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Losing My Name

I am in a big house. It has a lot of rooms but I am not completely cognizant of this. I know about them but my attention is focused on the room in which I find myself. I am seated in a large kitchen at a large, thick table with food and soda scattered about on it. An indistinct show is is playing on a large, old-style (not flat screen) TV on top of a large refrigerator to the right and rather far from the table. Several people are seated at the table talking but I cannot see or hear them. I am slightly uptight. I am wearing jeans and unaware of my shirt. It might be a t-shirt.


Seated across from me is Janis. She is the twenty-year-old young woman I married and not thirty five when she left me. I feel a deep sadness about losing her but for now I am angry and we are arguing. The argument is aimless like lovers have. It reaches a fever pitch and Janis screams at me that she has found someone else to love instead of me. I raise my voice over the din and dominating the argument I retort in a rage that I would never let anything or anyone hurt her. I feel this deeply. 


The argument ends abruptly. Janis has heard my words and taken them to heart. She looks so young as she breaks down in sobs. I feel sad for her and slightly guilty. I did not mean to lose my temper. She says amid her crying that she understands my feelings now. I add in a normal tone of voice that I view her as a little sister. She takes this with a grain of salt.


I am terribly hungry. I search the top of the refrigerator and find a bag of Torritos. I am sneaky. I take them back to the table. I start eating them and also start stuffing my mouth with other snacks from the table. I know this is wrong but decide to ignore any protestations that might come from the people seated at the table. They are talking behind me about something I cannot hear. Janis looks at me with disgust. However she and the others do not confront me about eating all of the snacks in the kitchen.


I need to pee very badly. I go into a bathroom across the hall from the kitchen. It has a white  hexagonal tiled floor like one might see in a bathroom in an old office building. Ahead of me is a claw-foot bathtub with a white shower curtain that stretches around the inside of the tub. The toilet is to my right. I go up to it dressed in my sweatpants now. I stand at the toilet and relieve myself. As I finish I see to my horror that I have wet almost the entire front of my sweats and most of the floor. In fact the floor is thinly flooded.  I don't what to do.


I decide to crack the door and discreetly call out to a man to come and advise or help me. At first I whisper loudly to the room where Janis' boyfriend is staying . He appears at the door. He is a very large burly guy wearing a sleeveless tank top that shows off his huge muscles. It is obvious that he works out at a gym as Janis' new lover does. I quickly tell him no thanks and he disappears.


I whisper again to a guy with long hair seated at the table in the kitchen. He hears me and comes to the bathroom door. I discreetly ask him to come in. I explain that I have wet myself and show him the front of my pants. He is taken aback as he notices this. I also explain that I have wet the floor, too. He quickly jumps back to avoid stepping in the pee. I ask him what I should do. We talk about this but I cannot I do not hear the conversation clearly. I propose that I take of my sweatpants, mop up the floor with them and then rinse them out in the bathtub. He agrees obliquely to this.


I am in a bedroom with several twin-size beds some of which are made and others not. On thewhere I am standing is a very large suitcase opened flat to reveal two pockets or sections. I am wearing my sweatpants which are completely dry. I suddenly remember that I have not attended to the bathroom floor. I am in the bathroom and mopping up the pee. I am nervous because I am completely bare from the waist down and someone might come in and see me. My sweatpants get sopping wet. I go to the bathtub and wring them out. I continue mopping until the floor is dry.


I am wandering around the house and I need to pee again. I am lost as I roam around faintly lit corridors. I pass by empty bedrooms. Each bedroom is rather small and contains a bed that takes up most of the room. The beds are tidy. I am aware that none of these bedrooms are mine. It gets too dark to see in the hallways but there are enough  lights along the walls to see in. I really have to pee badly. I stumble upon a bathroom but it is occupied. I hurriedly continue searching for a free bathroom.


A bar and restaurant are to my right. I enter briefly and continue my search. The bathroom across from the kitchen is still occupied. It suddenly occurs to me that there must be a restroom in the bar. I am in the bar. A thin, strange and mentally ill man is shaking outside the men's room, which is free. I step into the small room and relieve myself. I sigh with relief.


I am back in the bedroom and in front of the suitcase opened on the bed. The long-haired man who helped me with the fiasco in the bathroom across the hall from the kitchen is there. There are also some vague men behind me. I cannot make out what they are saying.  I suddenly realize that I cannot remember my name or where I live. This confuses and scares me. I look to the long-haired man and in desperation ask him to help me.


He looks through the front pocket of my black backpack. He retrieves several crumpled papers. He quietly writes something down on a scrap of paper. I cannot see what he is writing. He comes over to me and hands me a small torn piece of paper. My full name is written on it. I roll over my name in my head. I am relieved and happy that I know my name.


I am acutely aware that I do not know my destination, where I lived and where my parents live. All of the men pitch in and rummage through my suitcase. No one finds any clue. I tell the the name of the street I live on in Gothenburg, Sweden. It is all I know. I cannot remember my address. The men chuckle at this and tell me that I will need to tell them more. I feel embarrassed.


I stumble upon my airplane passes and other flight information. I finger through three packets. I realize to my chagrin that nothing about where I live or I am traveling to is in my packets. The long-haired man takes them from me and agrees that they are useless. The others sigh as if it is my fault that the airline packets are a dead end.


I do not know where I am traveling to. I think it is Gothenburg. In front of me is the long and arduous route from the airplane to the country villa where Janis' parents reside. I am traveling from my apartment on the darkly lit street where I live in Gothenburg. There is a stretch of highway from my home to a little town where I need to take different roads. I have visited the town and remember that it has no working ATM. This is all part of another dream and so I turn away from it.


The men in the bedroom agree that the search for my former in-law's villa is in vain. We turn our attention to finding out where my parents live so that I can go there instead of to Sweden. This also yields no results. I remember their house and see it in my mind. The house is dark behind the trees in the front yard. I tell the men the names of my parents.


I am lost. I do not know where I am traveling to or where I am traveling from.

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