The Lost Days

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Appendix A:

Appendix B:

Appendix C:

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

OK.

I think I better take some notes, cuz something super strange is happening to me, and I don’t know

1. my name
   
2. anyone else’s name
   
3. where I am
   
4. how I got here
   
5. where I live
   
6. how old I am (am I a kid or just short?)
   
7. anything I’ve done since I was born
   
8. whether I’m a cat person or a dog person
   
9. whether I actually believe people are either cat people or dog people
   
10. what might have been written on the eleven pages that were torn out of this notebook
    
11. why this happened to me
    
12. how long it’s going to last, or
    
13. what I should do next.
    

Here’s what I DO know:

1. I’m human.
   
2. I’m a girl.
   
3. I’m wearing a black dress.
   
4. I’m wearing black stockings.
   
5. I have long black hair.
   
6. I seem to like the color black.
   
7. I recently stepped in gum.
   
8. My skin is pale, so the bruises on my left arm show up really well.
   
9. I have a notebook, a pencil, and a slingshot, and that’s it.
   
10. I’m left-handed.
    
11. I speak English.
    
12. The Earth is round and travels around the sun.
    
13. I seem to like the number 13.
    

What I can see of Myself.

Later

I’m in a town called Blackrock, according to the newspaper. I’m not sure whether a town this small even needs a newspaper. Too bad I can’t remember any other towns to compare it to. Here’s what I’ve seen: two streets, maybe fifteen buildings, and then dust plains all around. Almost everything—natural and human-made—is some shade of beige. There’s a bus depot. A couple of stores. One tiny patch of grass that’s passing for a park.

It seems quiet and peaceful here, but for some reason I prefer to assume it’s crawling with menace and secret abominations.

Not sure if that says more about Blackrock or about ME.

Anyway. New things I know:

1. Nothing here looks familiar.
   
2. Nobody in Blackrock seems to know me.
   
3. Many people in Blackrock think I’m worth staring at.
   
4. Strange dogs don’t always like to be petted.
   
5. I’m not a dog person.
   
6. There is never an Amnesia Recovery Center around when you need it.
   
7. Someone might be worried about me, but that someone is nowhere to be found.
   
8. I will probably be sleeping on the streets tonight.
   
9. I’m hungry.
   
10. Food costs money.
    
11. I don’t have any money.
    
12. Amnesia sucks rocks: big…black…rocks.
    
13. You can get a ticket in Blackrock for using a slingshot to entertain passersby.
    

At least I know what I look like now.

Later

Got fed. Here’s how it went down: When the police told me to get out of their sight, I ducked into this café called the El Dungeon. Even though it was el dubious. El dungheap. Asked the chick behind the counter if she happened to have any free food. She said I could sweep the floor. Honk! I needed a shovel! Well, at least in the corners, where people had kicked most of the larger garbage.

Even taking my total amnesia into account, I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say this is the ugliest building I’ve ever seen. Inside: Peeling paint on some walls, embarrassing wood paneling on others; splintery old furniture; and these dinged-up windows that rattle whenever a car goes past. There’s a rickety staircase that apparently goes upstairs to Filthy Cobweb Land. And the music doesn’t exactly brighten up the ambience—some kind of haunted whispering from the radio that sounds like a ghost town from 100 years ago, harmonizing with the espresso machine giving its death rattle.

So it’s not the cheeriest place, or even the cleanest. But actually…it suits me just fine. Interesting.

Outside: The El Dungeon’s worst feature is its unfortunate, and very thick, all-over coat of beige paint. Second-worst feature would have to be the large…SHAPES…on the roof. No telling what they are. Oversized beige sculptures of chewed gum or something. Other than that, hard to say WHAT the building looks like, since the paint is so thick it’s hiding what
might have been architectural details.

I was carrying something like the twenty-third dustpan of kipple to the Dumpster out back when I decided for sure that unless, or until, I could reverse my amnesia with a strategic head bump, I was going to set up camp in the alley behind the El Dungeon. El Dreamland! Multiple fascinating well-stocked Dumpsters! Enough building materials for a lovely lean-to! Animal friends! I made buddy-buddy with the local cats using savory treats found in garbage. Am hoping they repay the favor tonight, especially if it’s nippy. Nothing like a seventeen-cat fur coat when it’s nippy.

Am now sitting at a table in the café, eating a sandwich and checking out the customers. All seven of them. They look normal enough, aside from not moving the whole time I’ve been here. Anyway, at least I’m not getting stared at quite as much as I was outside. Hope I can tolerate hanging out here for a while.

Later

Talked with CounterChick, whose name is Raven.

It went on for a while like this. After a few minutes of not-too-scintillating chitchat, I could see she was mustering up to some kind of pointed question, which ended up going just a little bit like this:

[I’d been dreading this question. Luckily I’d had lots of time while shoveling the floor to ponder a perfect response.]

Raven

Then she got all embarrassed and quickly turned to the espresso machine and started making shot after shot that nobody had even ordered. It was kind of a sad display, especially because the machine was rattling and wheezing so badly, when I could tell it just needed a shim and a spot of solder. So I ducked out to the alley, found what I needed in the Dumpster, and came back to take care of business.

Here’s some new stuff I know: You can do wonders for an ailing espresso machine with a hairpin and some gum. Patrons of the El Dungeon consider me a mechanical genius. Sometimes it’s better to let a few shots of espresso go to waste than to drink nine all by yourself. A refrigerator box makes a very good lean-to.

The lean—to.

Oh, and here’s what my bruises look like.

Next Day

Again with the amnesia. This is getting old.

Later

Stared at myself in the mirror in the bathroom of the El Dungeon for a while, hoping it would bring something back. No luck.

Later

Roamed the streets of Blackrock, looking for clues about why I’m here. Nothing seems familiar. No LOST posters with my face on them, no urgent search parties. Just dirty looks. Makes me wonder if I caused some disgrace to this town before losing my memory.

I retraced my steps to the first spot I remember. Yesterday, when I came to, I found myself sitting on a park bench—you know, one of those pointless park benches with a plaque that commemorates someone who once did something and is now dead, in one of those tiny, pointless miniparks you see in small towns where the idea is to put a few square feet of grass and trees around a commemorative bench and pretend it’s a park, so that the family of the dead important person isn’t too offended. This
one was about a block from the El Dungeon and had a completely pointless ten-foot wrought-iron gate (with no fence to go with it), a tiny patch of grass, and a tree. And the bench was commemorating an Emma LeStrande, Founder of Blackrock and Owner of its First Hotel and Café. Oh boy. Small town indeed!