I: LATE
Throughout college I never slept through my alarm. I had places to be and things to get done… always. I’d wake up as early as 6 and I’d have no trouble dressing up. I used to enjoy taking long and cold showers before my eyes could adjust to the luminosity of a new day. It would be red and violet, it would be orange and blue, the sky. It was as dark as it was bright and there wouldn’t be a day when I’d sleep through such beautiful view of the morning. I’d ride my bicycle to the farthest cafeteria on campus because it had the best pancakes. And I wouldn’t mind spending all that time for the smallest things that accomplished to make me joyous. Pancakes made me feel absolutely blissful. The thick maple syrup, golden brown like the vast deserts of Africa… It would take hours for the syrup to pour down from the porcelain bottle onto my neatly stacked, fluffy pancakes but I’d wait. I wouldn’t shake the bottle and I wouldn’t tap on it to make the tempting syrup pour out faster. I’d wait… for the syrup to flow like waterfalls in stop motion. And even that blonde leisurely stream of maple could instantly make me content.
Today, I didn’t even hear my alarm go off. I’m not considered old yet I feel my senses diminishing day by day. I’d be able to see miles afar in an amphitheatre or a football field but now I scrunch my eyes before the TV screen that takes up nearly half of my wall in the living room. Talking with friends, I feel it harder to actually hear what they’re saying. My mind drifts elsewhere and before I realize I’ve completely detached myself from the conversation, they come up with a question. So I nod and if it wasn’t the answer they’ve been waiting for I nod a bit more. I get lost in between dreary dialogues so often that at the end of the day an excruciating pain develops on my neck; it is because of all the nodding.
I nod to my boss the most. In fact, I unconsciously signed myself up for a business trip by nodding to him yesterday. And now I’m late. My plane boards in an hour. The amount of traffic is insane and I’m still not dressed. It has gotten harder to dress. My body rejects every piece of clothing. Leather or polyester, Corduroy or cotton… Sometimes my skin itches, sometimes I feel trapped and often, I’m just self conscious of my flesh that’s growing bigger, older and more frigid by the night. I put on my blouse and pants nevertheless and get out.
It’s brisk outside when I leave my flat on Unity Road. The sky is indigo with grey clouds embedded on it. The morning has long passed and I am late for my flight. I take the subway to avoid traffic and pray that I won’t accidentally fall asleep on my way there and miss my stop. Coffee-less mornings are hard, perhaps even harder than dressing up.
When I finally get to the airport it doesn’t take a lot of time to get through security because I have no personal belongings, I never do. I feel it’s easier that way. Through security I realize my plane must have already boarded but there’s no point in checking the time. I could easily avoid the truth and post-pone that feeling of shame. And so, I move on. I decide it’s best if I push through the crowd of people on the check-in queue without giving them an excuse so I’ll be faster. I’m already sweaty and move extremely quickly that people are grossed both of my attitude and my horrific smell. Some smirk, and some yell after me but I can’t risk missing this flight.
-Miss I’d like to remind that there are people in front of you.
-I know but I’m really late!
It seemed like the woman at the check-in desk was aggravated because of my smell too. I could see she was doing something weird with her face, like she was allergic to me, like I’d made her feel very uneasy.
-Your ID?, she asks furrowing her brows.
I hand in my ID to her and wait, thinking what always takes their computers so long. Technology seems unbearably primitive at times as such.
-Miss, it seems Alice Young has already boarded the airplane.
-But I am Alice Young.
-The computer says otherwise.
-Then check again! I have to be on that plain or I’ll miss my meeting and I’ll get myself fired!
-Miss Young, someone with your ID number has already boarded the plane. On time. I’m afraid I have to call security.
II: INTERROGATION
I was taken to a small room behind the security, with grey concrete walls and two metal chairs in the middle. They were facing each other and even when nobody was sitting on the chairs, the whole thing just looked like a contemporary art project titled ‘threat’. It looked like a scene from a film noir except there was only one shade of grey and I don’t think I looked like an attractive damsel in distress. I was in distress but it had only made me sweat more. I tried not to ever raise my arms because I was afraid my white shirt had turned yellow under my armpits. The room was much smaller than you’d expect, and I thought maybe they had done that on purpose. Your interrogator would be only inches apart from you. I still remember his eye color and the intimidating smell of cologne drenched in smoke. Airports do have very particular smells. Like they have been cleaned so many times yet with horrible products that they somehow still stink. He smelled different, more intimidating. He smelled a little like power. And because he was so close to me, his breath would hit my face every time he spoke up. A wave of wind, of bad coffee and even worse tobacco.
