“You know you do not belong here” 

The speaker sounds very upset at the moment while guests in the background float like shadows, oblivious to the exchange happening at the moment. Everyone is dressed in their finest, including the speaker with his tailored black tuxedo and collared shirt, polished black shoes and sleek cane clutched tightly in hand.

“I was invited.” Insisted a young woman, whose back is turned and looking out the balcony in a stunning off the shoulder, fiery red mermaid dress accented with long gloves, hair coiffed. When she turns to make her reply, even at a side profile, you can see her make-up is done to perfection, and a simple short strand of pearls adorning her neck.

“I’m head of this estate and I have every right in my power to revoke your invitation.”

“You needn’t bother, Mr. Fahrgren. I was just about to show myself out.”

“Nonsense. I’m a gentleman and I would remiss having a young lady wander unescorted upon my premise. Allow me to escort you myself.”

An elbow is stiffly offered to the young lady in invitation. When she gracefully turns around, it is none other than Ms. Atoa. As she takes a step up to the host, she pivots away and walking towards the door. There she claps her hands together before her chest like in prayer, with a sly smile and calmly says, “Like I said, sir, I can manage.” Ms. Atoa then pushes her hands above her head and arcs it down to be leveled with her shoulder, bringing them together before her and pulling palms out in front of her chest again and turns her head to look over her shoulder and stare at me - the righteous host escorting her out - square into my eyes.

“Amber!” a distant voice calls out her name but she ignores it as she continues to her task at hand. She pushes her hands forward and a large tear rips down the large double doors like a torn paper ripped in half before her and sets her arms down. The rip growing larger as she steps closer and the rip opens wide enough for her to enter it and in a blink of an eye, the light envelops her and she disappears from sight.

*****

We both wake up slowly and turn to one another with appraising glances but a residual anger lingers and we each roll to our respective corners of the bed. We both toss and turn the rest of the night and don’t acknowledge that dream aloud, yet the silence that fill the room is louder than our own shouts and screams. When my eyes became heavy and sleep finally pulls at my body, I couldn’t help but wonder about the nature of the dream as well our roles it in. It felt real like a memory but I had a feeling it had more to do with our conversation and behavior earlier. Granted, we each acted deplorably, trying to unsettle one another more as the day wore on, sniping and getting one one another's every last nerves. It's not wonder we had a dream that manifested that way it did last night.

In the morning, I see that Ms. Atoa is already down here and the atmosphere is already as thick with lingering resentment from the previous night. I gulp coming closer to the table suddenly feeling like it was hard to breathe. We eat breakfast without exchanging a word but I feel each crunch of her cereal as though it is grinding on my very bones. I take solace in my eggs and watched as the yolk breaks free from it’s sunny side up disposition and bleed onto the porcelain plate.

“Pepper.”

“‘Pepper, please’.” Ms. Atoa, emphasized the word as she practically slammed the shaker before me, “A ‘ thank you’ would also be appreciated every once in awhile. You're welcome, by the way.”

“For what, exactly? Having to wake up to a finicky chit that is manically cheerful, depressed and quick to anger?"

"For saving your sorry ass from the street, that's what!" She yells finally.

"Technically that was Aunt Cissy." I say shrewdly.

"My aunt if you don't recall and I've taken care of you since then. A thank less job, I might add."

"Oh, that's so magnanimous of you." My anger is finally rearing its head but I keep my voice calm. "I can't help but feel like your motives are more than altruistic. I think you have finally met someone that is more broken that you and it make you feel good to have to 'take care' of me. Let's just get to the bottom of this and you can tell me what exactly is bothering you." Skirting around the elephant in the room did not work all morning so, I might as well prod her to be the one to acknowledge it bring this to closure.

“That! That right there." She gestures emphatically at me and continues, "you and your uppity attitude and treating me as some peasant, telling me what to do and that suddenly, being human made you think nothing is good enough for you.”

