I’m dozing off with my head resting on my outstretched right arm, slightly tilted to the side; my left hand swirls the amber liquid around the glass near my lips. It’s mesmerizing how the slightest flick of the wrist can keep the spiral of fluid spinning so perfectly pattern like for so long. That’s when I feel the table gently shake as someone plops down on the opposite seat of the booth. I hardly look up to find a middle aged man dressed in suit and tie sitting across from me, uninvited.

“All things have a partner in this world my friend. Fire and water. Love and hate. Life and death. Joy and pain. Call and response.” I can hear the rich dude’s crisp suit crinkling as he speaks to me. He reeks of cologne. “It’s what brings balance and peace. Let it be another human or an ideal, you need to find your partner. You’re too young to just sit here.”

I avert his eyes and groan, a low rumble hidden behind the unruly beard that has infested over my face. If all things have a partner, then why is it that these questions swimming in my head float around endlessly? The parasites have plagued me for so long, and show no sign of being resolved. My enslaved mind fruitlessly scours my subconscious for the answers to the empty questions. I call, but receive no response. So much movement. So little balance. Head feels like a swollen watermelon, threatening to explode at any moment. Why won’t the questions just leave me be? They’re like the persistent thug that just keeps shoving the gun in your chest after you’ve already given him all you have.
My mind is saturated by inquisitions, but my brain is devoid of anything useful. I know nothing, yet question everything. I am so lost in myself, with no beacon of light ahead.

All I can recall: suddenly waking up from an eternal slumber that seemed to have no beginning in a scarcely lit alley littered in broken glass and shredded, now unidentifiable newspaper clippings. My glazed vision wavered and my head felt unnaturally heavy, like my brain was replaced by a dumbbell. The warm lick of blood bridged the gap between the cold, rocky ground, and the wound over my right temple still gently throbbing. Even now, the putrid smell of human waste permanently embedded into the groundwork seems to stick to my body. I managed to bring myself to my feet, with both arms against the wall for support, before being sent down a spiral of sickening nausea that took hold of my entire body. An eruption of toxic scum spewed from my mouth and stained the walls and ground of the midnight alleyway that had served as my coffin for what felt like a lifetime, leaving my own personal handprint of graffiti. Feeble and drained, I lazily wiped the dribbling grime from my mouth and managed to stumble my way into the booth of a nearby bar just around the corner. The blinding blue neon lights that spelled out “The New Moon Bar” drew me toward it like a moth toward a flame.

The rest all seems like a blur now. Today, I’m still sitting in the booth with imitation leather seats that have sunk in from my weight. My mind drifts in and out of consciousness, leaving gaps in my already nonexistent memory. All I know is that every time my insides feel like they have finally rearranged themselves back together, and my life force seems to have consolidated into one again, I awaken to what is identical to what I fell asleep to. The same bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey sitting stolidly on the table, refilled, accompanied by a small shot glass. The same shadows of what must be people at nearby tables. The same rhythmic clinking of glasses. The same names carved randomly into the woodwork of the old table. The same pair of bums, eyes glued to the game on the small TV. Even the music sounds the same, humming away into infinity.

I remember nothing from before waking up in that alleyway. There’s a dead end both in front, and behind me. I’ve got nothin. No past, no life, no me. I’m just a carcass rotting away in a bar.

I get fragments though. Every time I dose off, my blood laced with alcohol, images and sounds fly across my mind like phantoms. Just the same ones repeating over and over. A gunshot. A baby sleeping. Her. A scream. Toys R Us. A smile. Him. Me. Laughter. Orange juice. Stop sign. Poker chips. A community college acceptance letter. 5:27 AM. Vague and seemingly not connected to each other, they confuse me more than ever. They don’t fill in any gaps, they don’t soften any of my questions. If anything, their flirtation only tortures me more, spawning new questions in their wake. But they are the last surviving artifacts of my past; they have to mean something.

People walk past my booth, and I can feel their brief stares burning holes into my body, even when I’m unconscious. Tipsy couples, haggard looking men, scantily clad women: they all acknowledge the furry monster of a man hibernating with his eyes open for just a moment before moving on. Judgmental stares, sometimes with a pinch of pity. Regardless, my eyes aren’t fixated on them, or anything around me, but inside me. Who am I? Who’s she? Who’s he? Where am I from? Where in the world did I get this wound from? What happened at 5:27 AM? Who got shot? Why orange juice? But no matter how hard I pry open my heart, I only find emptiness.

As the unending refills of Jack Daniels fills in the gap, I get a new set of hallucinations, each one blurrier than the previous. At first, I treasured the drink; it was my only gateway to hidden flashbacks. It was able to dig in deeper to my heart than I could myself. But after the first couple shots, they only diluted my lucidity even more. By now, I have lost all clarity. Even the images that now seem clear in retrospect, such as her face, have disappeared, concealed by the muck of smog that has since polluted my mind. If during those first few shots I had found answers to any of my questions, I would have surely forgotten them by now. And yet I keep drinking, blindly hoping that the flashbacks will return, even though I know they won’t. I just can’t stop for some reason.

