Event I

So what do I remember? My first clear memory is the best argument both for and against a more common diagnosis of hysterical-post-trauma amnesia. This is all the way back to yesterday. I’m standing in an office. I can tell right off the office is in a warehouse because it has those warehouse-type windows that yuppies like to have in their lofts. It’s pretty typical for a warehouse office: kinda dirty, not too large, maybe 15 x 15, one door with a window. An old and battered gunmetal-gray desk with a computer and lots of paperwork piled on it, filing cabinets, a phone. I’m standing with my back to the desk and filing cabinets. The windows are to my left. The door is in front of me and a little to the right. The memory is so sensual it’s like it’s happening to me now.

Re-living. My new word for the day. Oh, I am a laugh a minute.

It’s nighttime. Directly in front of me is a worn and battered old leather sofa with most of some surprised-looking dead chick on it. Lots of blood. Her skull is laid open like a jack-in-the-box and blood is everywhere, the floor, the wall; the door and my clothes are covered in it. In my left hand, I’m holding a stapler. You know, one of those old-fashioned industrial ones with the

(bloody)

metal attachment for removing staples. In my right hand, I’m holding a half-eaten brain.

And I’m chewing.

Do the math.

Obviously I had just checked in right after some major trauma. There’s your for. Against? If I had hysterical-post-trauma amnesia, I think I would have dissociated for a few more minutes.

At least until after I swallowed.

Even though I can’t remember, I think I can pretty much say that I had never considered how I would react if I suddenly found myself standing in an office eating someone’s brain. I know I’m spending a lot of time on this one thing, but I am a little taken aback at how amazingly calm I feel, even now.

So I stand there for a minute trying to take all this in; I mean, there’s a lot to try and absorb. My stomach rumbles. Without thinking, I take another bite.

The chick had probably been reasonably pretty before the top of her head got hacked off, even if she was dressed like something out of a really cheap porno magazine. You know, black leather, stiletto boots, the whole bit. She filled it out well: maybe 5’ 7”, big tits, full hips, legs to the armpits.

Clue To Identity #1: I’m either gay or not a necrophiliac.

She has…had blonde hair. It looks natural, but I’m no expert…that I know of. She’s lying mostly on the sofa like either she fell there or she was trying to get up when, OK lets face it, when I popped her top like a can of Pringle’s. Her long neck is tilted back at a really uncomfortable-looking angle and there are dark marks that it wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to guess my hands made.

She’s real white. I don’t know if it was the bad lighting, her natural coloring or just because she was dressed all in black and lying on a black sofa. There is that pesky little lack-of-blood thing to consider, too.

I took a good, long dispassionate look. I guess you can blame it on shock if you want to be charitable. About this time is when I notice the stapler in my left hand. It’s hard to open my hand; the blood has partially dried like glue, but I finally manage to shake it loose with a little feeling of panic. That’s the first time I remember feeling any kind of emotion. I had to have noticed the brain in my right hand sometime before this, because by this time it’s history and I’m sucking the blood off of my fingers like gravy.

I try to generate a little revulsion. I even bend over and fake a dry heave or two—you know, just on general principals, but I’m completely unfazed by the fact that I just had some chick’s brain for lunch. I wonder if this is how Dahmer felt. I mean, right then I think that, like it’s some kind of discussion-group topic. What a cold-hearted son of a bitch. I’m thinking that right then, too.

That’s about the time—when I think Jeffry Dahmer--that I realize I don’t know who I am. Remember Mr. Panic? Knowing I’m a murderer? Zero on the react-o-meter. Not knowing my name? Now that’s a real problem. Whoever I was before, I’m a real winner now.

So I stagger around the room for a while like I’m looking for something. What, I don’t know. Maybe I think she wrote my name in all that blood somewhere. Unfortunately, Agatha Christie did not write this scene. After maybe thirty seconds of this, I calm down a bit and do the rational thing and check my pockets for ID. First, I had to drop the stapler again. I must have picked it back up when I freaked out. We all have our security blankets.

I’m dressed in some kind of unisex coveralls, the kind that they wear in labs where they don’t want you to take anything in or out. These aren’t white, though; before they got all covered in blood they had been industrial gray. I discover that I have no pockets. No name tag either. Of course. No clues to who I am, so I do the next best thing and try and figure out who she is . . . was.

I start with the paperwork on the desk. I see a lot of names on receipts and bills of lading and stuff, but none of them ring a bell. From the letterhead, I figure out that the name of the company is South-West Merchandising, and they ship cheap crap to a chain of dollar stores. No bells. Next, I check out the laptop on the desk. Fortunately, it’s not password protected. Unfortunately, there’s just more of the same: Spreadsheets, business stuff. The browser’s homepage is a pay-for-porn site. Straight.

Clue to identity #2: Either I am a necrophiliac or I’m gay.

The filing cabinet turns out to be similarly unenlightening, though I do find the petty cash box with a little over two-thousand dollars in it. It hits me that I’m going to need money, whatever I do, so I take it out and set it on the desk for when I find something with pockets to carry it in. No, all this time I never think of calling the police or turning myself in. Not then, not now. Sure, I obviously am a murderer, but I don’t feel like a murderer (how does a murderer feel?) and I figure I’m missing something here and I don’t want to leave it in the hands of the two-solved-of-two-hundred-murders-last-year police. Sue me.

Thinking I’ve about exhausted all of my options in the office, I skirt the puddle of blood to the door. Locked with a deadbolt, the kind that needs a key on both sides. Since there’s no keys hanging conveniently from the lock, none on the floor and I hadn’t seen any keys anywhere else, I reluctantly turn to my last option. The dead girl.