“Well, it was not good enough for me even as a dog, but you could not speak canine, now could you?"

“Oh, don't even!” She bursts out, slamming down her fork, mumbling “God, you’re a piece of work”. Suddenly, she looks up and talks to me directly “Listen, I’m trying to help you as best as I can and all you’ve ever done so far is be a royal pain in my ass about everything because you think you're better than all I have to offer and your ‘higher than thou’ attitude is not helping this situation at all.”

“I cannot help that you're overly sensitive and easily offended. I say what is on my mind and what you take offense to is very subjective to what I consider offensive.”

“Fine, I don’t know where you’re coming from other than we both have memory issues, and yeah, I do feel bad that you have it worse off than me." She begins slowly, calming down and bringing her voice to a normal pitch, "but I’d appreciate it if you’d at least be cordial and try to keep your subjective opinions and observations to yourself for the most part, so that I won’t be subjectively offended and we can be somewhat civil to one another as we try and figure things out.”

"And...?"

"And I'll try not to gloat and bask in the glory that I, at least, have a family and house and don't have a weird affliction of turning into a mutt, and have the good fortune of being home or as close to home as possible." When I think she is done, she only continues, "Or the fact that you are utterly reliant on a total stranger until you can get on your own two feet and are essentially like a toddler...no, a baby."

“All right, we get the point.” I say with finality. “Pepper.”

I look over as she glares at me, reaches dramatically for the pepper and smirks as she shakes it to draw attention that she has it - just out of my reach I might add - and not I.

“What do you say?”

“...Please, may I have the pepper.”

“Good boy! Who’s a good boy?” She comments rather sickeningly sweet, akin to how her family talks to me as a dog before sliding the pepper along the counter to me. “You do, that who!”

“Do stop that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you subjectively offended by my praise of you being a good boy. And they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks.”

“Touche.” She can be rather irksome when she wants to be, but she hands me the pepper shaker all the same. “Let us call it a truce, then. Seeing as we both have different sensibilities, and don’t yet know what each other’s triggers are, we can politely notify one another discretely of the error in our ways.”

“Okay. I guess I won’t have the pleasure of calling you a ‘dick’ to your face when such occurrences happen.” She says begrudgingly as she crosses her arm and looks at me for a reaction. “I'm done, I'm done! That’s the last time for all the previous dickish comments you’ve made to me up until this point. I promise, no more!” She resolutely says with her hand on her heart and on hand palm out facing me.

“I’ve only been able to converse with you for two days.”

“Well, let’s just say you have mad skills with pushing my buttons in that short period. Even as a dog, you were snooty, and the looks you’d give me plus your body language said more than words ever could convey.”

I just stare at her and after a few moments of silence, I just continue to eat, now the earlier tension dissipates as quickly as it appears, Ms. Atoa settles down again and resumes her meal. It takes her a few minutes before she turns to me with a determined expression, she changes her attitude and tone to her usual upbeat self.

“So, um, bygones be bygones, would you like to go to a cafe for lunch?”

Being the ever the gracious guest and not one to turn my nose up at a proffered olive leaf, I accepted her invitation, “That would be acceptable.”

*****

We walk into what Ms. Atoa calls a boutique cafe - one that she explains was is not part of a franchise and is unique because it is one of a kind. It is very quaint but had a very warm comfortable ambiance about it that seems to lend itself for book reading in front of their blazing fire for a long time. It isn’t yet lunch so she explained no one was really there and we were able to claim prime seating in front of the fire place with our respective coffee of choice.

“I just wanted to say sorry about earlier” Ms. Atoa hesitates in her delivery. I look up from my cafe au lait and look at the girl in question.

“Whatever for?”

“Well, whatever that was all about back there, I’m sorry I let it affect me and I guess the dream really tipped me over the edge.”

“Dreams aside, I will admit, we were not the most pleasant to one another the day before and I did go out of my way to rile you up. I suppose I should offer my apologies as well as I am sure being my warden has had its difficulties.”

