Like an old record, my mind skips, my memory jumps abrubtly ahead in time. I go directly from "Wow this burger looks good," to "Holy crap I'm in an ambulence. How the hell did that happen?"

I tried to raise my hand to sheild my eyes from the blinding light, but found that I couldn't move it. Upon further inspection, I realized that it was lying on a separate table over on the opposite side of the ambulence. This, of course, added an entirely new depth to my horror.

One of the attendants must have realized I was awake- possibly due to the long string of expletives I shreiked at the top of my lungs when I realized that my right arm was not currently attached to my right shoulder where I prefer to keep it, but rather had apparently moved out on its own and set up a nice little apartment for itself.

"Please," he moved to my side and leaned over me, "Try to calm yourself. We'll be in the ER very shortly."

"Calm myself!?" I screamed, "I'm right handed, dammit!"

"The arm is well preserved," he assured me, "We can reattach it."

"And it won't hurt?"

The attendant hesitated a moment, "Let's try to focus on the good news."

***

The next thing I know I'm in a crowded hall surrounded by people I don't know. A woman whom I have never seen in my life is on my right arm, which I notice with a jolt is suddenly firmly attached to my shoulder. I move my lips soundlessly for a few seconds, trying to take in everything that has just happened. This is not an easy, or indeed possible thing to do, since I have absolutely no clue what has just happened. After what seems like forever of me trying to say something and nothing escaping, I finally manage to conjur up a few words.

"Zimbabwe in the kitchen sink with the commodore." I never said they were coherent words.

"What's that darling?" the strange woman holding onto my arm asked me, turning from the couple she had been having a conversation with up until a few seconds ago.

I took a deep breath, composed myself, lost my composure again, took another deep breath, nearly hyperventilated, then managed to say "Excuse me for asking, but who the bloody hell are you?"

The woman raised one of her penciled eyebrows, rather unsure at how to react to such a question. Finally she laughed, so hard I was absolutely certain that it was put on as a show for the couple standing in front of us. "He's such a kidder, my husband," she chuckled to them, and they both managed to crack smiles.

"Husband!? Where the hell is this coming from!? Five seconds ago I was in an ambulence bereft of a right arm and now I'm here in this dinner party and you can't be my wife because I have never laid eyes upon you in the course of my life! Where the hell did my burger go!?"

My wife (apparently) gaped at me for the longest time, the couple near us seemed shocked beyond belief, no one appeared to know what to say to this. Especially not me.

"So. . ." the husband across from me said after the most agonizing pause of my life, "Anyone for crumpets?"

***

I blinked. It seemed like a few seconds ago I'd been at a dinner party. What was I doing in this elevator? And who farted? Realizing that it was probably me, I abandoned this train of thought. The horrifying sounds of adult contemporary music filled my brain, until I eventually began to think that clawing out my own eyes with an ice cream scoop would be a much more pleasant option.

Finally, the elevator reached my floor. I assumed it was my floor, because it was everyone else's floor too. I exited hurriedly, not wanting to be left out.

"Excuse me!" called a voice behind me, "Is this your briefcase? You left it on the elevator."

"It could very well be, but I'm not entirely sure. I've never seen this building, any of these people, or that briefcase before. But a few minutes ago I had a wife whom I had never seen before, so it's a distinct possibility."

The man blinked. Slowly, as if I was about to bite him, he laid the briefcase at my feet and ran off. I picked up the briefcase and

***

walked directly into the sun scorched sands of a desert. The briefcase was gone, as were most of my clothes. Only a tattered pair of shorts remained. "What the hell!?"

I took off running, but I only encountered sand dune after sand dune. No features, no landmarks, I could have been running in circles for all I knew. All I succeeded in doing was making myself even thirstier than I had somehow become the second I entered the desert.

I laid down in the sand, the sun beating down on my face, thinking over and over, "I'm going to die here, I'm going to die here, I'm going to-"

***

These peanut bags are impossible to open. Wait- peanut bags!? In the desert!? Crap. I'm on a plane. I would really like to know what's going on now.

Suddenly there was a crash from up ahead. From the bathroom emerged a man in a trenchcoat holding a handgun. "Alright, no one move, or you eat lead!"

"No," I muttered, "no no. Not cool."

The hijacker approached me, sticking the butt of his gun into my face. "You say something?"

"Can I go back to the dinner party with my wife and that other couple? I was starting to enjoy that one."

He stared at me for a second. "Alright, I don't care what you're saying! Just shut your mouth before shut it for you!"

"Okay."

"What did I just say!?"

"To shut my mouth before you shut it for me."

"And you realize that I meant with my gun, right?"

"Yes."

"Just checking." He pulled the trigger.

***

All I could really see was a large computer screen, most of which was occupied by a large map of the world, and the remainder being filled by numbers and equations I had no hope of ever understanding. I barely pulled a C in Algebra.

"As you can see, Doctor," said a man beside me, presumably to me, "Your matter displacement machine worked to teleport our test subject, just. . . not in one piece. See, there's his right arm there in Cleveland, his left eyeball over in Maryland, his lower intestines in Maine there, his kidney in Oklahoma, and the rest of him just generally strewn over a small field in northern Kansas."

"That's, um. . . that's bad."

"Yes. As you can imagine, there have been many questions raised by the various citizens who witnessed this, especially by the old woman who had his liver materialize in her living room. But we can't let any information about this project slip, the president would have our heads. What should we do?"

I gaped. "Um. . ." for lack of anything else to say, "Uh. . ." I looked around the room, at the group of fifteen or so desperate looking men in white labcoats. "Well, you guys seem pretty smart, you figure it out."

"What?"

"Yeah, um, get back to me on that. I'll be in the can." I headed off to my right.

"Other way sir."

"I knew that."

***

I coughed. There was no way. . . the building around me was burning. And naturally I have no idea where to find a door, I've never been there in my life. I ran to all four corners of the room, and was met with flames in each one. I backed into the middle, coughed, sputtered, and collapsed.

The flames closed in on me. Covering my eyes, I inhaled deeply.

***

"Damn," I said out loud to myself, my mouth full, "this is a really good burger."