It was old little Tokyo, and I was riding a bike through the abandoned storefronts. I had been running late for my dentist appointment, so I was rushing.
I slowed down in front of a shop, number 66. It had a rusting sign that said "Ice Cream" and a shattered front window. I stopped the bike and hopped off, leaving the bike in the street among the dead leaves. No one would take it.
I walked into the shop– there was no door– and looked around. The place was dusty and small, with a white plastic serving counter and a forgotten crinkly couch in the opposite corner. It was entirely empty. I took a number from a dispenser on the counter and settled down on the wrinkled skin of the couch to wait. I put the number next to me, then changed my mind and moved it to my shirt pocket, tucking it neatly inside. I did not want to forget to take that little slip of paper.
I waited for thirty minutes but my number wasn't called. I knew something was wrong because no one else's number was called either. I stood up and went to the counter, ready to make a fuss over the wait. I hadn't rushed all the way over to old little Tokyo to waste my time! "Hello?," I called, "I had a 2:00 appointment and its 2:30!" There was no response, but I thought I heard someone moving in the back. God!, I thought, the nerve of these people, ignoring me like this! I ventured cautiously behind the counter and into the darkness of the hall leading behind it. My feet moved loudly through piles of crunchy leaves. There were more in this place than there had been on the street! "Hello?" I repeated, straining to see in the dark, "Is there somebody there?" There was a definite response, a person's whispering just ahead. I sighed and walked faster through the hallway. It wasn't very long, and I could see a light at the other end. Soon I had reached it, but I didn't see the person who I had heard. There was a little window and the light shone weakly through its bars. I turned around. On the wall there was a door hanging off its hinges. I could tell from the worn writing on its front that it was a bathroom.  I looked inside but there was no one there. It was just a dusty toilet. Any olfactory reminders of its purpose had long since faded. I didn't understand. Where had my dentist gone? Where was everyone?
I ran outside, stumbling out the door and into the wide street. I looked around, but everything seemed the same: empty. Had it always been that way? I couldn't remember– why couldn't I remember.
Then I noticed something different:
My bike was gone.