Walking into the Next Room – a story by Russ Bickerstaff

Walking Into the Next Room

It was one of those moments where you walk into a room and do you forget why you went there. Clearly you’d forgotten something but you don’t remember what it was. That’s what it was for me. At that moment. Walking into that room. Not really certain why it was that I was walking into that room. And knowing that I’d forgotten something. And it was something that was really important. But I couldn’t remember what it was. Because I couldn’t remember why wanted to the room presumably.

But maybe there was more to it than that. I didn’t know exactly what it was. I had no idea exactly what it could be. As near as I can make out of it must not of been very important as it was the case that I had rather casually forgotten that. And I knew that really important things weren’t likely to be forgotten just at the entrance for room or anything like that. So I figured I was probably pretty much OK with the whole situation. One moment I was in one room and the next moment I was in the next room. And I just Jordan forgotten how I got in to be there. And there was something kind of big about that assessment that seem to be prominently wrong. But I couldn’t seem to remember exactly what it was.

I took a mental inventory of everything that I’ve done. And everything that I was doing. And everything that was going on my life. And there seem to be a major discrepancy between what I remember and what was actually going on. I felt as though there is something really basic that I was missing but I couldn’t remember what it was. It started to seem like maybe it wasn’t really even any of my business what it was. But I knew I was missing something fairly major. And I couldn’t figure out what it was. Add all of this needless and senseless repetition just kept going through my skull.

And I knew that I wasn’t really getting anywhere. Clearly I had forgotten something. But I couldn’t remember what it was. And it was a bit of a distraction. It was a bit of a distortion. actually I just sort of hit me as I walked out of the room to go back to wherever it was that I had been. I had walked from the room that I found myself into the other room and then back again when it occurred to me what I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten about the past 10 years. Or sell. I had casually forgotten about the past 10 years. And I was sort of scrambling to try to figure out what was going on as I was sort of losing my balance. I mean, there I was in one room and there he was in the other room. And that I have lost ten years of past. Then that I just sort of forgotten about. Casually. On my way from one room to the next. And I knew it was not exactly healthy to have casually miss placed the 10 years like that.

But I knew that I was onto something. And there was a kind of a satisfaction and haven’t been able to figure it out in the first place. I mean, you lose something that big and it’s really easy to forget. I mean I know the logic there doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. But it stands to reason that if you lose something as big as 10 years that your mind is going to find a way to compensate. Just for the sake of your own sanity. I mean, they are you are completely absent from a whole decade of your own life. Are you going to go crazy if you fully acknowledge it.

So maybe it’s just so big it’s like the elephant in the room or whatever. You didn’t know it was there because it clearly was way too big to be fully acknowledge it. Just sort of deal with it and move on. The way people move on from the size of the universe for the fact that we have enough nuclear weapons to completely wipe out all the life on the planet or that were in the middle of the biggest extinction in the history of the world or whatever. Are used to serve except those are the things and move on because you don’t really have anything else to do.

But there was the whole issue that I was still not entirely dealing with. The whole issue of whether or not I really should be concerned about having lost 10 years of my life from one room to the next. Clearly something it happened and it was probably going to happen again and if it did I would be like 20 years older than I was when I got up from the couch just now. And that’s not something anyone has to deal with. Or want to have to deal with.

And so maybe if I just walk back towards it’ll be 10 years ago. That’s kind of what I’m figuring. I know the logic doesn’t make a whole lot of sense they are. But it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that it would take you 10 years to move from one room to the next anyway so I figure is long as nothing is making sense I might as will just walk backwards through the last 10 years that I missed. And it really feels like I’m sitting there like the 10 years didn’t happen. I figure it probably is the case that the 10 years didn’t happen. And I’m looking at the watch and I’m looking at the date then I’m figuring that’s probably the case although I’m so confused right now it’s so hard to tell.

At the very least, I’m comfortable. I feel perfectly healthy. And I don’t feel 10 or even 20 years older. So I guess I’ve got that much going on. However, I really have to pay closer attention. This sort of thing can happen out of nowhere. That’s what they tell me.