Jim Woke Up
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Jim (Current)
Chapter 1 - Jim
It could only have been described as the perfect day. The sky was painted onto the horizon with flawless shades of blue that paired well with what must have been hand-placed clouds. The sun was delicately hung at the exact right height. It wasn’t so high that the refractions bounced around off every crystalline surface, nor was it so low that those beams were projected directly into the eyes of passers-by.
To the best of his memory, it was the first thing Jim had ever known.
He looked down at his hands. He had never seen them before. They were aged and leathery. And they were placed perfectly at the ten-and-two of the steering wheel. Jim was driving. Has he ever learned to drive? Somehow he seemed to simply know what to do. Was this his car? Was anything his if this was the first moment he had known?
Jim looked at the rearview mirror and saw himself for the first time. He was handsome, but some might see him as past his prime. Perhaps he had been one to keep an eye on when he was younger. His children, if he had any, would surely be attractive. But years of whatever he had done before now had worn down his features and left charming wrinkles behind when they left.
His dull gray-blue eyes were sad, but still had the light behind them of someone that had the will to press onward for a while longer still. They had a tired slant to them, but not the same tired of someone who didn’t sleep well the night before. It was a worn-in tired of one who had worked hard for the entirety of a career. It was the tiredness of one who had lived.
So why, then, didn’t Jim recall a single second of it?
He looked around himself and saw that he wasn’t the only one on the road. It wasn’t too crowded, he certainly wasn’t stuck in a traffic jam. He couldn’t really understand where he needed to be. Where was he driving? Where did he live?
He realized now he was on the highway. This was a major road riddled with exits left and right. Most of the others stayed on the road straight ahead with his direction, but others were taking the exits. Perhaps that was what he should do also?
Maybe if he took an exit and stopped somewhere he could explain the situation. He could explain that he was experiencing early onset dementia or something bizarre that was causing memory loss. Perhaps there was a hospital nearby?
Anything was worth a shot and so Jim turned on his right-hand turn signal and proceeded to merge to the right. He would take the next exit and explain what had gone wrong.
Suddenly, his head began to throb as he quickly corrected his direction back to the forward position. Then, without warning, everything went black.
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March 13th, 2022
