Do not forget. Still half asleep and with bleary eyes got to read on the mirror. Yes. Do not forget. That’s what read the inscription labeled in red in the mirror as he saw his incredulous face look back at him from it.

Do not forget. Bollocks! he thought, if I cannot even remember how the hell I got here. Do not forget. And he made an effort to remember…at least what the fuck did that baby pink room full of stuffed animals where he was mean, but that goddamned hangover didn’t make it easy. At all.

Do not forget. No. I won’t forget this fucking hangover. And if this is a nightmare, it is surely scary as hell, for what kind of woman would have a room full of stuffed animals, Minnie Mouse? He must be asleep for if not…if not then had he gone to bed with a twelve year old?

Fuck! Now he really had a headache, and that damned remainder: Do not forget, kept crushing his stunned neurons, tired of the fruitless effort of remembering something he shouldn’t forget. What the fuck could that be?

Do not forget to walk the dog, Do not forget to pick the clothes from the dry cleaner, Do not forget to kiss me goonight, Do not forget about me?

The list of possibilities grew by the minute, and the last and scariest one, that to clear out the matter he would have to give a face to the owner of the Disney princess room, was becoming the most realistic. He looked around for clues about the personality of the responsible for that elegy to lost childhood: on top of the hundreds of stuffed animals, dolls and one or another plastic bracelet on the floor. Nothing. At least not useful. Not a photograph, no lipstick, no perfume. The suspicion of his infanticide confirmed on each single of those absurd details. Shit, shit, shit. You’re a piece of shit. Do not forget. You’re a piece of shit.

How could I get to this? even more, where was I drinking last night then? at a Kindergarten? It didn’t seem plausible. It had been years since the last time he was anywhere close to a place full of noisy brats. There had to be another explanation. And yet he still didn’t feel capable of going through the door that’d lead him to know. He considered jumping off a window, but the dizziness he felt when he tried standing up again dissuaded him of the enterprise. Only thing left to make his day was to break his neck.

Laying in bed, even with his eyes closed, he can see some lights flickerings and hear a voice that repeats in a loop: Do not forget, Do not forget, Do not forget…Damn it! There’s no way to escape, or to remember or to shut down this fucking hangover. And now what?!

Tired of walking around his pink prison and dizzy of racking his dehydrated brains, he decides it’s time to fly out. He looks at himself back in the mirror where the note is still observing him, Do not forget, and after panting in exasperation takes the door handle and turns it.

The strong light on the other side of the door is so blinding as if he would be receiving the impact of a spotlight focused straight into his face, so he tries to protect his eyes with an arm, as if his life depended on it, as if instead of light it would be bullets and then hears:

-“How come are you still standing there? They’ve been waiting for you already for two hours in make-up to start shooting in set 3 ASAP. Now, go!”

Eyes and mouth can hardly be told to be less open. They reflect an incredulity that ceases by the minute. A bad joke. The perfect set up for a perfect idiot. A bitter lesson. No more beers with the guys after the shoot. Specially if you’ve behaved like a narcissistic asshole the whole session. Specially when you’re such an idiot you forget even your name after the fourth beer. Do not forget. Now I do. Now I won’t forget. Now I can put to rest my poor brains, that is when my hangover retreats.

-“Hey, you! Are you alright?” asks again the assisting director to my poker face. “Do not forget we start shooting in 20 minutes”

-“Yeah…yeah. And don’t worry, this time I will forget NOTHING.”