I first realized something was wrong when I found pictures on my phone that I knew couldn't

be real. It had been a while since I'd look back through my gallery app more than a few

days, and I only did it this time out of boredom while waiting in line at the drive-through

pharmacy. That sense of comfortable familiarity had

scrawling past pictures as I was reminded I'd taken. A cool-looking sky, my dog, tenor,

a girl I've been seeing for the past few weeks was pleasant and distracting. So much so,

I'd dare a hunk behind me before I remembered to edge up ten feet to keep the line moving.

But when I went back more than a few months, things started to change. The pictures were

things I didn't remember, people that weren't familiar and places I'd never been.

That was all this. No one else had ever used my phone to take pictures that I remembered,

and certainly not long enough to take months' worth of pictures I'd never seen. As I went

back two years, I was now into my last phone's pictures that had been saved in the cloud.

And again, none of these looked familiar. I was even in some of them, posing or hugging

people, even kissing this woman in several that I didn't know at all.

Half-dry, I pulled out a line and drove away. For a few minutes, I just wondered. My mind

feeling spongy and untrustworthy, like I'd taken something or had too much to drink. It

distracted me, made me feel and steady. I caught myself weaving off the road once, then

a second time, and that was enough to get me to pull over at a gas station and park.

I needed to get myself together before I had an accident. I reached for my phone again,

but sub-short. I didn't want to see more pictures. It would only make me feel stranger

and more disconnected. I needed rest. I just closed my eyes for a minute, tried to relax

and see if I could make it home. Before I knew it, I was asleep, drifting along a river

...