Where am I? I see someone, a face I think I know, eyes I cannot place. I know you. You are not me and I am not you. Are we different? I am a memory, too clear to be my own.
Shoelaces. I know your shoelaces. You spend time tying them so they shine in the light. They weave across each other in a web keeping us together. I knew you, better than I knew myself, but you are going away. My own memories are coming back. Why am I replacing you?
I am looking at a window separating me from someone I know, someone I think I know. I am dizzy, drunk, spinning. The arms on the other side fidget in perfect synchrony with my own. Why can I not remember myself? There is just you, you looking at me, me seeing myself, another me I do not remember. But I do remember. Or was it a bad dream? No, you are a memory, a memory disappearing beneath me. There was a speech, a poem, I think. Shoelaces? Why are you replacing me?
I'm an artist, I work with color and with contours. I'm looking into a mirror, seeing not myself. On the other side is a person, someone claiming to be me, someone so entirely different from who I am, someone I remember so well. Am I preparing for something? Something big? Nerves, but I don't need them. Even if I screw this up, they won't know. Or so you say.
I do not work anymore. Did I get fired? Did I never go back? You would have liked what I did. I remember your fifth showing, the one with the idiot. Of course you were nervous, all too nervous, but the shading was without flaw. I smile thinking about it. I wonder if you do the same.
I never came in. But I saw you back then and I realized you had nothing against me. You do not know any more of what is happening, where anyone is going, what anyone should do. You do not know how to keep up the image they project onto you. I crumbled. Did you? I cannot remember. I do not blame you.
Will you remember me?