I’ve been dead since the beginning, though I do not know the difference between the beginning and where I am now - or who I am now - and I do not know where where is. I do not remember where I was going or where I have been. I only know that I am here - in this place.

  The asphalt burns my skin as I lay down in my long white dress. Where am I? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Nothing is sacred here - not even my memories. I turn my head to my left. Tall dead grass that stretches into the horizon. No trees. No people. Only gentle rolling too-green hills around me. I could venture but what would be the point of that? There is only grass. There’s always only just grass.

  I turn my head to the right. A small rickety gas station, much smaller than the flat blacktop around it. The air, if you could call it that, held a tinge of gasoline. I imagined it was once a stop for truckers, run by some good honest family, people who survived off the sweat of their brow. Now it is only an barren place filled up only by the humid air. I can’t say I imagine anything now. I imagine nothing. There is only the blazing sun above me, the grass below, and the fire that consumes us all.

  Where am I? Where am I? Where am I?

  I stare at the gas station, and how it’s white paint reflects the sun so bright against the hills. I hear creaking in the distance, or maybe it was only the wind, except there is no wind here, only the effects of it, the gentle hills becoming a wide sea of rolling waves of grass. I stare at the sun; it’s bright yellow halo, it’s rainbows, and glorious rays. My skin burns red, my lips chapped and dry. Someplace somewhere in the distance the smoky smell of burning rubber came over me. That’s when I see it - a luscious green vine from sights unimaginable grows down, stretching and careening, towards me.

  I hold no fear - this was meant to happen. The vine grows ever down, stopping before my face, and from it’s tendril grows a small luscious peach. I pick it from the stem and the vine fades from existence as if it never existed at all.

  I take a bite. Peach juice runs down my chin. I savored its sweetness, its tender flesh, its delightful ambrosia, and when I finish I stare again at the sun, my eyes watering, laying still in my inertia. I close my eyes, the heat and humidity intensifies. Where am I? Where am I? It doesn’t matter. I am Here. In This Place. Nothing here matters like nothing mattered Before. I lay there forever, in a long silence, as my flesh sloughs off my bones leaving me bare.

  I woke up in a field.

  I raised my head from the rough grass, dead and burned. I stood up fast, moving the hair covering my eyes away. I turned around and then back to see that the rolling hills under the bright blue sky were empty, except a small silver of a road down at the bottom of the hillside I once was.

  “What the fuck,” I said patting down my dress pockets for a cellphone, or anything, that could link be back to where I used to be, or tell me where I was then, but my pockets were empty. I thought back to the past, and how I could’ve gotten to where I am now, but I couldn’t remember. I thought I had been drugged, or I had drank myself into a black-out. That would explain why I had nothing on me, but I did not seem harmed, nor did I feel hung-over, and that didn’t explain why I was wherever I was.

  I wiped my eyes from dirt on the ground. There was a road, I thought, and roads lead somewhere. I walked slow down the steep hillside, almost stumbling down, until I reached the black road of faded yellow and white lines. I looked up at the sun, bright and gleaming as ever, but I did not feel warmth on my skin. I did not feel the wind, which I knew had to be present as the tall grass waved all around me, but I did not feel that either. I was neither cold or warm, only temperate.

  Signs. There had to be signs. I turned to see a large metal sign facing away from me, but when I walked to see it’s face it was nothing but white. I searched for others, and others I saw: yellow signs, red signs, and more large white signs as I walked further on but they were all blank. I thought the road must’ve been abandoned, that the sun must have caused the road signs to fade, which meant there was no one to maintain them.

  I walked past the signs, the road being the only hope I had of finding anyone, either in a town miles away or, even better, a car passing through. The road remained empty for as long as I walked. I had no concept of time, I could’ve been walking minutes or hours, but I soothed myself by telling myself that all roads lead somewhere. Someone had to pass through eventually.

  A small white house come into my view near the road edge. I walked at a faster pace. If they were home, I thought, they must have a phone, or how to get to the nearest town for me to get one, or tell me where I was. As I came closer I saw an older woman with heavy-set wrinkles come out of a rusty storm door wearing a tattered old-fashioned white dress and a cigarette in hand.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  I started running, “Ma’am!”

  She turned towards me but she had a hard, blank face.

  “Ma’am!” I yelled and stopped near the steps to her porch, “Ma’am! You have to help me! I don’t know how- I’m so lost. I need a phone or-”

  “We have no phone here.”

