In the shower I generally imagine that I am either the owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys or an unassuming genius thrust into the office of President of the United States who proceeds to turn the nation into a utopia based upon a modern interpretation of FDR’s policies and the concept of universal basic income. I don’t watch football much anymore but fall into the former fantasy through habit. I also mumble to myself “I can’t wait til after work” for no reason even when I don’t have work to do. It was "I can't wait til after school" for years before it evolved into the after work version. Sometimes after school slips back in there. I often manifest this habit while peeing but it can happen anytime really. That is all I knew about myself a few days ago when I found myself in the shower after choosing to be president while washing my hair and mumbling about getting off work. I became aware of this when a man pulled back the shower curtain and yelled "what the fuck!" It scared the shit out of me and I jumped out to chase the guy down as he ran out of the bathroom naked. At that point I saw him become translucent as he reached the other end of the hall near the kitchen and then disappear. As I searched the house for the culprit and tried to come to terms with the vanishing act I had witnessed I realized I had no idea who I was or where I was. I knew nothing about the town I was in or even what age I was. I decided that maybe I had invaded someone else's home and that I had succumbed to amnesia or some other form of mental distress. I mean I had just witnessed a naked man disappear.  I went to the mirror in the bathroom to learn that I appear to be a grey haired white male in my mid to late forties with a big nose. What was all the more shocking was that I looked exactly like the guy who interrupted my shower although he seemed to be older and bald. Also, of course, I was naked. 

   It began to dawn on me that this was my home.The house I lived in was completely unfamiliar but by meandering about for a day or so I gathered that I was most likely involved in the fine dining industry and was married with no children. This was mostly gleaned through photographs. I was unable to get on the computer and surf the net. There was a desktop and it was on and working and I tried restarting it but there was no wifi connection. The television would turn on but there was only a single frozen image on each channel. 

  So here I am typing this sometime later. The sun goes down and comes up. The refrigerator fills and refills regularly and the furniture changes sometimes. When I am hungry I eat. I read a lot. 

  Sometimes translucent figures appear and slowly materialize into real people. Sometimes they notice me but can’t quite make me out. I scare the hell out of them and then they fade away again. It’s funny. Clearly they are the real people and I am some sort of figment. My memory is good but very “small”. I know non- specific to me things like who the governor is (or was) and such, but all I can recall about myself is the stuff about the shower, fantasies and repeating that I can't wait to get off work. 

   I saw a bird the other day. Not sure what kind. I guess animals get dropped off here too sometimes. 

  I have a girlfriend. Surprised? A few blocks down a very attractive woman was standing in her yard one day. I couldn’t believe it. She did not disappear. All she knew about herself when I met her is that she is a person who hates sandals, especially on men, and she was trying to figure out why almond extract tastes like cherries. She occasionally says out loud in a whisper to herself "this too shall pass" even though she doesn't think that this too shall pass. She came into this space, whatever it is, when her other self was horrified to find her doing yoga in the backyard. We go for walks and make love. 

  Together we think we have it figured out. Sometimes a piece of a person just sort of drops off and stays right where it was. Fazed out of the flow of time. You’d figure it would be because of a traumatic death or something but I guess not really in our cases at least. So we’re just like a piece of that person. A segmented moment that just got left behind. People are verbs more than they are nouns really I think. My girlfriend doesn't have a name and doesnt want one. Neither do I. Cars work by the way and We’re gonna just go driving across the country. Staying in strange houses as we go. 

   The thing is,I think this way might be better than real life. What is memory really? A chemical stain on your brain. It grows like a tumor on your mind. People define themselves not as "I'm fishing" but as "I am doctor Kilpatientpants, I have a beach house, I regret not spending more time with my kids, I am a conscientious progressive, I enjoy origami, and long for the days I spent in Prague with my two best friends back in the day, and I am fishing because I am an outdoorsman". They get caught in this rut of defining themselves not as what they are doing at the time but as some chain of memories that they imagine to reflect a reality, when they really reflect their own obsessive definition of themselves and then they attempt to sell, promote, and enforce that definition on everyone around them as the same is reciprocated back. They regret, and fear, and yearn, and they are never just fishing. 

  I don't even know who I am, and even in this alternative space whatever it is, my memory of myself I have created here fades quickly. Only those few stains I have described remain on my mind. They don't feel like mysterious knowledge that I need to hold on to and grow. They feel like an ailment I must reluctantly live with. I am taking her lead. I don't have a name anymore and don't want one. We are going driving. She is a woman who wants to know why cherries taste like almond extract and hates sandals. I am a man who fantasizes in the shower and can't help but say he is waiting to get off work when he pees. We're good like that. Maybe we will meet others without names. I am leaving this note on the coffee table of the house I have been living in. I thought it would be nice to leave in case it could somehow phase at least for a moment into the other reality. If they find it they won't be able to just read it. They will need to wonder about the author. They will need to define it as good or bad writing. It will be important to them that it either does or does not confirm a thought process that is part of their obsessed over identity. How does it apply to the nature of their belief system? Is it fact or fiction? It's just a note.