Monday, July 4, 2011

Who am I?

   I got up and began pacing after that terrifing nighmare, and I walked until I was exhaused, then finally, I slept. And the next day I felt fine.
   "Good morning, Miss Lee,"  Andre' the Matre'd greeted me as I came into the Regency Dining Room late in the morning. "My dear, you look like you need a cup of coffee right away. Were you out late last night?"
   "Something like that." I gave him a weak smile and waited for him to return.
   "Are you alright?"  He asked me again.
   "I just need some food I think." And I ordered breakfast, but as I lifted the cup of coffee to my lips for the last drop, something strange happened to me. My mind went totally blank, numbing familiarity. I sat frozen as I held the coffee cup suspended in midair, then dropped it. It clattered down against the saucer. A chill spread over my arms and I clasped them over my chest. I sat dumbfouned amongst the busy chatter in the room and terror began, then inched through me.
   A large sign on a wall said Regency Hotel. But where? I looked down at my hands and saw slim fingers, long painted nails, but they belonged to a stranger. I didn't know myself, couldn't feel the comfort of my own warmth. A key with the number, 1902 lay on the table beside a black purse. 
   "Thanks Lorna, you have a good day," a waiter said as he placed a tray with change down.  That came as a shock then, when I realized I didn't even know my name. I forced a weak smile on my face as I walked out on shaking legs.
   What had just happened? 
   I clutched the room key in my hand and hurried to the refuge of my room, but steeled myself for what I might find.
   Would someone be there waiting for me? 
   I took a few steps into the silent room and collapsed in the nearest chair. I looked around then, but nothing looked familiar! Panic gripped me as I sat immobilized, unable to think. Finally, I forced myself to get up and I checked myself in a mirror and a stranger looked back at me. I ran into the bedroom and when I checked the closet and dresser drawers, it too was filled with a strangers things.
   I knew then I had to call 911.  And so within  thirty minutes, I was sitting in the emergency room at Dallas Memorial Hospital. When the nurse asked me my name, I said, "Lorna Lee. That's what I was called, but I don't remember."
   "Do you have a billfold in your purse," she asked me.  When I found one in there and opened it, I started shaking uncontrolably, and she ran to find the doctor and I sat in the small curtained-off enclosure and stared at a picture of a brunette, with blue eyes. Someone called Lindy Lewis, from Minnesota!
  

  

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