We find our intrepid traveler, crossing the scorching sands of the Sahara desert. The sun viciously beating down upon him with zero remorse. Dry, ardent gusts of air, do nothing but direct an intense flow of heat in his direction, accompanied by sand uplifted and taken to the wind. Making it treacherous to see and barely manageable to breathe. Still, our traveler trudges onward, each step feeling like a snail's crawl, over the vast, barren, sweltering wasteland. The few signs of life are so few and far apart, they might as well have been apparitions. While any source of water is an absolute myth at this point. Not that one would seriously expect or even dream of ever finding a pond in the middle of the desert. Especially, not at this time of day, when the sun was at its highest peak in the sky and burned down upon you, with enough intensity to give you the feeling that you were being roasted alive. Seared like a piece of meat next to an open fire. Your flesh practically sizzling off your bones. There hasn't even been a single cactus seen for miles... and miles... and miles... and miles. Even the scorpions and other predators that normally inhabit this no-man's land are no where to be found. Yet despite the hazardous conditions that this perilous journey presents, the intrepid traveler pushes himself forward. Refusing to stop, for even a second. For even though this grueling trek is torture and every fiber of his very being screams for him to cease his trajectory, he knows that would mean certain death. A death, most foul. Cooked alive, atop the white-hot, seething, sands of the Sahara desert.

"Olive. It's time."


"Just a second, Bernice."


"Come on now. You can finish that later."


"I said just a second!"


"Ms. Pendershore!"


"Come on, man. I'm on a roll. Writing wise. The story is coming together perfectly."


"Excuse me. I am not a man."


"I wasn't precisely saying that you were, it's just... how I talk. You know? You're a man. My roommate Darla is a man. The guy that distributes the pills everyday is a man. That chair over there is a man. You know, if I were addressing it... for some strange, inexplicable reason. For instance, I would say... hey man, why the fuck do you have to be so god damn wobbly? Is one of your legs too short or something? See? Who knows what that chair identifies as, I sure don't, do you? Probably not. That's not the point because when I'm saying the word man, I'm not labeling the chair as a man. The word man is just a filler word that allows whoever... or whatever, I'm talking to at that exact moment to know that I'm still directing my comment at them. You dig my funky ass jive, man? Hah! See? I did it again and I wasn't even trying."


"Mmhmmm."


"Look. I'm starting a new chapter. The idea is fresh. I need to..."


"You best need to get to group before I tell Fritz that you're being stubborn, uncooperative and failing to live up to your daily commitments. You remember what happened the last time, don't you?"


"He took away my typewriter."


"That's right. You don't want that to happen again, now do you?"


"No."


"Okay so lets get to it then. You can take up writing afterwards."


"It won't be the same."


"Yeah well, you're going to have to figure out how to fix that and make it work. You've got group that you're required to attend, meaning you are liable for making an appearance and a contribution. You can't do that if you're plunking away on the keys of that old, archaic piece of ancient machinery."


"Shhhh... quiet, he'll hear you."


"He? Your typewriter is a man."


"Sure, why not? Guys refer to their cars, trucks and motorcycles as women. Therefor, my typewriter can be a man."


"Does 'he' have a name?"


"Absolutely. Richmond."


"Richmond?"


"Yep. Richmond."


"Girl you crazy."


"That's what they tell me."


"Get your ass on to group before you're late and they count you as absent."


"Fine."


Olive begrudgingly, pulled herself from her chair, giving one last, soulful, sad, sorrowful look back at Richmond and her interrupted story, before she exited the room. This was bullshit but there was nothing she could do. She had to comply or suffer the consequences. How did things get this bad though? Where did everything go wrong? How did she wind up here? In this place? That's the thing. She didn't know.


Her entire life she could recall with picture, perfect clarity. Pristine, vivid and with immense accuracy. Down to the minute detail. She could remember it all. Every single fucking moment. Except for what led her here. The path that brought her here was a complete and total blank as well as her initial arrival. An utter void of nothingness rested in its place. Now only a massive black abyss dwell there. Like someone came along and deleted the file, erased it from her mind. As if she were a fucking computer. It was both maddening and terrifying at the sane time.


