Phil woke up every morning with a few sure things in his mind. He needed a cup of coffee and to read the news. He was looking for an event but he was not sure what it was but he knew he would know it when he saw it. He lived in a world of floating through time with no anchor points really. Most of his identity had been erased and with his skills and a few subconscious suggestions to guild him. He was a perfect scout because even if he was captured he could not divulge anything. It was strange being trapped in a world with no mooring to it but just a constant open search for something and he wondered what he lost and he knew he gave his memories up for the mission but sometimes he wondered if it was worth the cost. He knew things like wallet keys, phones and how to use an ATM. Sometimes he felt he had been moved in the night to a new location and woke in a new hotel with his pocket gear wallet phone keys and a lighter which was weird because he did not smoke but he always had it. His phone was all set with a generic picture of a beach or something like that but it changed sometimes so he knew he got new phones but no one ever called but he ordered takeout. He could remember food and he enjoyed having a special lunch or dinner. This was Phil’s life but he never knew what was going to happen next and he could not remember that far back, a week at most.
This life he knew was terrible but he knew he was doing it for a reason. He never knew where he was going to wake up. He would read the news and usually just have breakfast but he thought sometimes he must do something. Ending up in different cities must mean something. He was always chasing something and he could never escape that feeling even for a moment. Phil wished he could remember why he did that but he did not have answers for anything other than to keep on going hoping one day it would end. Sometimes he would wake up and think he would remember something for a minute but it would disappear by the time the sun came up.
One day a Tuesday he knew because it was on his phone he felt sore on his arm. He felt it and realized he had a bandage over it and he took that off to reveal a tattoo like a check mark on the side of a fighter plane in one of the old wars. He wondered if that meant he achieved something. He scanned the paper and looked for a Thai restaurant to go to that evening. He was looking for Pad Thai because he heard someone in the lobby talking about it while they checked in. He followed a woman with red hair through the city but he did not know why but he felt compelled to follow her. She went into an art gallery that looked really expensive and she met someone that worked there may be the manager who gave her a briefcase that was metal.
He felt like he must get the briefcase from her and he followed his instinct and followed her from the art gallery to a back alley where she had stopped to look into the briefcase. It looked like a bomb with lots of complicated wires and a countdown timer set for 1 hour. He snuck up around the corner and grabbed the suitcase she had laid on the ground and ran fast he could away. He ducked into a dark corner and opened the suitcase with less than an hour left on the timer and took out his lighter and melted some wires, a green one and blue one and also a chip. He realized why he carried a lighter now just for this moment because his knowledge would escape his brain after he was done disabling the bomb and he left the scene. The timer stopped and he found a body of water to toss it in. That would render it useless for anyone who found it. He got a tattoo of a checkmark to go with the other one on his arm but he knew would forget by morning that he was there to stop these bombs and that he could not remember because they used telepaths to cary and place the bombs so his mind had to have no knowledge or his efforts he would be thwarted from sneaking up on them. He knew for that very night why he chose for that life but he would forget soon. It was hard to have to forget the good you’re doing and go back to living in a forest of forgotten memories.
He sent a message on his phone and it sent a message back of an address to a new hotel in a new city. Some clothes and supplies would be there waiting so he bought a ticket to the new city and erased his messages on his phone. He would just wake up tomorrow in a strange bed and city and read the newspaper which had secret messages his subconscious could decode to tell him where to go and who to find but he would forget that tomorrow. Traveling the night before dawn to get to a new city and a new search in the bleakness of an almost blank soul with no past.
Amelio's Palace of Stories 