I woke up to the sun shining hot on my face. I couldn't get my eyes to open, and my head was pounding as if a whole sound system had taken my skull hostage of its deep baseline. It took me a bit longer than usual to remember who I was. Who I was supposed to be. When I felt like I had it, I decided to open my left eye. The green canopy of a well trimmed tree appeared to quiver against the blue sky. I opened the right eye and the field of view widened to enclose a slice of a beach umbrella. The sounds around me suggested I wasn't at the seaside. Rather than the sloshing of waves in the low tide, I could hear a buzzing and some occasional splash. Birds chirping, too, and maybe a lawn mower in the distance. I sat up and saw I was on a tanning bed in front of a strangely shaped swimming pool. The buzzing noise was produced by one of those cleaning machines constantly at work to scrape the gunk off the pool tiles. And right in the center of the pool, opened and floating upside down,
with nowhere to lay my hat