The worst part was the constant attempts to trigger her memory. Don't worry Olive, it'll come back to you, in due time. Be patient. Stay calm. Don't push yourself but if you can, at least try to remember. Today we're going to attempt meditation. Now we're going to give hypnosis a try. Have a look at these pictures. Listen to this music. Swallow this pill. Eat this food. Smell this incense, really breathe it in, it's supposed to work wonders with helping people to remember stuff they've forgotten. Hey, today you're going to sit in this empty white room, normally something like this drives folks insane but we're hoping it'll kick-start your memory. Here lay in this tank full of water and float for a while, mind the lid we'll be back for you in an hour.


After every attempt it was always the same. An endless sea of failure. Nothing ever surfaced. The veil didn't lift and the curtains didn't part. There wasn't a grand light of immense illumination. There was nothing. No revelation. No "A-Hah!" moment. The darkness still remained, ever present and mocking. A room so vacant there wasn't even a room. Then came the phony smiles and uplifting words of encouragement. Combined with pursed lips and concerned, worried, downcast eyes. It was really unnerving. Like everyone was staring at a puppy with one leg, trying to stand or walk. All the puppy can do though is desperately paw at the floor and try to pull itself forward in a pitiful sort of crawling, dragging motion. As everyone just watches on in a tense, strained, painfully disgusting shared union of unease and pity.


Of course, then there was also all the forced sharing. All the god forsaken forced sharing. And the repeated questions and follow up elucidations that she had to supply. How are you doing? How are you feeling? Why do you feel that way? What can be done to make you feel differently? What are your thoughts? Tell me, what are you thinking, right now? Well how do those thoughts make you feel? What do you think about those feelings that your thoughts just provoked? If you could describe your feelings in one word, what would it be? How about the color, what would it be if it represented your feelings? How about the sound? The smell? Taste? Place? Animal? Please elaborate on everything you just told me. Explain. Allow me to feel as you do, right now. It all made Olive feel even more nuts and way more trapped than what she already was. She just wanted to be left alone. For all the asshole doctors, nurses, orderlies and everyone else to kindly fuck off and leave her be.


Stop the questions and quit pushing for answers that clearly will never be available to her. She wanted to go home but unfortunately that wasn't possible because her apartment had been revoked from her ownership and rented out. Leaving her parents' home as her only option. However even with that being the case, she'd take that hell a million times, over this one. For the way Olive seen it. This was Dante's Inferno and this specific level of hell that she currently resided in, was way worse than the pit of dismal misfortune and ruin that was her parents' homestead. Alas, despite that being the case, her parents wouldn't have any of that. She wasn't permitted to return until she was well. Till she got better, she wasn't allowed to set even a single foot within their home. Terrific. You think they might help by cluing her in on what it took to get better but no, they simply said that she had to remember. A statement that was immediately followed by the both of them getting nervous, shifting about in place until they decided that they were too uncomfortable to remain in her presence. Then they would leave and she wouldn't see them for another six months. Rinse and repeat.


This probably meant that what she did to get herself locked up here was pretty fucking bad, right? Who knows though? She couldn't remember. So someone might as well tell her. Right? That makes sense, doesn't it? Sometimes she got the feeling that everyone wondered if she was for real or faking it. Olive wished that she were faking it. At least that meant she knew something in regards to what the fuck happened. There were memories that she could recall and remember. Not an endless black hole sitting in their stead, sucking the life out of her, day in and out. Not knowing was definitely the ultimate crushing blow, in this entire fucked up scenario. That coupled with being powerless to stop any of this or really do much of anything that wasn't first granted permission... well now that was a punishment of the most foul and cruel design. An agony far more painful than even death itself. The stalemate life of a living ghost. A shell or husk that once was a person. Trapped inside a prison that you can never be released from. Existing but not really living. Little did Olive know... that was all about to change.