“It happened right there, I stood right in front of the… you know that thing on the front of the house, it could be red or blue or … the opposite of black? I’m sorry, you see, I have been having this trouble right now. I am forgetting my… I am forgetting how to say certain things. It has come out of nowhere, but it is quite… it has been affecting me in quite a big… it has been bothering me quite strongly.”
“OK sir, I see. Can you come to the station? There are some other questions that have to be answered.”
“Yes I can come, I can help out in any… thing you need. I just need to find my…. medicine first.”
“OK sir, can our assistance be of service?”
“I imagine so, my… physicians said that if I have this not on me, I could be in real trouble.”
“Can you tell us more about it?"
“I can’t think of the name for some reason but it is a very important medicine.”
“Our time is limited sir, you need to come to the station now. If this is not solved within 24 hours, the chances of it being solved are slim.”
“I understand that, but my blood pressure is already high and if I can’t find this medicine, there may be problems.”
“So it is blood pressure medicine?”
“No, I have that, this medicine is for my other illness. I can’t think of the name!”
“Sir, I need you to be calm so we can talk about this.”
“I am calm, I just need to have my medicine now!”
“Tell me the location of the medicine and I can get it!”
“I need the… How odd, my face feels tingly but only on one side, I’ve never -”
“Sir? Are you alright? Someone, call for an ambulance, this man just collapsed!”
Was it the fedora?
I knew something was different about him even from a distance, but I couldn’t place it. Obviously the feelings were different and the situation. Last time I saw him I wasn’t hiding behind a bush for one. But it was something more, something deeper. It could just be the fedora though, where and why did he even find that?
As he approached, I could see his face. It was calm, in fact, he was whistling. Whistling? The man who broke my heart has the gall to be walking through a park whistling while wearing a fedora? I stopped thinking about the strange sensation for a moment to just feel anger. Mixed with embarrassment for ever being in love with this thing.
There was something else though. His hair was black. Definitely jet black, I could see it from underneath the fedora. It used to be a dark brown, but I could tell it was black now. He might have been a lot of things, but he was never someone who would dye his hair. In fact, he was never someone who whistled or wore ugly hats either.
Feeling a sense of something not being quite right, I saw him pass and continue walking on another path. I had to get out from behind the safety of my bush to see where he was going. Do I dare risk it?, I thought, as I already was taking a few steps toward him. I guess so then.
He kept walking for another few minutes, still whistling loud enough for me to hear him from quite a distance. It seemed like he was increasing in volume if anything. This wasn’t like him at all.
I started to feel super uncomfortable. I picked up a rock, just in case I needed to cause a distraction in case things didn’t go right. And if my former lover got hit by that distraction, where’s the harm in that? My former lover who has decided to change his whole appearance and everything about him and seemingly his entire personality to become someone he never was before. My former lover who is someone who would not have expected him to become, someone who I don’t think I could recognize and definitely wouldn’t want to know if I met him now, someone who can just move on and walk through a park and whistle and not even think about the pain that he has caused someone who cared about him more than anyone else in the world, someone who lied about his love when he said he would love me forever, someone who said he would die for me, someone who-
All of a sudden, he turned around and looked right at me. I jumped and raised the rock, ready to throw, but as he looked at me, he showed no recognition. It was like I made no impression at all.
Then it hit me. He seemed so different because he was different, literally this was a different person. I can’t believe this is happening again. I need to talk to my doctor to increase my medication I guess, I can’t keep seeing things like this. Who knows what I’ll do next time, I thought, as I dropped the rock.
He woke up to the text message. He figured that he was still dreaming after he read it, because what he had read couldn’t be true, it didn’t make any sense. Rolling over, he pulled the covers over his head and kept on dreaming. It was just that the wind that was now making his feet feel cold felt too real to be a dream. He couldn’t get the message out of his mind.
Rubbing his eyes, he looked at his phone again. It stubbornly still said the same thing. It just didn’t make sense. Realizing that he really was awake and feeling his pulse start to increase, he sat up and took some deep breaths. No need to get freaked out yet, he could find a way to solve this. He couldn’t let himself lose control. There had to be a way this could make sense.
He started to think of how to respond, but was only drawing blanks. What could this possibly mean? He got up and started to pace around the room. How could this be happening? Who could he contact to try to help? Did he need to leave? Who could he even trust? Why was this happening at all, and what did it mean for humanity?
The phone buzzed again. He read the message. It was an autocorrect. She had meant to write that her dear mother was going to stay for a week, not that her dead mother was going to slay once awakened. Oops.
The bicycles came to a stop outside the burger place. “This seems like a good a place as any to stop.” They found the nearest dock for their bikes, which was just around the corner, and went inside. They hadn’t planned this out beforehand, it was just a last minute decision out of an almost deperate need for fun. They went in and sat down at one of the many open tables. “I haven’t been here before, had you ever been here?” “I have been to one of the other locations I think, but it has been awhile.” They didn’t normally eat burgers, but this was not a normal night and it wasn’t time to question what was or wasn’t healthy. It was time to enjoy together and to feel something. After realizing that they actually needed to go up to the counter to order, they looked at the menu. A slightly upscale, but definitely fast food burger place. After they got their meals, they sat down together. They weren’t particulatly hungry, but the burgers were actually better than they had expected. “I got a message from my dad saying that Peru has the most variety of fruits of any Spanish-speaking country.” “No fruits of the burgers though, although I guess I could have gotten the Hawaiian one.” They finished eating their burgers and fries - they had decided to skip beers and had shared a coke. On the bikes, they rode back to the apartment to get ready for an early wake up.
