There is only the sound of your breaths, the quiet thudding of your sneakers rolling off the sidewalk. Each step is good and easy, your back straight as if you’re being pulled from above. You cut through someone’s front yard and hop a low wood fence. Slowly, block after block, the neighborhood twists into the dry hills, a view peeking out beyond the houses and trees.

Up ahead there’s a house. Clay roof, high hedges. The half moon window in the front is dark. You push through the gate and into the yard, spotting a flower bush several feet wide. You crawl underneath it, letting your stomach press against the cool earth, a momentary relief from the heat.

You stay there as a police car rolls past, pausing several times as it winds back down the street. When you turn on your side, cradling your head in your hands, you notice the mark on the inside of your right wrist. It’s still sore, the tattoo covered in a thin scab. It’s a bird silhouetted inside a box, the outline too generic to distinguish the type. Letters and numbers are printed just below: FNV02198.

What does it mean? Why were you just lying on the subway tracks? Why can’t you remember how you ended up there, how you got to that station, this city? You look down at your clothes, feeling like you’re in costume. The jeans don’t fit, the tee shirt is baggy in the wrong places, and your laces aren’t tied tight enough. You can’t shake the sickening feeling that you didn’t dress yourself.

A dog barks. Somewhere two little girls giggle, their voices rising and falling as they swing higher on their creaky swing set. Cars pass on the street below. You sit there,

listening to each sound as if it’s a clue. Think, you tell yourself. Remember. But there is nothing there. No words, no thoughts. No memories of anything that came before.

When the sky turns from pink to black you crawl out from under the bush and dump the contents of the pack on the scorched grass, sorting them quickly in a straight line. There are a few plastic zip ties. There’s a map with a star marked in black pen. Foil bags, the tee shirt, the notepad and pocketknife, and a red vial of mace.

You dig into the last pockets of the bag, double checking the thin lining to make sure there’s nothing hidden inside. In a pocket on the knapsack’s front you find wad of money held together by a rubber band. You thumb through it, your hands unsteady. It’s one thousand dollars.

You open the notepad to a fresh page, smooth down the paper and write:

THINGS I KNOW ARE TRUE:

--I AM IN LOS ANGELES

--I WOKE UP ON THE TRAIN TRACKS AT THE VERMONT/SUNSET STATION

--I AM A GIRL

--I HAVE LONG BLACK HAIR

--I HAVE A BIRD TATTOO ON THE INSIDE OF MY RIGHT WRIST (FNV02198)

--I AM A RUNNER