Page 3 of Rushed

Keenan

That first day was hell. There’s no other way to describe it. On the day of the incident, after I was found, it was a whirlwind of emotions, commotion, and fear. That’s when I met Jon. Jon made me feel at ease. He said someone had to be missing me, and that surely an employer or coworkers would have noticed my absence, or a family member would note I hadn’t checked in. He said that a landlord would surely be looking for their monthly rent. On various occasions, he would say, “You stand out like a quarter horse in an ass farm.”

What a man, though. If I have a single grandmother, I’m so hooking her up. If he was twenty years younger,I’dbe looking at him in a different light myself.

If I had to explain him, I’d say he fit Hollywood’s description of a military man. With his short cropped hair, straight posture, combat pants and a black T-shirts, Jon screams some sort of military background. His sun-kissed skin, greying head of sandy blond hair, and piercing sandalwood brown eyes remind me of a slightly younger version of Sean Connery. His stiff demeanor is funny to me, as I see him more as the doting grandfather. He’s ‘grapefruit on Sunday’ refreshing.

Jon took me on as a pet project. It wasn’t part of his job description, but he’d told me he felt it was his duty to make sure I was cared for until the right people could be located. I’m now into week nine, and I’m still as unsure of who I was then as I am now. Life moved on around the city, all while I waited in despair. That’s when Ben and Jerry’s Funky Monkey became my best friend. And let’s not forget hotel room service, the odd minibar binge, and salt and vinegar chips.

For the first few weeks, it was frustrating. Hell, even now it’s fucking frustrating, but I deal. I wasted hours and hours looking at the binders the police brought me, hoping to identify someone. I looked until I felt sick to my stomach. That’s when I started a diary. After I felt their efforts weren’t enough, and that doing the same thing over and over was just a waste of time, the stupid little pink and white polka dotted journal became my outlet. It laid heavy in my hands for those first few weeks, as heavy as my burden of nothingness. A big fat zero in the eyes of a stranger that peers back.

I look in the mirror daily, trying to find the girl beneath the surface. I know she’s there, but she’s just out of reach. I think she wants to be known, but for some reason, only known to her, she’s hiding. I wish she was someone who could write down her memories and recite them back to me like dictation. But she’s not. So I’m going to have to pull myself apart, piece by piece, removing enough layers until the woman beneath the surface decides to stop the game of hide and seek.

Every morning, I wake up and write down everything about the nightmare. I have a coffee, then dissect it until each piece is a seamless storyline. From the shattered glass, to the ragged clothing I was found in, I explain it all to myself, like a witness on the stand. I tell her story. It’s like a murder victim’s body telling the tale of who they were by the evidence. There’s no one to say “First it was a knife to the ribs, then a punch to the face.” There’s none of that. This is just a guessing game of Clue and who’s in the study with Mr. Green, wielding the candlestick. I just can’t find the culprit.

The nightmare cycles over and over every night, never different, and with nothing more, or less, than what I already know. And as I close my eyes, it etches the scene on my retinas. I’m once again transported to the void before I’m found, and it’s so dark; so hopeless.

I rise from the bed, talking to myself in clipped thoughts, and pull out the journal. Staring down at my previous comments, the same words flow across the paper. Looking at scribbles from the previous days makes me laugh.

I watched a movie at the theatre down the street from the hotel. I know it’s a total kid’s movie, but the monsters under the bed right now are real to me. Boo fought her demons, and it was a mirror image of what I need to do. I need to grow the fuck up and fight mine.

Sorry I’ve been away for a few days. I was stuck in a Friends rerun marathon. One of the maids, Jacqueline, told me I had to catch up if I wanted to be involved in the season ender party they’re throwing just after Thanksgiving.

No changes, by the way. The nightmare is still there, and it’s still the same bullshit. I went out to a little lunch counter around the corner with Jon. He had the hash sandwich, and I had the shaved beef. It wasn’t bad, actually, but I gotta say, the pickle was definitely worth the sore soles from my oversized shoes.

Tossing the flimsy journal on the desk, I stare at the same ugly shoes.

Fuck, I hate those shoes.

Picking out a shirt and pair of jeans, I head for the shower. I hold the threadbare T-shirt in the air, reminding myself with disgust that I need to shop for things that will actually fit me. I’ve been wearing the same three pairs of pants, two pairs of shoes—which are both oversized— five tops, and the necessary bra and underwear that look like something an old crone would wear to a funeral. I need to up my style factor for sure.

