I get the fuck out of the hospital. I don’t know where I am or where I’m going, but maybe I’m thinking my best option would be to get out of the city, find a job, and see if I can figure out who I am. I’m walking through the badly designed hospital parking lot which is organized in a way that seems like they are trying to create as many accidents as possible right next to the emergency room.
“Sappho, Sappho!” I hear someone yelling and waving in my direction.
I walk towards the woman who is wearing a paramedic uniform and holding a book in her hand.
“Do I know you?” I ask the small attractive black haired lady.
“No. I recognized you.”
“So, I’m Sappho?”
“Your name is Sappho?” she asks.
“Sorry, do you know who I am?”
“I picked you up on the side of the road in the ambulance and brought you to the hospital.”
“Oh, do you know my name?”
“No. I was calling out Sappho, the poet, because your book fell out in the ambulance. I was meaning to turn it in to the hospital but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I didn’t think they would have released you yet, and I was reading her poetry.”
“Right, Sappho, the poet, not me,” I say.
“So what is your name,” she asks
She smiles at me, and it makes my stomach feel a bit ill, in the best possible way. I smile back, not as a play at anything, but only because I can’t stop myself. I feel my heart beating.
She stares deeply into my eyes, and without looking away, I say: “Tulsa,” even though I have no idea what my real name is.
“Tulsa, like the city?”
“Yeah. I have weird parents.” I can’t be sure of that, but I imagine it’s true.
I hold out my hand to reach for the book, but she puts her hand in my instead, not really shaking it but just holding it, sort of intimately. She looks at me, wondering what I think, and I smile a bit harder.
“I’m Sara. It’s nice to meet you.”