Six Passports

I woke up this morning thinking it was rather cold in the apartment.  Because my bed was so close to the window I was able to reach up and draw back the curtains.  As I drew them back, I noticed that it was snowing outside.  I thought to myself that it was so beautiful until I looked around and realized nothing looked familiar- not the street and not what I thought was my apartment.  I thought for a moment that I must still be sleeping and this was all a dream until I heard a knock at the door.  Then I knew it was no dream.  I was here, but where was I?

I climbed out of bed and started to walk to the door to see who was there and something stopped me.  I caught my foot on something and almost lost my balance.  When I looked down to see what it was, I wanted to scream.  I put my hand over my mouth.  I didn’t want to make any noise because whoever was at the door was still there.  A wave of panic came over me.  My blood ran cold, as cold as the dead woman lying at my feet.

Who was she?  I wondered.  She didn’t look familiar.  The knock came again.  “What do I do?  What do I do?”  I asked myself.  “Who is this woman?  What am I doing here?  More important, how did I get here?”

I wrapped a sheet from the bed around myself because I only had on a tee shirt.  As I walked slowly to the door I passed a mirror and glanced in it.  I saw blood that covered the sheet I was wearing.  I was so confused!  What had happened here?

One more knock at the door.  I froze.  I thought if I were quiet, whoever it was would go away.  I stood there for what seemed forever.  The knocking stopped as I stood, frozen, looking in the mirror.  One more thing-who was the woman looking back at me?  I turned to see if someone was standing behind me, but there was no one.  As I turned back to the mirror I realized I had no idea who I was or what my name was, or where I came from.  All I knew was that my head hurt and I felt sick.

As I looked around I saw no clothes, no purse, only a dead woman I did not know, lying on the floor.  I sat down and said to myself, “THINK!  Do something-but what?  Yes,” I thought, “I’ll take a shower, find some clothes and get out of here, but where do I go?”  I walked to the bathroom, turned the shower on and got in.  The water was so refreshing.  A thousand things ran through my mind while I was in there.

I thought I heard a noise but was too scared to move.  I waited for a few minutes and then got out.  As I reached for a towel, I heard a door close.  I looked around the bathroom.  The sheet with all the bloodstains was gone.  I moved slowly back to the bedroom, and looked around.  The woman was gone and so were the sheets and any trace that she had been there.  It was all gone.  It was all a dream.  I thought it must have been until I looked in the mirror again.  There was that women staring back at me!  I still did not know who I was.  I went to the closet, found some clothes, put them on and found that they fit me to a tee.