“Well, let’s put all that behind us and start anew. Would you be up for some sightseeing just around town. Might as well get up and going and you can see where you are living for now.”

“I think that would be a welcomed change of pace.”

From there, Ms. Atoa paid the bill with her ‘debit card’ and explained how it worked and I just follow her as she looks for the best way to get to where we need to go. We stood by the road and Ms. Atoa waved her hand at cars and other vehicles, calling out, “Taxi!” when she turned to me and said, “If you ever get lost or need to go anywhere, look for the vehicles that have a white placarded on their roof and give them this address.” She then handed me a paper and with an address. “Show them this address and this will take you home.”

“Home?” I question looking at this address and feeling odd about what my home is for me.

“Well, where you’ll be calling home for the time being until we know where you actually live. I was given one of these cards with my aunt and uncle's address shortly after I was able to walk again when I was released from the hospital. My aunt and uncle were worried that I would wonder off on one of my walks and made sure that I could get back home somehow.”

“So they gave you the address and taught you how call on of those taxis?”

“Actually, no. Calling a taxi was just something I remembered how to do and oddly enough, I even remembered their address without this card. I guess it’s fitting that I should pass it on to the next amnesiac.” Ms. Atoa said wryly as a car pulled up and stepped in the front seat as I took the back row all to myself. 

“Downtown Plaza”. Ms. Atoa said confidently. Another thing I am very envious of. She innately knows how to get around even in her state of lost memories. Nothing about arranging transportation or taking care of necessities come innately and I know I have many things to catch up on.

I stepped in and Ms. Atoa started to talk to the driver with a comfortable ease that I never seemed to have around new people. They talked about mundane things from the weather to new food menu items and even got personal and talked about their family. I can hear that same voice in my head from yesterday tell me:

“Let the common folk do their bidding. We know better than to soil our hand in their affairs. The only people we need to have conversations with are those that matter but never tell them anything personal.” I can hear that voice as clear as Ms. Atoa’s conversation with the driver and wonder if that is the same voice, my voice from the dream earlier. 

When I look at those two people from our dream last night, I can see similarities but I also can’t help but notice how different they are from the two of us. The Ms. Atoa in the dream was very fiery, elegant, graceful even and confrontational with a lot of spunk yet the young woman sitting in front of me seems only a shadow of what I saw. This morning’s argument brought that spitfire persona in the forefront for once but usually she is just a very bubbly and at times a bit withdrawn for her own good so it is a bit puzzling to see that aspect of her. 

Granted, I must be a mere shadow of myself as well. The estate I referred to was my own in the dream and the finery that I and everyone else around me wore felt natural. What happened to that stalwart man that demanded his presence be a force worth reckoning with. The only force I am to reckon with is my ability look down my nose at other people, but even that does not feel right or natural.

When I look back at that dream, I realize that I was a rather unpleasant person in that interaction and maybe that’s who I really am deep down, just as Ms. Atoa should have been a bit more gumption.

I really cannot say.

All I know is that I was watching that other me and seeing how he was an unhappy person and a pompous - dare I use the words she used, 'dick - I know that is not who I want to be. Looking back at the two days that I have spent with Ms. Atoa, I can see that her frustrations are not without base and she’s tries her best to help out a fellow amnesiac. 

As I watch her connect with a total stranger in that driver, I can and cannot see how she can help go out of her way to aid a helpless man that can turn into a dog, walk into dreams with no past, take him into her home and help him find his past as well. I don’t know what motivation drives her other than loneliness in not knowing who she is  and finding a companion with common grounds. Other than that, she is a remarkable young woman for her open heart. Voice in my head be damned! If Ms. Atoa can leave herself open for vulnerability to see the good in others and offer a helping hand, I can try as well.

We arrived at our destination and I exited the taxi with a new intent in mind.