"Are you?" interjected the Asian on the other end of the bench.

I paused and looked deliberately at each judge in turn from right to left. "No, I am not. But I wasn't sure at that time."

"Tell us about that time," the Egyptian said.

I leaned over to whisper in Poppy's ear. "Can I smoke?" She nodded and I lit a cigarette. "If you'll indulge me, I'll start from the beginning and work forward."

The Egyptian nodded slowly.

"In the fall of that first strange year, I began having strange dreams and visions, most often when I was awake. They seemed random at first, then eventually they began to form an order and make sense. They were memories. The first memories I had, Vasili's memories, were from the Bulgarian countryside. In that Minnesota winter, the visions, or memories, grew longer, more vivid and more prolific. In time, I gained control over them, eventually reviewing them over and over until I was comfortable with things like language and music that I knew from this other person's memories. I began to question my grasp of reality early on when the memories first started to suggest a separate consciousness from my own. I questioned myself, but what was I to think? By that summer I could read, write and speak Bulgarian as well as play the organ. The memories had become tangible. It was real.

"I couldn't go to Bulgaria as a seventeen or eighteen-year-old and visit the places where Vasili had been. Though it was the surest way to prove to myself that those memories were real, that Vasili had lived at all. My opportunity at vindication and my peace of mind came with the second set of memories, those of young Bobby Lynn Murray. The memories of his short life came to me within a period of two weeks. They came after Vasili's memories. It was at the end of those two weeks that I left my home and parents to find the truth.

"I packed several changes of clothes, cleaned out my meager bank account, and took off on my motorcycle, headed for Georgia. It was eerie as I neared Macon. I started to recognize certain landmarks, not all mind you, but some. I'd be riding along and suddenly know there was a bridge ahead or I'd know which highway to take before I consulted the map. I rode through town unaware I was navigating until the bike coasted to a stop in front of Bobby's old house. The home came as a big shock. It was different than I had remembered of course, as the original was destroyed in the fire. A new one was built on the old foundation and stood out from the older homes surrounding it. I recognized the neighboring houses and the school he had attended. I walked for hours around his old neighborhood in a daze, each building, each street, each crack in the sidewalk speaking to me like some long dead neglected ghost begging for attention.