And now, this snobby businessman who must think he’s just so smart pops outta nowhere, thinking his words of wisdom will save me for sure. He finishes preaching his brief sermon and stares at me, waiting for a reply. He’s the first person to actually do more than stare at me, yet his face just ticks me off. All condescending and s***. Easy for him to talk about balance, he’s not the dude who woke up in an alley with the memories of a baby. Drool trickling out the side of my mouth, I dig my face into my arms, hiding from him like a timid deer. He’ll never understand. With a sigh, I hear him getting up. He slips a twenty into my open palm and walks away, probably off to reunite with his partner.

When I wake up again, the twenty is gone. I don’t even care. Not like I was gonna do anything with it; the countless drink refills are free for some reason. The bottle’s full again.

Like every other night I’ve spent here, most of the people are starting to leave by now. Those still capable stagger out the door with a buddy or girlfriend’s arm hanging dumbly over their shoulder, leaving behind me and a couple other regulars who don’t seem to have anything better to do with their lives.

I slowly gyrate my head, scanning the room to see what batch of “faithful companions” I will have staying with me for the rest of the night. That’s when I see her. Her. The her from my flashbacks before she got blacked out by the alcohol. Her. She just walked in through the front door, easing her way against the flow of people headed outside. Her movement s are brisk yet graceful as she approaches the bartender. She pulls out a head shot of some dude and shows the bartender. Her words echo in my ears even though I’m sitting relatively far from the counter: “Have you seen him?” The bartender takes the photo and gives it a good long stare before snapping his fingers one time excitedly, and then points at me. She hands him a fat stack of bills, probably to pay for the hundreds of drinks I’ve downed while under his hospitality, and flies across the room to my booth. She just stands there for a while, staring at me like every other person who has walked past me, only this time, I’m staring back. There’s no doubt, it’s her.

“Dave,” she whispers before sliding into the opposite seat. She wraps my left hand into both of hers and squeezes tightly. “What happened to you? You’ve been gone for days!” I’m still staring at her with my mouth open. I just want to ask her all the questions bottled inside me, but the cork is stuck. I can’t say anything. The dam holding back my questions won’t budge.

Her worried expression darkens when she notices the scarlet wound the size of an apple hanging over my right temple. I feel her grip on my hand loosening. “Oh my God…” Now she understands. “You don’t remember…”

“You… who?” I manage to spit out. I’m about to black out again. “I don’t kn-”

It’s night time when I wake up in a comfortable bed, one far too big for just one person. The window to my left is open, letting in the nocturnal cries of the concrete jungle. For once, I don’t taste alcohol or cigarette smoke every time I inhale. My time spent in the bar already feels like a distant bad dream. A couple rays of light from a dying street light illuminate a glass of water on the nightstand beside me.
“Drink it,” her voice whispers. “It’ll help clear your head a bit.” She’s sitting on a small stool to my right, cupping a mug of coffee. In the darkness, her body is a smooth shadow; her facial features are faint, but gently obvious. I manage to push myself up into a sitting position, and again, nausea swims across my body. I gulp at the water, and it helps me shove down the sickness. “You really don’t remember anything do you? Not even this room?” I shake my head. The questions are still there, persistent as ever; they remind me that the nightmare hasn’t ended just yet.

She laughs. Not a diabolical or sarcastic laugh, but a bittersweet laugh. It seems ridiculously out of place.

“You know, this’ll sound odd, but I envy you.” She takes a sip from her mug and stares out the window wistfully, smiling. “I would feel free if I lost my memories. I think the old you would have too. Both of us have been craving a new start for a long time. Looks like you got what you wished for.”

“I don’t feel free. I feel lost.” My own voice surprises me. So that’s what I sound like sober... “Call and response… Partners… Balance…” The words seem to drift off into the wind.

“You have to be lost before you can be found…” She looks at me now. “When you call out her name, she may not always reply.” I look back at her. “Sometimes she chooses not to, other times it’s because she didn’t hear you. Or maybe it’s because she doesn’t need to. There is a reason why you can’t find answers: the answers will only hurt you. You have a clean slate now. A future. We had neither of those before, but now you have both.”

I’m feeling drowsy again. My eyelids weigh down like lead.

“All answers have complementary questions, but not all questions have complementary answers. All responses respond to a call, but a call may never receive a response. That’s when you have to let go.”

The room seems a bit brighter than before. The last thing I see is the water in my glass swirling around. It’s mesmerizing how the slightest flick of the wrist can keep the spiral of fluid spinning so perfectly pattern like for so long. Then I peacefully fall asleep.

“That’s when I have to let you go,” she whispers and wipes away a single tear as she tip-toes out the apartment with her suitcase, the door quietly clicking shut. She only leaves behind the key to the room, which rests on the nightstand, and all of her past memories that accompanied the room.