He awoke with a start, bringing his hands to his face to knuckle out the dirt and mucus gumming up his eyelids only to push in more dirt and irritate the organs even more. He gave up and instead buried his face into his elbow, he used the rough fabric to wipe away the grime from his face. It was difficult, but he restored his ability to open his eyes after a few minutes of scratching the crust from his face and looking around the man found himself within a small bathroom, brown with rust and dirt and filled with the sickly odor of rot. 
He stood up from the toilet seat he awoke from, pacing around the room and observing every detail, making out a dirt coated mirror over an old sink, whose knobs were fused shut by rust, next to it a paper towel dispenser missing its front panel, half rotted sheets of brown paper spilling out onto the dusty floor. The man looked at this and then tried to remember what circumstances led him to be brought into such a dilapidated place, but he could not recall. 
He wasn’t troubled as much as he should have been, but he was puzzled at why he could recognize the objects in the room without any memories of them. It was bizarre to know certain types of information, such as the name of an object and its function, but not be able to know where he gained this information. He could confidently say that the left knob on the sink distributed hot water, and the right one distributed cold water, but he would be at a complete loss at what his own name was, or even what he himself looked like. 
While that dwelled on his mind for a minute, his attention shifted to the grimy mirror above the sink, and he believed that now he could answer at least one or two of the questions he had for himself. If one question was answered, then all the other answers should naturally come down like an avalanche, the man concluded. However, there was a serious flaw in his reasoning, whenever he tried to pick up paper towels, half of them disintegrated into unusable scraps, and the other half was covered in a blue fur of mold. This did not dissuade him, and he removed his jacket, a ratty camouflage uniform which he did not know was his own, and began to scrub at the substance holding him back from his desire to know himself. 
It was a grueling process, as the uniform only smudged the dirt away, and picked up only a little of the filth before becoming saturated and forced the man to shake out the coat vigorously. He continued at this obsession for what felt like hours, where he violently scrubbed the mirror, sometimes smearing his work away with streaks of brown and sending him into a fit of rage.  
At long last there was a glimmer of light reflecting from a small patch of silver revealed by the man’s effort, and upon noticing it he did not hesitate to look at the reflection in it. Even if he only would be able see his own eyes, he believed it would be enough. Within the glimmer of the mirror, he caught sight of a tired looking eye. It was bloodshot and was the color of ash, with countless years of experience behind them.  
While staring into the eye, it widened in shock, and the man stumbled backwards. His hand clenching his face in pain he sat on the dusty floor, a panic rushing through his body. The sight of himself did indeed jog his memory, but he wished he hadn’t. He remembered living a life of gambling, spending whatever he earned and then some, the running, and the sleepless nights within train stations. He became desperate with debt, and began robbing people for what he needed, a coat for a chilly night, a knife for protection, even a sandwich to eat. He robbed the wrong man, and ended up in a bathroom like this, a blade between his ribs. His memory began to fade again, and the man found himself sitting on the toilet seat yet again, the last thing he thought was annoyance that all his work will go to waste; when he wakes up again his effort on the mirror will be covered over by grime.