I woke up in an unknown city. Probably in America. Could
have been New York. People were coming and going, bustling all around me. I was
in the middle of the street, in dirty clothes. My limbs were stiff. Not the
kind of stiffness that comes from simple exhaustion – no, I had some kind of
disease. A disease which made my arms and legs stiff, so that I had to drag my
body around painfully. People caught my eye briefly, but quickly turned away again
in disgust. I wandered up to people, pleading for something, although I did not
know what. I realised suddenly that I did not know the language, that I did not
know how to communicate with these people. I tried to communicate using only my
eyes: “please help me, somebody. I don’t know how I got here.” It was at this
point that I noticed people coming and going through a door to a fancy looking
restaurant. The restaurant was called ‘Joshua Seigal’s’. My restaurant? How and
when did I open a restaurant in this foreign city? Was it even ‘my’ restaurant
anyway, or did someone else have the same name as me, complete with
idiosyncratic spelling? I went up to the restaurant, and tried to peer inside
the window. I saw all kinds of people in there: families with small children,
two women in hijabs chatting amiably, an avuncular old man hunched over a
newspaper. I tried to make out what the menu of this restaurant, my restaurant, was, but I couldn’t read
it properly. All I could tell was that it was some kind of burger joint, which
made sense given my surroundings. ‘Joshua Seigals’ was written in what looked
like mock handwriting, as though someone had attempted to give the place a
homely, ‘genuine’ feel. I knocked on the door, and a burly guy answered. I
tried to explain to him that this was my restaurant, that I was Joshua Seigal, but I couldn’t get the words out. I tried
gesticulating, but my limbs were too stiff and the gestures too painful. I don’t
know what happened after that.
