I am in a college dorm room. My college dorm room. Not the one that I remember. None of the ones from the U of A. I am on the northeast somewhere. I am watching TV. With my roommate. One thing that distinguishes it from my life is that I am getting along with my roommate. There are three TV sets. First the small one is on. Then the respectable 32” one. Then the giant one. I want to ask my roommate how he convinced me to allow so many large TVs in our room, but I think he might think the question odd. I want him to tell me about my life. To tell me about me. About my life in this world. I don’t ask though. It might lead to awkward questions from him. I might accidentally tell him that this is all a dream and then where would I be? I do ask him where we are “this is Philadelphia right?” He doesn’t seem surprised. He doesn’t answer either, as though it was obvious. I have never lived in Philadelphia, but somehow I know this is my life. I’m living in Philadelphia with a roommate that I get along with. I am an undergraduate.
I am awake. Writing this down, but it is already fading from my memory. What was that life like? Me. Not me. Me on the east coast. Me getting along with my college roommate. What was that like? What would it have been like? It is gone. All of it. The only thing that remains is the words that I’ve written down. Not even written; pixels. Ones and zeroes in the computer’s RAM. I was having a instant messaging conversation in that world with someone. I wanted as I fought to wake up to remember; to look in my computer to find out what we were talking about. It was all in my head though, and not stored in my computer’s log file after all. Faded. Gone.