The play’s credits performed in reverse. Laughter wove in spliced tongues. Sobs were shots of vodka mimed backwards in still-frame memories. Today was the day he was born.

At first, there was a void of nothing. Then, the man was alive. He was alive, standing in a space that smelled like antiseptic, that was large enough for a swept arm to feel no chairs, no walls, no people, and he was blind.

The tremor of a frenetic pulse in his ears was the beat of a song he knew too well; fight or flight, do or die, the time is now.

Then, the sound became a sizzle.

The man, naturally stumbling, placed his hand on a flat surface and followed it up with searching fingers.

He was a slip of a shape, crawling like a bottom-feeder until he reached a notch. He pushed his hand up between the space he felt, and grasped what he imagined was silver.

That white-knuckled hand meant he was alive.

He used the handhold to follow the wall and found a seam. He felt the seam with his fingers and plastered his face to a slick surface, his mouth fogging the wall in front of him. It was wet on the skin of his cheek.

Finally, after what felt like hours, words found shape in his mouth.

If he could speak, it meant that he was alive.

“W-where the fuck am I?!”