Last Week's tomorrow: The halls are vast and calm, And the sounds are mostly empty, ignorable. I've not seen another person in a couple of hours And the only way I remember their existence is the occasional cough or sneeze leaking down the long broad corridors. Here in this room I can be whomever I wish. Nobody will ever tell me any differently. In these two hours, I crafted a whole persona. Who Am I really? It is immaterial. I am who I decide to be until the nurse returns to tell me differently. I am a wounded soldier of the Glameri Empire, Wounded in person and in mind And now this sterile palace is my place of healing. It's not a lie. It's my best guess. I don't remember where these bullet wounds came from, But I remember the nurse telling me stories about the war. We defeated them, the Empire of the market towns, the merchants who can never have enough The ones who insist and insist on how to live. We won, and now I'm here with my fractured memories. I do remember the war, but it comes here and there, now and then, in a shower of gunsmoke and a hail of shrapnel. I remember the booming explosions that came from above like the sneezes that echo around these cavernous passageways. I look at the shadow my hand casts beneath this spotlight, And I see the shapes of soldiers stumbling through the mist towards us. I see these high cream walls, and I remember a hospital with streaks of blood. I look at my bandaged leg, and I see a defeated army dragging itself to safety. But the nurses tell me we are the winners. I hear the high insistent whine of the alarm, And I hear the enemy I hear bells in a market town. I hear familiar voices laughing and chatting. I hear I hear you calling to me I smell your perfume and feel your kiss on my cheek I feel your soft hands squeezing hard on my army jacket. I feel you slipping away from me into a valley of fire and fear into a viscous immeasurable sleep Into a general anaesthetic I hear the bells, the bells of my hometown The bells of my real hometown. I look around me at the prison of these walls And the stale air And the trolley that seemed mundane Now malign and alien Enemies all around I miss the bells of a former life A life that I can hear when I am alone And a life that no longer exists, A life they have taken A life they have erased from my mind And replaced with a new life A sterile life of whining klaxons And cream walls And irresolute dreams And unknown faces And indistinct memories And stolen memories And new memories fading into the void of a vanquished foe. Let me out Let me out Let me out! I want to go home!