My mind flashes like the cursor in a blank document on a computer screen.  A thought pulses with the tempo and a shadow of memory pulls at my thoughts but it remains beyond that cloudy veil. I have seen that face before; it is a knowing much like I know my own name. The man stares out through a pixelated black and white picture smeared across every front page of this city’s newspaper.  I know this person, but looking at the dark shadows that shape the sharp face with his ominous looming eyes and snarled mouth, the connection escapes me.  Suddenly the hair on the back of my neck stands on end while my skin covers with gooseflesh…   “I know those eyes, they are mine.”

The city lights twinkled like shattered glass reflecting light.  Mystery lay in the darkness between the illuminations.  Gazing out my hospital window, I got lost in the potential of the city and all of its transformed promises that only night can produce. Oh, how I would rather be there than confined within these cold walls; walls that spur the memories I wish to never remember.  Sadly they are the haunting result of that late night two weeks ago; a night my whole life changed.

Pulling back from my daze, I noticed my unrecognizable reflection.  Skin stretched taught over my swollen left eye.  A railroad of stitches ran from the corner my mouth down to the middle of my throat.  “At least your alive” I whispered into the silence, but even as I said that I wondered if my face would ever look the same.