Jasmine: Moving Sidewalk

I woke up leaning against a railing on one of those moving sidewalks feeling as if I were sliding just under walking speed away from where I was supposed to be going. There was a girl leaning on the railing opposite me staring listlessly at the ground.

“Are we moving backwards?”

The girl blinked and shook her head as if to clear it. “Uh… who are you?”

I looked down at myself. A pair of red plaid pajamas, and a sweatshirt I had the feeling wasn’t mine. But this is not who I am. I am not some clothes or hair tied up in a pony tail. I am not these short clipped fingernails. Who am I? When you’ve forgotten who you are and all you have to remind you is what you see in the mirror who do you become?

“I don’t remember. Do you remember who you are?”

The girl gives a sad smile and shakes her head no, and stares back at the ground.

“This isn’t right. What are we doing here? It feels wrong. Don’t you feel it?” I reach across the distance to grab the girl by the arm and shake her back into focus. “Don’t you feel it?”

She stares into my eyes, and shaking pulls out of my hands. “I don’t feel anything.”

I look at that patch of ground wondering if there’s something there that she finds so completing, but there’s nothing. Nothing there, nothing for me leaning here letting this sidewalk take me away from wherever I need to be.

The railing is a short hop and I’m on solid ground watching that lonely figure slowly fade away.

“Goodbye strange girl”