  “Do you have a map? Or a car?” I said catching my breath, “please, ma’am, I don’t know - where am I?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me, “You’re right here aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but where? What town? What state?”

  “So you’ve tasted the fruit then?” she said, her eyes narrowed at me as she took a drag of her cigarette and blew it out, “must be nice.”

  “What?!” I said, “No, Ma’am, I’m just lost. Please I just want to get home.”

  She shrugged, “I don’t know what to tell you. You are where you are.”

  I didn’t know what to say. The woman walked closer to the end of the porch, “Joshua! Noah! You both come back here right now!”

  I turned around to where the woman was yelling, but there was nothing but flat plains. I looked around elsewhere to see if they were elsewhere, but it was all empty.

  “Ma’am,” I said with some hesitation, “I don’t think anyone else is here.”

  She turned her head sharp to me, “You don’t see them.”

  The woman called for them again, and again I did not see anyone in the area. I thought the woman must have been off her rocker, and would not be much help to me.

  “Thank you, Ma’am,” I said before I walked past the house further down the road.

  I walked further for miles, but I did not feel hungrier or thirstier than I did when I started my journey. The landscape did not change much. I passed by blank signs after blank signs as tumbleweeds blew across the road. I scanned my surroundings to see if I could see anyone else, any more houses, or any sign of life. I hoped to reach something before the sun went down, and at one point I stopped to look up and see where the sun was in the sky, but it was still right above me, and I thought not as much time went by as I thought.

  Another hour, perhaps, went by before I finally reached a town. I called for people as soon as I saw the first building at the edge, but I kept moving as I saw no sign of life. All the buildings were white, plain, and old-fashioned; broken steps, caved in roofs, broken windows. The buildings seemed better the further I got in town, and into what I assumed was more of a town center.

  I saw a man with sleek black hair wearing a suit without the jacket leaning against the side of one of the buildings. He seemed young, or younger than the woman I had seen, more similar to my own age. I ran up to him.

  “Sir! Please I need your help!”

  “Of course, what can I do for you?” he said standing up straight.

  That seemed like a good sign. “Please I am lost. I need a phone, or a map or-”

  “Okay Miss just calm down - breathe,” he said, “just come into my office.”

  I nodded, “Okay.”

  The man motioned to the door of the building, which seemed well-built compared to the other buildings. He led me past a room with a staircase, into one further back into the building. There was a musty, perhaps a dry mildew smell around, and the floor was covered in a thin layer of dust, the man’s dress shoes making imprints behind him.

  He opened a door and motioned me inside. It was a small room, with a basic desk, and a window behind. There were bookcases behind the desk but no books, the light from the windows making the dust on the shelves even more prominent.

  “Sit down, please,” he said as he sat himself behind the desk.

  “Who are you?” I started, but then I realize that was rude, “I mean - what is your name?”

  “I am,” he begun, “a kind of…estate agent.”

  “I see,” I said, even though it didn’t seem there was anyone alive to need such a person. I couldn’t imagine he got many customers, but maybe that was why his office was in such disrepair.

  “Where is everyone?”

  He tilted his head, “what do you mean?”

  “This town seems abandoned,” I said, “I’ve hardly seen a single soul.”

  His mouth turned up at that but then return to his neutral expression, “you only do not see them. They do not like travelers passing through.”

  “Oh,” I said. That explained why the woman was so odd with me.

  The flies that weren’t buzzing around the room were trapped in the paper fly traps scattered around the room. Other than the two people I had met, they were the only living things I had seen.

  “Where am I?”

  “The middle,” he said. I waited, thinking that he would continue speaking, such as say the name of the town, for instance, but he didn’t, “we are sort of in the middle.”

  “The middle of-” I said, but decided I only needed to know how to get out. The name of the town did not matter, “-whatever never mind. I just need to know how to get home. Do you have a phone here? A bus station? A map? Literally anything I can use to get back home?”

  “Of course,” he said, “I am always willing to accompany a lost soul. Where is your home?”

  I opened by mouth to speak but stopped when I couldn’t form the name of it. I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t recall the city I was form, what state, what country even. I couldn’t even remember what my home looked like.

  “You can’t remember, can you?”

  “Well I-”

  “Then what is the point of returning?”

  “What?” I said, “I want to go home. Can I at least have a map? I can figure it all out from there.”

  He leaned back, his chair creaking, “we have no maps here.”

  “What town doesn’t have a map?”

  He shrugged and leaned on his desk, “well, you may stay if you wish, for a time, but I would leave before sundown. The locals here do not like visitors."