Bea woke up and blinked. She took a look around her room: cold and sterile, fake wood panels and linoleum floors. She blinked again, rubbed her eyes, and tried to orient herself. The bed was…comfortable, but not her own, or probably not her own. She sat up and felt a tug on her chest.
A cord ran from her thin, white and blue dress to a screen of some sort propped up on a metal stand. The idea, the words, the thoughts, the meaning of the screen, it tickled her brain, begging her to think just a little harder, a little longer, but the purpose, the meaning, it slipped past her.
Next to the stand was an end table, sparse and utilitarian, matching the fake wood panels that ran along the wall. Sitting on it was a picture frame. In the picture were two figures, laughing. The one on the left she knew, or was fairly certain she knew. It was a woman with short cut hair and prominent laugh lines around her round dark eyes. But thinking about it for too long upset her, caused the tickle to grow.
(more…)