My ID wasn’t enough so a series of questions followed. I had to be interrogated to prove my identity. The last time I had answered so many questions about myself was in therapy which I eventually stopped going to because I felt like it took more money from me then it gave…anything. But the second time around I felt worse at answering the simplest questions. I couldn’t recall memories, I couldn’t recall emotions. I just stared at the interrogator’s face. He had an abnormally large mole and I was thinking if he’d ever get it removed. Meanwhile questions about my childhood went through one ear and out the other. He asked about my hometown, and why I had moved, if I was still in contact with both my parents, what I studied and where I worked at the moment. I knew where I worked and what I did perfectly well so I tried to tell him I’d get fired if he kept me there for longer. But because I couldn’t tell my first pet’s name right away, he didn’t let me go. I also didn’t know my kindergarten, I didn’t know any of the questions he asked me about my sister or father. I got my mother’s birthday but he said it didn’t prove I was a part of the Young family. My responses had come out detached and a little forceful. Considering I was being questioned, I though that would be normal. Then I realized they must be questioning the girl on the plane as well. Surely in such situation I couldn’t be the only suspect. And surely, the forger would be worse at the questions.
- Are you asking the same questions to the fake Alice Young? And don’t I get to call my lawyer and stuff, I’m quiet at a loss right now, Mr…
- Alice Young’s plane is already in flight.
- And she’ s on the plane.
- She is, it’s been 20 minutes.
- So now you just let suspects fly wherever, she could take away my whole career.
- But you are the only criminal in the airport Miss…
- Miss Young. And what is it that I’m guilty of? Are you blaming me for identity theft?
He looked at me as if I was missing the whole point. As if there was a meaning behind all of this and I was the only outsider who still couldn’t comprehend it. He had the looks of a stern teacher and a disappointed mother. It was hard to tell if he pitied me or just loathed my existence.
- Loss.
The word loss is of Germanic origin. In old English it meant ruin or destruction. In a way it blames the subject for the disruption of a prevailing nature. Annihilation of something valuable. Of beauty and serenity. It is a bad change that you are responsible for. Now it also means the “failure to hold, keep, or preserve what was once in one’s possession”. It holds the subject guilty, still.
- Loss?
- Loss of identity.
III: -LESS
I couldn’t comprehend how I had committed such a weird crime, yet, sat in that room, the first thing I thought of was how much they would make me pay. Perhaps they would put me in jail, but then for how many days, or weeks, or even months. If they made me pay, I’d be in debt for years and if they put me in jail, I’d lose my job, if I hadn’t already. Perhaps they would hold an execution ceremony amongst themselves. There was no capitol punishment in my country, but then again I had no recollection of the crime of ‘loss of identity’ either. So there still was a high chance of the existence of beheading festivals for officials or some sort of gory ways of punishment that I just wasn’t aware of.
But they let me go. After declaring what I was guilty of, a police officer took hold of my hand and dragged me out of the airport. When we were out he didn’t throw me on the ground like you’d expect, he didn’t threaten me or even close the doors behind me. I was left alone in the middle of the street with nothing to do, without the slightest warning, having just learned that I was a criminal.
I have had to live with so many labels throughout my life. Some I had discovered on my own and some were given by ruthless classmates. I had no choice but to learn how to live with labels. Some would be harder to get used to than others and some you’d wish to call yourself for years but no one label would satisfy to define you. I repeated this thought to myself over and over again so I wouldn’t focus on how I was a ‘criminal’ now, I was so many other things still. Yet as I dwelled on it more I realized most criminals were only known by a single label and it was the one that declared them guilty. No one knew who they really were. If they had jobs or families, anything that could make them stand out amongst the other thousands of criminals. But if I had already lost my identity, I had nothing else to lose in terms of labels. Maybe this meant I would learn to live without them for the first time.
I started my way back home as I kept thinking about being label-less. I didn’t know what else I could do. Where else I could go to and be accepted as a criminal. I felt weightless, like no one knew me and I didn’t know anyone. Before, when I rode the metro I would always feel as if people were watching me. I’d be careful to sit up straight and not lean on one side too much. I’d keep my eyes down to not seem like I was staring at someone for appropriately long. But now I almost felt invisible. Instead of looking down I kept looking around and no one seemed to mind at all.
I reached my apartment and took out my keys. Though surprisingly they didn’t fit my lock. From time to time my hands would get sweaty or I’d be too drunk to hold the keys right. But this time, despite all my effort, I couldn’t get in. If it was any other day, I’d blame myself for being too clumsy and having the strength of a four year old which would let me down when it came to locks and keys. But today was different. Today, there had to be yet another bizarre reason. It struck me then that I had probably lost all my property along with my identity. Being nameless came with being homeless and jobless. Had I lost my friends and family too, I couldn’t tell because I practically had no one here anyway. My only belongings now were the clothes I was wearing and one broken cell phone that I didn’t even have the money to pay for anymore.
I sat down on the stairs in front of my apartment. I had never sat on these stairs before, they would get dust all over them and my allergies were really bad. I had never thought of how I could find something to eat cash-less either. I had never not been Alice... or I thought I
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