Waking up one morning, only to realize you can’t recall going to bed the night before, nor in fact do you know whose bed you’re lying in, is not an ideal way to start the day. You’re a young, 20-something man with practically your whole life ahead of you. You assume. A guy who doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs. That, you’re absolutely certain of. Straight as an arrow. It’s the sort of trait that becomes so indelibly stamped into one’s psyche, even amnesia can’t erase it.

Two last things — you know your name is Jerry, and you shouldn’t be here right now.

You swing your legs over the bed and step onto a plush rug. It’s so soft, you hesitate, wishing you could stay here all day. You flex your toes, enjoying the sensation on your feet, sigh, and stand up. At once, you’re aware of a nagging headache, just on the verge of turning into a full-blown migraine, complete with hammers and loud whistles. You scrape a hand through your hair and moan.

There is nothing to discern about this room, no personal touches, except for the lavish but cheap rug, and a framed photograph on the end table next to the bed. You pick it up. A redhead stares back at the camera vacantly, not even a smile on her face. She looks as lost as you feel.

Outside the bedroom door stretches a darkened hallway. At the end, perhaps a kitchen or dining area, because you can spot a table and some ugly, mismatched chairs. Upon entering the room, you realize the seating accommodations aren’t the only ugly thing in here. The cupboards have been painted a depressing bile hue, or perhaps they’ve just been stained that way, after years of chain-smoking and regret.

The whole apartment feels empty and abandoned. It’s not just because you haven’t run into anybody yet, but the silence is so oppressive, even the pipes in this old building refuse to creak or groan when you run the tap to fill a glass with water.

You bring the glass to your lips, but stop when you catch a whiff of its contents. It looks gritty and smells like a rat-infested sewer. You dump the water in the sink and lean over to spit down the drain, then realize that your gag reflex is working overtime. After a brief episode of retching into the sink without actually expelling any demons, you decide this isn’t helping your headache, and straighten yourself back up.

It seems bizarre and pointless to call out to an empty apartment, especially when you don’t know whose apartment it is, or what on God’s green earth you’re doing here. Your voice croaks out a rusty, “Hello?”

The sound disturbs the silence only briefly. In the corner of the room, close to the ceiling, a cobweb sighs wearily. Then the air settles back into its suffocating state. No answer. Of course. Theoretically, in a world where you can’t remember anything, you’re also completely and utterly alone.

Finding a bathroom, but more specifically a toilet, is the next order of the day. There’s an open doorway down the hall you just emerged from. You passed right by it in your hurry to investigate the kitchen. After that business is taken care of, and you’ve tried the bathroom tap only to discover the water issue is apartment-wide, you return to the kitchen.

To the left of the fridge, an archway leads to a boring living room - boring because there is no television. There’s only a couch and an end table, and against the wall, a sad little shelf leaning somewhat askew, that has a few books and some odds and ends. The walls are adorned with some generic framed pictures of flowers. Absolutely nothing about this forsaken place triggers any memories.

It’s time to get out of here and try to make some sense of this mess. You return to the kitchen. The apartment door offers a little peephole that glances out into a non-descript hallway. You grab a dull brown jacket from the back of one of the grungy chairs, glimpse around for a set of keys or a wallet, find nothing to anchor you to this place, and leave empty handed. Whoever’s apartment this is will have to deal with the unlocked door.

The corridor greets you cheerlessly with the typical smells of other people’s cooking. To the right are some more apartments, to the left, a door marked, “Stairs.” You steel yourself and push the door open, wishing you’d at least been able to have a glass of water to temper the persistent throbbing in your skull.

Down three flights of stairs in the lobby is a set of mailboxes. And in front of these mailboxes is a woman digging through a purse. She’s muttering to herself irritably. She can’t understand why some asshole would leave her behind, tits-up and ass to the wind, without the keys to her apartment, without even a text or a phone call. She spits the words out as though to purge herself of these indignities, ending with a grunt, then glances up when she hears the door to the stairs swish closed behind you. Her eyes widen and her nostrils flare.

For the first time today, you are hit with the familiar — it’s the redhead from the photograph upstairs.

“What the fuck, Jerry? You’ve been here this whole time?” Not giving you a chance to respond, she huffs angrily and steps over to you, forcefully plucking a thread from your jacket, as though offended by its existence. She glares into your eyes.

“So you took a cab home, is that it? Just leave a lady behind to fend for herself? And you stole my keys, asshat, so I had to _walk_ home! No money left after you spent it all at the machines, so I couldn’t even take the bus!”

She pauses to narrow her eyes at you, seeming to search your face for an answer.

“What? What can you possibly have to say to that? You’re a moron.” The pronouncement is swift and matter-of-fact, as though she’s said it a thousand times already.

You’re grasping for something to say that would excuse what happened or explain how you got here, but come up with nothing. You stare helplessly back at the woman, your mouth opening and shutting. If this woman is your girlfriend, and that was her apartment upstairs, and you’re supposed to know how you came to be here without her knowledge or permission, she’s going to be bitterly disappointed.

You decide that this is going to be a very bad day. Realizing this, your headache suddenly metamorphoses into the full-blown migraine that it was meant to be, that it had been itching to be all along. You breathe in through your nostrils and get ready to tell the truth. This woman standing before you, smelling faintly of cheap perfume, is a complete stranger.