost screamed when I felt someone touch me, but when I turned around, there was no one. What had just happened? And then I felt something crawling on my neck. I dusted it off, shook my head, and had gooseflesh pimples all over me. A little distance away a creeping bug fell onto the stone, hairy and filthy-looking creature. It crawled away into the darkness.
I looked around me slowly. My heart gave a thud, even though I knew very well that I was just looking at a tree in the night. Familiar things look scary at night. Strange ... so now my mind was being my own enemy. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched. I did not like it. My mind let me understand things around me, but it refused to let me know about myself. But why? I couldn't answer that, so why strain my already goofed-up brain? But still, knowing was necessary, and yet there was no one to let me know. I chucked that line of thought and continued observing the area around me. The place where I sat was not well-lit. There was a streetlight emitting orange light on the other side of the road, and that gave me enough light to identify things around me. The next streetlight was far, far away. There was a thick growth of trees behind my back. Damn! Now the chills ran down my spine. I did not want to look back again. One quick view was dark and ghoulish enough for me!
I turned to face the road, which was empty. There wasn't any tar put on it, just the plain muddy road. I tried to recall ever seeing before a place such as this one. I tried to imagine it when there was sunlight. It was a tough thing to do. I could not imagine it that well. In fact, I couldn't imagine it even a bit, in a proper manner. Hate you, mind!
I turned my head to my left and now noticed a line of benches placed far from each other until the end of the road ... which was all dark. I couldn't figure out where the road began or ended. I felt like the darkness was going to swallow me. I did not want to look there anymore. I turned my head to my right, and I almost screamed. A body lay on the bench closest to me. I calmed myself down and looked again. There was someone there, sleeping.
Since I had just woken, I did not know how long the person had been there. What was the last thing I did before I ended up here? Error in image formation, my brain responded. No data found. Darn! All right, I knew I had to give myself some time, a minute or two to suppress my worries and fear and all those sounds and noises from the thoughts in my head. Then all the things I had to know would come to me.
Curse that pain! It had shot up again. I clutched my head like I was holding someone who was falling off a cliff. Wow, I could make up analogies, but not remember my name. How screwed up was that? When I tried hard to think about me, the pain in my head got nasty. I did not know when I started crying, but within seconds I was wailing. Nothing else made sense. It...
