The next thing you know is opening your eyes to see you on the edge of a bridge about to jump, a crowd gathered behind you, begging you to stop. You stagger back in horror, stumble and fall on the road. You feel a weight lift off your chest and your ears pop. You look up to see several hands lifting you from the ground to a sitting position.
Where am I, you ask and you are told you are in another town. Your clothes are torn and dirty, your bare feet stained with mud. You feel the pains of old injuries and your bones creak from disuse as you try to stand up. Someone suggests taking you to the hospital. Another suggests calling the police. You just sit there dumbfounded at the state you are in. How long have you been gone? What have you done since you last remembered?
You ask for the date of the day. You realise that you have missed one month of your life when you are told. You begin to cry. Someone pats your back and tries to console you. You are taken to a hospital and a doctor comes to see you. It is in the doctor's hands you find that you have been roaming the town for one months, mad. He suggests something triggered your collapse. The last thing you remember is squeezing a mad man's balls. You tell him this. You tell him the city. Yiu can't give him the phone number of your aged lover as you do not have your phone anymore, or the car she gave to you. You have your agent's phone number though. You give it to the doctor. He promises to call the man. He lies.
You are in the hospital for three days before a diagnosis comes. You are taken to a psychiatric facility, given a room and forgotten. No matter how hard you scream to see your agent, no one answers you. After some hours, your throat hoarse from screaming, some nurse comes and injects you with something. Everything becomes hazy and you fall into a deep sleep.
At first, you think you are awake from the sleep when you see the curtain fluttering. You begin walking towards the window then you stop. This is no hospital room. You look about and you see, seated on a black sofa, a small orange lamp beside her, your lover. The old lady had her hands resting on her laps and she is smiling at you. Come, she says and you find yourself walking to her. Sit, she says and you sit down on her laps. She grins and her yellow teeth glints in the soft light of the lamp. She rubs your head and humd softly. You just sit there on her laps like a stone as you grow small and younger, and when you try to scream, all that comes out of your mouth wis a warble. You are a baby now and she rocks you back and forth, laughing with glee.
For what feels like an eternity, you are locked in the body of a baby. You watch her bathe you, powder you and wrap you in diapers. She feeds you with the bottle, crooning all sorts of horrible lullabies. Sometimes, her son, the one that had come to welcome you before the stairs, is there and he watches you with sad eyes. But he does not come around all the time. You want to tell him to help you but you cannot speak.
One day, some women come to visit. They are all old women and they all have babies tied in wrappers on their backs. They sit down with the old lady and you and they talk about a lot of things. Many things you cannot understand but you wonder if these old ladies are not doing the same thing to the babies in their backs that the old woman is doing to you. As they talk, the conversation becomes heated and soon, the women start exchanging words, then blows start flying across the room. The light goes off and everything becomes silent. You open your eyes to see I are naked on the floor of an empty room. You try to stand up and feel again, that weakness that comes with disuse. You are simply wasting away.
Before you can get up, a door opens and a shadow peers in. You should not be awake, a voice says then the old woman's son steps into the room. His eyes are red and swollen as if he has been crying. You should not be awake, he saya again then he holds you and injects you with something. Once again, you fall into a deep sleep.
Your agent stares at you as you tell him what happened to you. You are in his office. The car key and your phone are on the table. He can't believe that an old lady whom you barely know accommodated you and even sleeps with you. He found the fact that she gave you her car to drive unreal. I hope you didn't do anything bad, he says. You smile and asks for the papers to sign. He gets up and says you are going to see the publisher who wants the poems.
You get into the car and you drive him to your side of town. In one cramped building, you find an office after climbing some cracked stairs. Behind an old desk, the old woman's son sits, polishing his glasses. He smiles as soon as you and your agent enters. He seems very excited about the prospect of publishing your work. He even quote some lines from the collection to you. Yet you feel something is off about the scene. Your agent does not seem too happy to be there. Papers are brought and you sign. You shake hands and break open a bottle of red wine.
When you try to get up after drinking, you stagger. Am I high? You ask then you chuckle. The old woman's son is watching with hungry eyes and when you turn to your agent, he is not there anymore. You cannot remember when he left. Where is my friend? You ask. Your friend is not needed where you are going, the man says sadly.
To be continued...