I.

I woke in darkness. The water was at my waist and the walls were concrete and I did not know where I was.

My name—no. I do not know my name. I know I am a doctor. A psychologist. I treat trauma. Post-traumatic stress. I sit in a chair and listen to people tell me about the things that broke them and then I try to put them back together.

The water was cold. It moved slowly, like something thinking about what to do next. I tried to stand. My legs were weak. I sat back down.

There was someone else in the water. A woman. She was wearing a white coat and an oxygen mask. She was unconscious, barely. I swam to her. I pulled her from beneath a collapsed beam that had trapped her leg. It took effort. It took everything I had.

She opened her eyes. They were grey.

"Thank you," she said. Her voice was soft.

"What is your name?" I asked.

She paused. "I do not remember."

I paused too. "I do not remember either."

We looked at each other. Then she smiled—a tired, helpless smile. "At least we are not alone."

II.

The water was rising. We found a platform, maybe two feet above the surface, and sat on it, our legs in the water, watching the level climb.

She told me she was a doctor. She was on a boat, heading to a medical aid project. Then the water came.

I told her I was a doctor too. A psychologist. I was driving to a conference. Then the water came.

"Do you have colleagues?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I have—her."

I stopped. Her? Who? I tried to remember a face. A voice. A name. There was something—a woman, she had left me, she had gone with a rich man—but the image was like ink in water, dissolving the more I tried to hold it.

"What was her name?" she asked.

I closed my eyes. I reached for the memory. It slipped through my fingers like water.

"I do not know," I said.

She looked at me. Not with pity. With study. The way a doctor looks at a patient.

"Have you ever been to a psychologist?" she asked.

"I am a psychologist," I said.

She was quiet. The water rose.

III.

The water reached the platform. We had to move higher. As we moved, I noticed things.

She always knew which way to go—as if she had been here before. She was never afraid—as if she already knew the ending. She spoke of the structure of this underground space, of the flow of water, with an intimacy that no stranger could possess.

I began to doubt.

Did she really exist? Or was she a personality I had split off in some moment of crisis? A "savior" personality—because in reality, I could not save anyone.

I looked at her. Her face was unclear in the dim light. I suddenly realized: I had never truly seen her face. I knew her voice, her hands, her gentleness. But I did not know the color of her eyes.

"What are you?" I asked.

She looked at me. For the first time, her expression was not tired. It was sad.

"I am what you need," she said.

The water covered the platform. We began to sink. I grabbed her hand—or I thought I grabbed her hand. Maybe I was only grabbing my own.

I saw something underwater. A mirror? A window? A room?

I saw myself sitting in a chair, facing an older man in a white coat. A real psychologist.

The doctor said: "Let us talk about your wife today."

I said: "She is not my wife."

The doctor said: "Are you sure?"

The image shattered.

I was back in the water. She was still beside me—or I thought she was.

IV.

I woke on a bed. White walls. A doctor stood in the doorway—an older man, white coat with a name tag.

"You are awake," he said.

"You found me underwater. You were unconscious for three days."

I sat up. "Her? The woman—"

The doctor was silent for a moment. "We did not find anyone else."

I looked out the window. Sunlight. A city in the distance. Everything normal.

"Where—where am I?"

"St. Elizabeth Hospital."

He handed me a mirror. I looked at my reflection—forty years old, thin, glasses, hollow eyes.

"What is your name?" the doctor asked.

I opened my mouth. No sound came out.

The doctor sighed and wrote something on a chart. "It is alright," he said. "We will help you remember."

I looked at the mirror. The man in the mirror looked back. But I was not sure the man in the mirror was me. Maybe I had never been me at all. Maybe all of it—the water, the woman, the sinking—was only a hallucination in some moment of crisis.

I put down the mirror. The doctor waited outside. Sunlight came through the window.

But I could still feel the temperature of the water.