My mind skips through time, thinking of then, now, and what will become of my future. Looking back scares me. That day is imprinted on my very soul and those of the others that were affected. I wasn’t alone in that cramped space. There was another woman with me. She has unfortunately been in a coma ever since and, just like me, neither her prints, nor her picture is on file. We don’t seem to have anything of importance. No library cards, passports, and no driver’s licenses that match any missing person’s reports either. It’s as if we’re both ghosts in our own country. We’re a complete mystery to the authorities and I hate it. I wish there was more to her. If they could figure out who she is, it could help in putting together the story of how we came to be in this situation.

A nice rescuer gave me a name, and I didn’t think it was fair she was a Jane Doe, so I named her Kelly. Jon said he would keep an eye on her and update me as things changed, but I don’t have high hopes about anything.

I was visiting her once or twice a day at first, but it was frustrating that there was no progress. Kelly looks so frail, with the multiple wires and lines attached to various monitors. They bleep as she breathes. Her existence is in the same state of flux as mine. But, she’s not enduring the constant unknown like I am. I actually envy her oblivion.

Jon thinks she and I look a great deal alike, and that we could pass for sisters. Kelly’s pencil-thin. Her dyed, platinum blonde hair has started to go back to its original mousey brown, where mine is a factory original satiny gold. Her cute button nose is littered with acne scars, and my face—which I’ve inspected over and over—is blemish and scar free. Other than the acne scars, there are no other distinctive markings on her; no birthmarks or surgery scars.

The insurance company—or weasels that don’t trust me, as I’ve come to call them—came last week and finalized my living arrangements for the foreseeable future. My lack of visual scars and missing appendages made it hard for them to believe I had any mental scarring. They had various experts speak with me, confirming my story over and over before they felt satisfied I wasn’t trying to defraud them.

Fucking skeptics.

Shit was straightened out pretty damn fast by Jon, though. Not only did I warrant insurance coverage for living expenses, but I was given a small allowance. I intend to try out everything I can, within my pittance. I don’t want the restaurants near the hotel and nearby window shopping to be my bubble. Plus, I’ve been borrowing from Jon, and that needs to stop. It’s not that I can’t do with what I have, it’s just I should be wearing more than the housecoat from the hotel, the raided lost and found, and the baggy outfits I had from the first few days that Goodwill provided. Maybe a store in the city will spark a glint of memory too. As of tomorrow, I’ll have a bit of coin for such expenditures so I can get out of this place, and at least try to start living.

For the past few days, all I’ve done is think as I’ve waited for the cash to arrive. I’m planning a month of trial and error adventures that I intend to embark on immediately. But what to do first? How do you go through a city of a billion things, picking just one activity? One starting point? Like a meal, a show…or a brothel perhaps?

I need lists; they’re oddly comforting to me. So after making a shitload of them, and being the beginning of a weekend, I started with a poetry reading held at the local library. I still felt frugal, so cheap came first on the lists. Wading through the sea ofchichi-we-love-ourselves-dead-poet-society,I felt egregiously out of place. So instead, I ventured off to the halls of the written word. Checking out the history of boats, the life story of some coffee baron, then moving along to the fiction area, it seemed romance books were my thing. Which after squatting on the floor until closing definitely increased my need for sexual action.

Funny. EventhatI didn’t know.

Walking back to the hotel, book in hand, I wonder if I ever masturbated before? If so, then what did it take to make myself come? Am I a virgin? God, I fucking hope not. Without going into gory details, let’s just say it took a great deal of soul searching before I even decided to try to stroke out the bean recently. What a learning curve.

The first few times I was nervous that a cleaning lady would walk in on me. I felt dirty and stained for even thinking about trying it. Then I’d watch a stupid romance movie and think to myself that there was no way I could’ve been a prude. There’s no way I was untried and untested in the ways of my own body, so I slowly started to try things out. Nothing goofy like cucumbers and such, but I figured out what felt nice. I liked it when my pussy was rubbed, when I’d pull the tight bud to a stiff point and rock my fingers in and out slowly. I was finding that slow and steady got me warm and bothered faster. Speed was not for me. Needless to say, writing out the details on that was not necessary.

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