The Devil in the details

         Adam was staring at another ceiling. It was not an unfamiliar feeling, even now while he was in the earliest part of waking, still unaware that he was Adam Blake of north Pratt street, aged 28 and one third, the feeling of looking at an alien ceiling was familiar. Presently he was recalling that he was not in his own home and that his favorite food was salmon (a choice he was ridiculed about throughout grade school, the faces were floating up in his memory of children laughing at him in grade school. He had a nagging feeling that he had never been exceedingly popular. He was undisturbed by this, as the portion that was even more used to this notion bubbled back into his consciousness.)
         Adam could now recall with crystal clarity his entire life and who he was. None of this helped him identify the ceiling. He was almost totally certain that he had never seen this ceiling before in his life. It was all white plaster and water stains. He tugged the threads of memory loose to recall his own ceiling, in his less tan fashionable one room apartment. His ceiling had once been an office buildings ceiling. It was florescent lights and cheap tiling. He moved his hand cautiously about his side. He was laying in a puddle of something.
         He rolled his eyes back into his head and sighed. He hoped it wasn't something awful, this puddle he was in. When he was nine he had wet his bed for the first time since he was three and also for the last time in his life. Not an accomplishment he went about bragging on, but something he was noticing in that very moment he was quite proud of and was a streak he desperately hoped he hadn't broken. He rolled onto his side and tried to climb to his knees.
         His legs gave out and he found himself face down in a a puddle of unknown origin on a totally alien floor. The floors were hardwood, but not wonderfully kept hardwood. They seemed worn down in the way wood gets with constant exposure to water. Whatever enamel remained on the wood was very much not the sort that would protect his face from splintering wood. He tried once more with considerable effort to make it to his knees.
         For whatever reason this time his body obeyed him. He found himself on his knees in the middle of what appeared to be an abandoned building. He grunted with effort as he made his way to his feet. A drop of water fell from somewhere above him onto his glasses. He looked up to see a large leak in the ceiling which had produced the puddle he had woken up in (He breathed a great sigh of relief at this. Glad, even though he had no idea where he was or how he had arrived there, that at the very least he had not produced the puddle himself.)
         He began to look around for a bathroom. He found none. Which was unfortunate, since after realizing that he had not made the puddle in this dank room he had gone on to realize that he had to piss. He gave up on finding a bathroom and focused on finding an exit. For the next twenty minutes he found many doorways, each leading to a different but no less rundown version of the room he had begun in. Still he had found no exit. He did find a sink. The water didn't work in the faucet but it was good enough to piss into. Which he did.
         He felt weird pissing in this strange place. If he had learned anything in his horribly polite life it was that he should not piss in sinks. Still he had few options. When he was through he wandered the decrepit place with a lighter bladder. He searched for what felt like hours but could not find any exit, though he had managed to find several staircases. They all descended to a point about four floors below the one he begun on before uniformly becoming to torn up to continue downwards. He decided to try to at least get his bearings. So he headed up the steps toward what he hoped was a roof.
         After two hours of sweaty work he found a door as the very last flight of stairs ended. He tried the knob but it would not turn. He thought it odd that any door in this place would be locked. He had now been here more than long enough to realize that the entire building was almost certainly condemned. He had not once encountered another human being, or indeed any signs of recent life. Not even evidence of squatters staying overnight to escape the rain.
         He stared at the door and tried to remember how he had gotten to this building. He tried to remember anything from the last few days. Nothing seemed to coalesce in his head. He recalled events from his life, he remembered fragments of events from what he assumed was last night (although he had the strangest feeling that it had all happened much longer ago than that.) He remembered his friend Gary had taken him out. Adam had just broken up with someone. A girl. He couldn't remember her name, they were dating very briefly he imagine. Gary had taken him out. It had been said that it was about time to get back on the market.
         They were at a place with loud music and poor lighting. Adam had not liked it there. He had wanted to leave from the moment he had stepped through the door until the moment that he saw the raven haired beauty in the far corner. Something about her was magical. Her skin was winter like, if there could be such a thing, her eyes made him think of countries on the equator and fires raging in years far gone. She wore no makeup, but had on a red dress which seemed made of either velvet or a kind of liquid. When she moved it was fluid, when she laughed it was delicate and when she kissed it was passionate. They had been dancing. The music didn't seem the same when she held him. Nothing did.

