I am awake.  My eyes are blinded by the sunlight which drips through the cracks like hot wax on my face and eyes.  Where am I?  I have a thirst for water like a drowning man to air.  My limbs, especially my withered legs, ache from being unable to move from this fetal position that I have been lying in for what seems like weeks.  My head aches wit confusion from this immense heat and prolonged lack of water.  Even the slight task of remembering my name is proving to be difficult.  My name.  What is my name?  I wish I could remember that minute detail of my existence.  I need to escape.  I need to remember.

A few hours of this pass before it is finally dusk and the heat is not as bad as it was earlier.  Now my head can cool off and start to think without too much of that unbearable heat.  I know that whatever I am inside of is worn and tattered as there are holes in the exterior which let in all this dam sunlight.  Maybe if I could feel for the edges of a hinge or the door maybe I could break out.  I feel along the inside with my hands and it is upholstered with the most foul smelling fabric I have ever smelt.  But then again, it smells so familiar.  There.  I know what that is.  You know.  This isn’t a regular car, but a 1991 Volvo S60.  This is your old crappy car with the sticky clutch.  The smell has been like that ever since a skunk got in and sprayed back here and you couldn’t ever get it out.  The only release to the trunk is in the front but you know there is no way to get there.  Well this is it.  Im going to die without knowing my own name in the trunk of my own car.  I feel the sudden desire to sleep.  How awful could it be to die in your sleep?

WAKE UP YOU FOOL.  You can not give up now!  How could I ever forget telling everyone how safe Volvo was?  I reach my hand up for my savior: the interior trunk release.  I pull hard on the handle and I hear the click of  the latch releasing and i can feel the cold night breeze.  I sit up and every muscle in my legs seizes up.  This is the first time in days that I can stretch my legs.  I can only see what this nearly full moon allows me to.  It seems I am in the middle of a desert.  How am I going to escape this?  Something glistens in the moonlight.  I walk towards it and as i get closer I can make out a rectangular shape in the dust.  I pick up this thing that looks like a name tag.  The name has been removed from it so I still have no idea who I am.  Right bellow the place where the name would be is a logo but my eyes are weak in this dim light.  I can finally identify the origin of this name tag: “STAPLES”.  Then on the ground where the name tag was there is another object.  Yes.  The keys to my car.  Starting that heap of trash will be hard but I need to get out of here.  I need to find the person or people who have trapped me in my own car in an attempt to kill me.  What have I done?  What would merit my punishment?

The car is the same as I left it.  Why did they not slash the tires?  Or do something so I would truly be trapped forever.  I look past the small details and insert the keys into the ignition and turn and to my surprise the battery works because I hear the engine putting but the damn thing will not turn over.  I check the backseat for one of my possessions that i need to start the engine.  Its here!  The sledge hammer I bought for one purpose: to hit the engine block so it starts.  And bam the car starts.  “Alright alright we’re in business” I said as that is usually what I say for anything I accomplish.  Now to put the car into gear and get out of this hell.  

It doesn’t take long for me to find my way along the road back to the highway.  A sign for an exit to go to Reno.  So this is Nevada.  I have never stepped foot outside New York in my whole life.  I have $2.36 in my glove compartment so I stop at a shady looking gas station  and buy a water with the small amount of change I found in the trunk and back seats.  I drink the whole thing like it was nothing for this is my first amount of any liquid since “they” got me.  I start to think about why?  Why me of all people?  I don’t remember hurting anyone enough to make them want revenge.  My head starts to pound with the strenuous thinking I have just done.  I still must be dehydrated.

 I look into a mirror and see something that was not there before.  My eyes are now two different colors instead of just blue.  Now my eyes are blue in the left and red in the right.  I know it isn’t contacts because I can’t feel any on my eyes.  What has been done to me?  I start to inspect my body for any more abnormalities.  I have a tattoo on my arm that reads “0001”.  It has a bar code over it and now I start to panic.  Have I been tagged to be hunted?  Why else would they leave me with my keys and a way to escape?  I still don’t even know how to describe “they” because it has slipped my mind as to who I am.  I haven’t cared until now as to what I was doing before being trapped in that car.  I walk back o0ut to my car and get back on the road.  I’ll just drive until the gas is all  gone or until I remember.  

I arrive in the city of Las Vegas.  I get out of my car right after the gas tank goes dry.  I’m fairly close to an off ramp so I won’t have to walk on a highway for long.  I walk down city streets and try to jolt my memory.  Then suddenly I walk past a shop that looks abandoned but something about it looks so familiar.  I walk in and there is a wallet on the floor.  I pick it up and take the twenty dollars that i will use exclusively on food for my aching stomach.  But then the drivers license…. is mine.  It has my picture and my name.  My name!  It all comes back.  I am a hit man.  I was hired to take out a mob boss.  The job went bad and they tried to kill me but they don’t know that I escaped.  The amnesia I was previously suffering from was from a drug they forced me to take.  Now I can see clearly into my memories.  They are going to pay for putting me through so much pain.  My name is Earl Winter and I’m on a path of destruction.

I flip over the third shelf on the farthest left corner in the store and my rifle is still there.  Idiots should have taken my gun too.  Before I wasn’t ready but now I am and they’re going to wish they hadn’t left me alive.  I researched this job for months and I know where he’s going to be tomorrow night.  I need to start walking now if I am going to make it for 7:00.  I’m here in the hotel room right across the street from where he will be.  He arrives and I am completely set up.  I see my target in my sights but maybe I shouldn’t pull the trigger.  If I kill this one guy then the rest will know that I’m still alive and this time it won’t just be the trunk.  I’ll be shot in the back and thrown in a ditch.  I step away from the gun and walk out the door.  This is my chance to become a person who isn’t afraid of being locked in a car for days.  Its time for a change.