Waking Up
My eyes were dry. I was lying on my back. I had woken up. I couldn’t process the information quick enough, and it hurt simply to think.
I tried to lift my head and the pounding came back. The blood in my head was on fire. I could feel each individual blood cell pounding itself against the inside of my veins, trying to escape. My skin felt dry and cracked, and there were a few rips and tears along it.
I heard the squeaking of a door and the clicking of shoes on the floor. I opened my eyes and saw a woman leaning over my body. Her glasses were rimmed with horns and her hair was tied up into a tight bun...
It hurt my brain to simply comprehend what I was seeing.
And I couldn’t retreat into my thoughts. There was nothing in my mind; no memories, no ideas, no plans. Who was I? What happened to me?
I felt tears welling up in my eyes; I was miserable. But this woman put her finger on my chin, opened my mouth, and dribbled a little bit of water into it.
The water trickled down into my throat, making it less scratchy. Breathing became so much easier.
Now I could find my voice. “Who...” I croaked. “Who am I? Who was I?”
The woman smiled again, as if she was glad to recognize my voice. She didn’t say anything. Did I know her? Was she my sister, mother, wife?
I tried to open my mouth to ask, but I had already spent all the energy that I could. I blissfully drifted into unconsciousness.
About half an hour later, maybe longer, I found myself in a living room in a bathrobe and a blanket. The shower had felt like heaven, although the soap did lodge itself into every single cut, scratch and tear along my skin.
The feeling of cluelessness and emptiness was horrible. The real world was in such high definition. No thoughts to cloud my mind. No memories to lapse into. No faces. Nothing.
She came back, the woman. She definitely knew me, but I didn’t know her. The shape of her face, the smooth movement of her body, the stoic expression she constantly wore... None of it was familiar to me.
She handed me a cup of coffee. Although my instincts told me to down it all immediately, I let it cool down before I took a sip.
“Three questions,” She said. “I’m giving you three questions right now. Ask quickly. Don’t waste my time.”
A million different questions raced through my mind, but the first one to make it out was, “Who was I? And what happened to me?” My voice sounded foreign to myself, as if I’d never spoken before.
The woman took a deep breath. “You know how when people say Adolf, they automatically think of Adolf Hitler?“- I could recall that name. I lost memories, not education- “That’s what people felt when they heard your name. Bentham. That’s what it was. No last name needed.
“Your crew was the White Thorn, with capital letters. You were the king of the streets. Right now, your second-in-command is in charge, but he’s stepped down already; He anticipated your return.”
“You said you were handling some personal and private business before you left. Now, you’ve come back like this. I mean, the scans show so much Dalmane in your bloodstream. I thought they drugged you to death.
“But that doesn’t matter. What matters now is that you have a lot of unfinished business to do. You really left yourself in a deep pile of shit. I don’t even think you can take a walk outside without a red dot aimed at your head.”
My heart was beating faster and faster as she continued to talk. What? I led a mafia? Did we traffic drugs? It all overwhelmed me. But then she started talking again.
“First thing first. I need to get you to the White Thorn. They don’t even know you’re back. Tonight, at midnight, we leave. It’s too dangerous during the day, and the trip’s about thirty mules, but I’ve ordered a car.”
Leaving? Already? My legs felt numb and sore at the same time, and I didn’t think I’d be able to move any time soon. But I knew as I took a sip of the scaldingly hot tea that no matter how badly I was bruised, it was settled; We were leaving at midnight tonight.
