Sam’s eyelids were softly closed. He was calm and relaxed. Through his mind ran the memory that had never left him. As he lay there he recalled that night from so many years ago of an aged man. He had a slight hunched back and smelled of gutter. He had not been appealing in any apparent way. This old man had however asked sam a question that he has never forgotten. He had stumpled over to him on the sidewalk, looked into his boyish innocent eyes and asked him “boy, am I lost?”. The old mans questions had sent chills down the boys spine. Still now he recalls the sincerity of the question. The man had looked desperate and in that moment he was so sober and looking for direction.

Sams alarm clock rang waking him from his light sleep, 8am again and time to get up. He snoozed for a little as he slothfully stretched his arm towards the alarm clock.

You were about the age of ten when you had met the man. You were young enough not to have noted the exterior matter of the man, not old enough to know that he might have been a dangerous stranger that you might otherwise have been taught by the world to fear. But you did not know to act any differently back then, you had just seen into his heart and it wasn’t scary.

Today its wake up time and your hazied thought wonder why this old weathered mans question seems to be on repeat in your mind. You still see the mans eyes searching deep in yours to find direction. Never had you, as a little boy experiences such trust from anybody, not even your mother. Why was the memory so fixated?

Beep beep beep! The alarm clock rings again sending a jolt through your body. You get out of bed, slothfully carring yourself to the bathroom.

Come to think of it, you’ve seen that same look several times after that moment, even though the words had not been uttered. You’ve seen the question hiding behind pretty, masked faces caring their mechanical trained smiles. Eyes that seem empty, happy but lost….everytime the question is repeated “am I lost?”

You see it in magazines, in shy strangers on the street. The same question is seen in the very face that stares back at you in the mirror.