Sam sat in the empty laundromat,
watching her clothes tumbling over and over in the dryer window. The stifling
smell comforted her, brought a feeling of security that she never felt in the
open air, or even the confines of the small rooms that seemed to be her own.
An old man in a suit and
old-fashioned hat came in, walking with a fancy dark wood cane and carrying a
backpack. He nodded to her and walked over to the row of washing machines,
emptying his backpack into the one farthest from her. He searched in his pocket
for quarters, then carefully fit them into the washer. As it started filling
with water, he closed the lid and sat in a chair, pulling out a tablet that he
peered at through his coke-bottle lenses.
Her tablet sat perched on her
lap, the video she had finished ten minutes ago still open on her screen. She
struggled in vain to remember it, trying the tricks she had written in Notes
front and center on the home screen. She supposed she had set it up that way.
She didn’t remember any of it. Anything. She read the notes and nothing felt
familiar, felt like her. How could this be her life, if she couldn’t remember a
single bit of it?
She clicked open the note she
looked at the most often.
When you want to
remember
Click Send
What kept her from clicking the
link? She opened the note over and over, but some sense of dread kept her from
acting. Her finger hovered over the letters, bouncing slightly in the air, not
touching the screen. She glanced up at the old man, still staring intently at
his own tablet. Almost without meaning to, her finger dipped down low enough to
touch the screen. She was startled by the swoosh of an outgoing email, and her
eyes dropped back to her tablet. What had she done?
The old man stood, his cane
sliding against the floor. A car squealed to a stop outside the Laundromat
doors, two doors slamming. Sam jumped to her feet, adrenaline flooding her
body. She felt jittery, her sight narrowing on the old man and the door behind
him. Raising her hands, forearms crossed, she took a step forward, then
faltered when the old man said, “Wait, Samantha. We don’t intend you any harm.
Calm yourself…”
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Dogs in house
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Houdini
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Music
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ZZ Ward, Till the Casket
Drops
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Time writing
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30 minutes
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February word
count
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571
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