'Number Sixty Three please proceed to pod thirteen.' A tall, heavy-set woman announced from behind the glass door.

Number sixty three looked at her and got off the chair made of steel. The room was white with bright over-head lights illuminating the room as if an angel had been sent to reveal.

'Did you say pod thirteen?'

'Yes I did.'

'But there isn't a pod with that number.'

'But you have to go to it anyway.'

'How do I go to a place that does not exist?'

'Enough questions number Sixty Three. Proceed to pod thirteen immediately.'

Number Sixty Three smiled. 'But there is no pod thirt...'

'This is the last and final call for number Sixty Three, please proceed to pod thirteen or we will off-load your luggage.'

Luggage? Am I at an airport?

Number Sixty Three was dressed in white overalls and tennis shoes. He walked around the room and came back to where the chair was. 'Go ahead throw my luggage to the dogs, I don't have any baggage.'

'Then it would be even simpler.' The heavy set woman's voice returned.

He pressed a button on the arm-rest and his seat reclined.

'All the way number Sixty Three.'

'Huh, you mean this turns into a bed.'

No answer.

He pushed it all the way back and saw the ceiling above him. there were air-ducts, a no-smoking sign with a line going through it forever and there was a man facing him! It seemed, at first, that he was suspended by wires but then he looked at the fastened seat-belt and the reclining chair just like his.

'Hi. My name is number Thirty One. What's yours?' Number Thirty One asked looking him in the eye and sipping on a glass of water.

'Number Sixty Three. Where are we, what is this place?'

The woman's voice returned. 'Pod thirteen to commence flight in nineteen minus zero minutes.'

Number Sixty Three was having coffee with number Thirty One at a road side cafe, somewhere in Eastern Europe. The name of the place was written on a post right across the cafe but he couldn't read.

'What are they flying you off for?' He asked taking a sip from his glass of water. The coffee was gone.

'Murder.' Number Sixty Three looked at his cup of coffee and sighed.

'Who did you kill? Thirty One sipped his red wine and winced. 'Nicely balanced.' He said while examining the wine glass.

'I don't remember.' He took a sip from his cup of coffee. 'Would you have a knife?'

'But of-course, that is why I'm here.' Thirty One couldn't stop grinning.

'Where are we?'

'Huh? In your house.' Thirty One stood next to Sixty Three at the open door of house number Twenty Eight

'This is not my house.' Sixty Three bent his neck a little and took a peek inside. A man and a woman were fighting behind the kitchen counter.

'Who is the woman?'

'The one who leads us.'

'Leads us?'

'Yes, leads us.'

'To?'

'What are you in for?'

'For murder.' Number Sixty Three and Thirty One were standing at a sea coast, watching foam form where the sea receded.

'Who did you kill?' Thirty One picked a pebble and swung it into the ocean.

'No, wait. It was you, God, it was you I killed.'

Thirty One stood still, his face devoid of any expression; his eyes had gone black.

'Your eyes.'

Thirty One did not speak.

'Would you have a knife that I could borrow?'

It was the woman again who looked like Kathy Bates: 'Pod thirteen to commence flight in three minus zero minutes.

Thirty One spoke from inside the toilet, 'You don't have much time. Think why you killed me, try to remember. Save yourself.'

'I can't.' He saw his scant reflection in the bathroom mirror.

'Here's the knife.' Thirty One reached a hand out from inside the toilet. It held a knife, a simple kitchen knife; about three inches of tempered steel.

'T minus one.'

The hall was dark with four pillars standing tall at each corner. In the center was a coffee table and on it something shone in the dim light. 'But I had used a drill machine.'

'Thirty two - thirty one - thirty - twenty nine...'

He suddenly woke up in a CT scan machine with his hands nailed to the sides and his feet tied with barbed wire. 'I'm here because I killed someone I don't remember.'

'Thirteen - twelve - eleven - ten...'

'If I don't remember then this is fallacy.'

'Seven - six - five - four...'

'Hi there.' Thirty One looked inside the incinerator and smiled. He raised his shirt and showed him a gaping hole near the heart. 'You did this.'

'No, no. I didn't.' He spoke from behind his office desk as he typed this.

'Yessir, you did.' Thirty One was not looking at him when he said that and Sixty Three only saw his back as he said it and started to walk away.

'Wait! Stop'.

'Two - one.' The countdown stopped.

He was lying in his bed now, at his home. He looked at the ceiling and the tried to count the rotations the fan made.

'Welcome to pod thirteen, number sixty three.' The woman's voice returned.

'This is my house bitch. Go away.'

'If I go away you go too.'

He turned and recoiled in terror. The wind made his hair dance and his clothes ruffled with fury. He was lying on the edge of a three thousand feet high skyscraper. 'I don't understand.'

'It is not meant for you to understand, just witness. Your misery will suffice for now.'

He was falling down the building and did not hit ground.

'I want to know who I killed.' He was in bathtub filled with a gel like substance.

'You killed me.' Thirty One and the woman answered in unison.

'Why?'

'That doesn't matter now.'

'Then what does?'

'Redemption.'

He was dressed in a suit and standing in the middle of what looked like a presidential suite of a nice hotel. He looked around and decided to use some Cognac. 'It would be easier this way.' He took a swig and then another; and another. He then brought the bottle to his mouth and emptied the brandy bottle.

'I love you.' He had taken a picture out of his jacket pocket and looked at it while he said this.

He then took out a straight razor from his other pocket and flung the blade out of the handle.

'You don't remember me do you, Sixty Three?'

'No.' He was standing in the shower a little tipsy as the brandy started to numb him. The shower drenched him and his overalls.

'I'm your mother and your child.'

The shower stopped and the drops hit the ceramic with a hollow echo.

'I'm you.'

'But who did I kill?'

The flame engulfed him and he started to scream.

'It will be over soon, that is one great incinerator, made in Germany. It is very quick.'

Sixty Three kept screaming as the blue fire peeled and curled the skin off his muscles. Once the skin was completely burnt, the pain lessened and so did his consciousness.

'Who did... I... kil...?'

'Doesn't matter.'

'I remember.'

'Who?'

'I remember, I... remem...ber, it wa...sss m...' The flame had engulfed everything now, only ashes remained.

'I had this crazy dream.'

'Stop watching extreme cinema.' His wife exclaimed while fetching orange juice from the fridge.

'I think I'll skip breakfast today. I'm going for a shower.'

She shrugged, 'So what the fuck is new?'

He pushed his chair behind and started to rise. 'Hey, it's my thirty first birthday today.'

'Yeah. Remember to get the milk on your way back.'

'From the shower?' He joked and she didn't smile.

He looked at the picture standing under the shower and then slit both his wrists with a straight razor and sat down with his back to the wall. The wall felt cold against his wet but warm skin. The blood whirpooled into the drain and the pattern hypnotized him until there was nothing left to be hypnotized.

'Number Sixty Three please proceed to pod thirteen.'

'There is no pod by that number.'

'But you must go there before it's too late.' The woman's voice lowered mid-sentence and then went completely silent at the word 'late'.

***