Old So What

  Stumbling Around The most terrifying thing is waking up and realizing that you forgot that you have someplace to go, or worse, realizing that you forgot you have no place to go. It was the first morning since it happened that I went out by myself. The first of November, and the temperature had turned an unnatural 77 degrees, with the sun glaring so that it seemed to have sucked up all the oxygen until the world fell breathlessly around me. Noises sped past my ears like ammunition and I started and jumped at the most innocent of sounds: an unseen neighbor yelling to someone else, a horn sounding at the intersection. Rather like an alcoholic with a hangover except that my disorientation was not due to liquor but more like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   I started up the treeless hill toward the Suburban Trolley and waited on the right side of the tracks on a surprisingly clean brown-metal bench. The other side of the tracks had a sign on its bench: "Use the tracks ...