         Adam sat in his room. He had her picture in his hand. Victoria. She had ripped his heart from his chest and left in it's place a gaping hole, from which the outside world could see the emptiness of his body. He was nothing with out her. Her long autumn hair, her chestnut eyes, her spark that seemed to pass a kind of life into everything and everyone she touched. He had spent seven years with her. Four of which he would trade for nothing and three he wanted nothing more than to give to someone else. She had ruined him. He knew it even then. She had broken him in a way that no amount of time could fix.
         She had whispered lies into his ear about love and life and forever. She had meant none of it. Or she had meant it when she had said it, but the season for such things had passed. She was done with Adam. She was tired of him. He dreamed too big, but fell short on the skill to match she had claimed. He would forever be in his dead end corporate job, he would never write his novel she had chided. He was too comfortable with his life and it was beginning to show in his weight she had spit venom. She was gone now. For hours or days or months he could not tell.
         He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. It was impossible to tell how many times he had preformed the same perfunctory routine before Gary knocked on his door.

         He stood before the door. He had gone out. Gary had taken him out. Where? He couldn't remember the name of the place. It was a party or a club. It was loud it was horrible. There had been a girl. He remembered the girl. She was beautiful. She had taken his hand and lead him to the dance floor. There had been a dance floor. It was like the flooring in the gym at his high school, or was it more like the forest? He remembered leaves on the ground, but he didn't know why.
         She danced like magic. Not real magic, stage magic. It had been so effortless, but in a way that suggested years of practice. She was a showman and the dance floor (be it high school gym or forest floor) was her stage. He was humbled. He had never been a dancer. He was the sort to stand in the corner and let his foot tap out the rhythm of the music. The type to always lack the nerve to ask a girl to dance. The type that wished a girl would take his hand and give him his chance to shine. He could be great if only he was given the chance, he was sure of it.
         He had danced with her for hours. What was her name. She had told him. Victoria? Who was Victoria? Fiancée. Victoria had been his fiancée. How had he forgotten her name? God what was her name? It was musical. It was lyrical. It made him think of Tolkien, but not because it was absurd, it was a name that had power. His name had power. Who was Victoria again?

         He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone.

         She had told him, in the alley near the bonfire that his name had power. That he had power. She had said that this was why she had danced with him. She felt his power. She knew it because it mirrored hers. She had told him that in her head, as a child, he had been there. As a boy, not as he was then. He had played with her, games of their design. She was from Connecticut. He had told her that he had never been there. She said that he had. They had grown up together. Just him and her in a world of their own making. A world that existed outside of the fleeting place around them (was it a building or a forest?) it was their's and their's alone and no one could ever have it but them.
         She put something in his hand. A gift. She had called it a gift. She had given him a gift. Something he would understand when he looked at it. When he looked at it. He felt it in his pocket. He stared at the door at the end of the stairs, the locked goddamn door, and he felt the gift in his pocket. He knew it was there. He lunged forward, shoulder first into the door. It moved, but did little else. He screamed and he cried and he beat it with is hands. Suddenly, as though it knew when the time was right better than he did, the door swung open.
         He walked out onto the roof.
         She was moving around him in slow lazy circles. He could see Gary at the bar giving him an enthusiastic thumbs up. He remembered smiling a goofy smile. She was infectious. A virus. A plague. A gift. She smelled of honeysuckle and of earth. It was the most wonderful smell he had ever known. The people around them parted as they danced through the crowd. He laughed with a kind of glee he had not had since what's-her-name had left him. This woman with the musical name was all that mattered.

         He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. He woke up, prepared and went to work. He came home and ate and went to bed alone. The ceiling was familiar. His ceiling. It was comforting.

He walked to the edge of the roof and stared out at the city. It was empty. He was very high up, higher than he knew he should have been. The building didn't seem this tall from the inside. There were trees growing up through the Bromo tower. Through the streets. The city was empty in a profound way. He didn't need to examine it. He knew. There were no people here. He was alone. With his memories of...
         “What was her name?” He said aloud.
         He reached into his pocket and pulled the gift out. It was a folded piece of paper. It was yellow with age and had a musky scent to it. As he unfolded it he noticed handwriting. He unfolded it completely and read the words.
                                       “My gift to you, beloved.”
         He folded it up and put it back in his pocket. He stared out at the empty city and knew. He Adam Blake, was the only living person in this city. There was no raven haired girl with a lyrical name. No Gary. No... He could no longer remember His fiancée, not face not name. Had she even been his fiancée? He closed his eyes and sat down. He began to laugh. He had no idea why.