spent the rest of the day pretending to sleep when I wasn't actually asleep.
   I would wake when they came and took my temperature or check my pulse, but otherwise I tried to remain unconscious. Occasionally, I could hear the nurses talking but I didn't understand it, so it all sounded suspicious to me and I started to feel that they were going to ship me off to someplace where the questions wouldn't be so polite.
   But my mind kept coming back to the girl, that girl. When I did think of her, strong feelings of belonging came up, but no details. No name, or place. And this place didn't seem right either. Something about it was very wrong to me, but I couldn't say what. Like the girl, it was just a feeling, but a strong one.
   Paris? I was in Paris. But where was Paris? It felt far from where I should have been and it felt like a place I would not go. Clearly, they didn't speak my native tongue here and that fit with Paris being someplace far away. At least it felt like it fit. Paris could be a town over from where I grew up, for all knew.
   I actually drifted in and out of sleep.
   The nurses attended to the wounded men around me, draining the wound from the man in the bed next to me. That seemed painful. Even unconscious, the man whimpered as they removed bandages and did whatever it was with those rubber tubes they did.
   I fell back into a deep sleep after that.
   When I woke next, it was dark. The light above my head was out, and the whole ward was dark except for the soft glow at the end of the room where a nurse sat at a desk going over some papers. I turned away from looking down the room and noticed that the waves of nausea where gone. Well, mostly gone.
   My head seemed slightly clearer and the more I thought about the situation, the more certain I was that this was not right. I was not supposed to be here. Things were more than just out of place. Things were downright Wrong. Capital W and all.
   "And I'm not Tom Baxter," I said very softly, as if to hear it out loud would confirm it for me.
   "No, you're not," a soft voice replied
   I almost jumped out the bed.
   "Relax," the voice said and a hand touched my shoulder and gently pushed me back into bed. A figure to my right sat in a chair and she turned her head to face me. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale complexion and the feeling of familiarity rushed forth again.
   "Who are you?" I whispered.
   She frowned, "You don't remember?"
   "No," I said.
  "The amnesia is temporary, but I've never seen it last this long."
  She sighed, "Males always have it worse."
  "You know me," I said. It wasn't a question.
  "Yes," she replied. "But not well," and a small smile broke across her face. "Or as well as I would like, I guess."
   "Who am I?"
   The smile vanished, and that felt bad. "It's a little difficult to explain at the moment. It would be better if you could recall some details first, at least that's the way it's always gone with any of the others. Blindly launching into a full explanation tends to have bad results."
   "Is this your way of comforting me? Because I'd have to say, it's having the opposite effect."
   Now she frowned. "I'm sorry, having to explain this to someone who not in the... I'm not at all good at this."
   "No kidding," I let out and for a nanosecond, I felt like me. A momentary flash in an instance and I knew who I was, but before I could assimilate anything, it was gone.
   "Shhh," she said. "Keep your voice down."
  I looked over at the nurse's station, but she either didn't notice or didn't care.
   "Why?" I said softly. "Am I important?"
   "To them?" She gestured toward the nurse's station. "No, well... not exactly. You're a curiosity if I understand them well enough, but French isn't a language I was trained in.
   French, a thought burst through. Paris. France.
   "They thought you might be a spy, but a stupid one," she said.
   I nodded, "It's that story you gave me."
   "Yes, it doesn't correspond with your injuries."
   "So I gather," and the sarcasm seemed to trigger another feeling of familiarity.
   "Sorry about that, I had to think quickly. I shouldn't have said grenade, that's made it problematic," she said, and her eyes darted about. "They've been bringing in a lot of soldiers who've been injured with grenades. I wasn't thinking."
   "Oh, well, that clears it up."
   She frowned, "Well, they now seem to believe your concussion led to your unintentional fabrication. I think. I'm not positive, actually."
   "Wait, what soldiers?" I tried to look around, but it was dark and the figures in beds wouldn't have told me anything.
   She nodded, "We've landed in a war zone of some kind, and I'm starting to worry about which one."
   "You're not making sense," I said. But I had to concede that she might be, "I think."
   "I know," she said. "You have to trust me. Right now, it is actually better if you don't remember, but it will come back. It always comes back. The good news is that subsequent," she paused, eyes darting around as she seemed to grope for a word. "umm.. events, tend to have less impact. The first one is bad and then they get better."
   It was making no sense, "Huh? What are you saying? I'm going to remember and then forget again?"
   A wave of confusion seemed to cross her face, "Yes. Sort of. It's complicated and that's why I think waiting is probably the best way for this to work."
   "It's like you're talking in circles," I shook my head. "I'm being overloading with nothing here."
   "I'm sorry," she said again, and frowned. "It's complicated."
   That felt right. "Something tells me it's always complicated."
   She chortled. "You have no idea."
   "Ha, you made a joke."
   She smirked.
   It suddenly occurred to me that she hadn't answered my original question, "Can you tell me who you are at least?"
   "My name is Myra, and you don't know very much more I'm afraid," she said.
   "You mean even if I could remember."
   She nodded, "There's a bit more, but it's my fault you're here."
   "Oh, great," I said. "At least I know who to blame."
   Her face shifted quickly in and out of sadness.
   "What?" I asked.
   She shook her head, and the sadness was gone, "No. Nothing."
   Myra stood up and looked around. "I should get back. They think I work in the pharmacy and I've probably been gone too long."
   "Okay," I said trying to put that together with what else I knew. Which was nothing, so it didn't help.
   "For now, you are still Tom Baxter, alright?" She adjusted the straps of the white apron she was wearing, then smoothed out the creases.
   "Yes," I said.
   "Even if you suddenly remember your name, it's important that you don't say you're anyone else. These people are very skittish and they seem likely to shoot you as spy even if you're not."
   "Am I?"
   She looked at me and I locked with her eyes, "Are you what?"
   "A spy?"
   Myra looked around again, "No, you are not a spy. I can tell you we do not belong here and the faster we get going, the better. We're running out of time."
   "What does that mean?"
   Myra shook her head again, "No, don't worry about it now."
   This was more confusing, "I have no idea what to actually be worried about."
   "Try to get some sleep," she leaned over and kissed me on the forehead.
   "It will look better in the morning," and she darted off down the opposite end from the nurse's station and disappeared through the door.
   I tried to process it all, but I kept coming up with nothing. I felt like I had just gotten through with a 20-minute conversation of vital importance, where absolutely nothing was said.
   After awhile, I drifted back off to sleep and dreamt of long, whirlpool tunnels of light and pain.