Buddwing

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He awoke.

He could not have been asleep for more than a few hours, and yet he felt curiously refreshed, coming instantly awake without passing through that fuzzy borderland he usually associated with rising. He knew exactly where he was. He seemed only mildly surprised to discover he was wearing his street clothes, but then he supposed one did not sleep in pajamas on a wooden bench in Central Park. He sat up and rubbed a hand over his face, not to wash away any weariness — more, he suspected, as a gesture of habit. Then he glanced across the path and beyond the iron railing to where the ground sloped to a small lake. The lake ended in a narrow finger capped by a huge outcropping of primeval rock, the man-made concrete of Fifth Avenue beyond and in the distance, and behind that a pale blue sky.

Who am I? he wondered.

The words flashed across his mind in brilliant, almost searing intensity for only a second, and then were extinguished by their own absurdity. He grinned at the foolishness of the thought, grinned too because it was a beautiful day. The air was mild and warm; a balmy breeze reminiscent of somewhere in the tropics played at the back of his neck. He wondered what time it was. He looked at his wrist, surprised to see he had no watch, and then again wondered Who am I? This time the question did not seem as absurd. This time the question forced the grin from his mouth.

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