Sally Swell

What if every day you woke to a new world?
A world where everyone seemed to know you, but you knew no-one?
Could you live a life where nothing ever stayed the same?
Not even your name?
I have to. Every time I fall asleep, I wake to a new world. The only way to stay in a world is to stay awake.
No rest, not even a five minute nap.
If I do, I lose everything.
Right now I'm a girl named Sally Swell, who lives in a small town where everyone knows everyone. These places are some of the hardest to blend into, because of my lack of knowledge.
So instead of going to school, I played sick.
"Are you sure you'll be okay?" The woman I assumed was Sally's mother asked, wide brown eyes full of a love and concern I felt guilty receiving. I wasn't Sally, couldn't be Sally.
Offering a fit of hacking coughs that sounded horrible, I gave a feeble nod. "I'll try to sleep."
"I'll only be a phone call away if you need me." The woman said, brushing some of Sally's long blonde hair back tenderly before she turned and left.
I waited ten minutes to be sure she was gone, then got out of bed. Sally seemed pretty tall, and it took a bit of getting used to after having been a short goblin yesterday.
Moving through the house, I found a computer and turned it on. I didn't know if Sally would remember what I did during this day, or if there even was a girl named Sally Swell. Perhaps she wasn't real.
Perhaps none of the people I've been were real.
As a child, I'd hadn't had a hard time adjusting to being a different person each day. I hadn't realized there was anything odd about it. I'd simply wake up and do whatever the adult nearby wanted me to do. I'd answered to any name, because I'd thought everyone had multiple names.
Being in a different body hadn't mattered either, for I'd thought everyone changed what they looked like while they slept.
And the different locations didn't matter, for I loved being able to play in a new place every day.
But with age came realization.
As those around me stopped seeming amused at my vast imagination and began insisting I "act normal". As birthdays became something I realized were only supposed to happen once a year. As people stopped accepting that I didn't know their name.
I didn't know what I was supposed to.
I wasn't who they thought I was.
Who I thought I was.
Even now as I search the internet for something new to study, I don't know who I am.
Am I Sally Swell? Viperos Snaggletooth? Gina Clove?
I have memories of being hundreds of people, each a mere glimpse into a life I am denied.
People have looked at me with loving eyes, and shouted their rage from across a battlefield.
I've seen how people should act as a best friend, but never actually had a friend of my own.
All I seem able to take with me is knowledge.
And so for today, Sally Swell will study baking.
When I fall asleep, Sally Swell will be no more.
But I'll know how to make apple pie.