Day 251 – Writing exercise
…
The first sensation I had was excruciating pain. My leg, my side, my arm… it was hard to tell what hurt most.
A voice above me was in full panic, “We’re losing him. Make it happen … now.”
Then he realised I had surfaced, an eye partially open, to one side a large leaning lump of metal, smelling of oil or something else.
“Stay with me sir,stay with me.” His hand on my chest, I could hear the groaning sound of metal, and a slight easing of the pain.
“Easy, easy now”, then a scream, ” gently.”
The pain came in a rush and then I heard a scream. I never thought it might have come from me.
…
Whoever it was hovering had changed; it could be the same person but I didn’t think so. I could smell lavender.
Perhaps I was dead.
The pain was less, hovering there in the background.
The voice had morphed into a woman’s slightly higher pitch, soothing but urgent.
A man was standing over her.
“He’s stabilised, critical, but ready for transport. It isn’t good, but its not bad.”
At least that’s what I thought she said as inky blackness and silence followed.
What the hell had happened?
…
Two days and three operations later, followed by an induced command for three more, I woke again, in a completely different setting.
The ICU.
A nurse was sitting in the chair next to me, apparently toiling over the Times cryptic crossword. I’d wrestled with a few of my own.
She seemed angry, or perhaps she had one of those faces that looked perpetually sad. I would be too if I worked in this ward. So many people seen at their very worst.
Of course, I doubt many would be in the same sinking ship I was on, not knowing what happened or why I was there.
Except..
I had done a full reconciliation of my body and I was covered in bandages, and barely able to move.
So, conclusion? I was hit by a bus.
I stirred, and she looked up. I was surprised it hadn’t stirred her into instant action.
She carefully put the newspaper to one side, wiped her hands on one of those antiseptic towels and then stood, taking in the biological sights on the machine beside me and nodding to herself.
A lot of wires ran between me and that machine.
She could see me looking at her.
“Can you speak?”
Good question. The words were in my head, but come out. My mouth moved but there was no sound. Where was that volume button?
“That would be a no, then.”
“In case you haven’t put two and two together, you are in hospital. This is the Intensive Care Ward and my name is Nancy. You have been in an induced coma to help in your recovery and in a minute a doctor will be here and will tell you more.”
That was enough. Definitely hit by a bus.
The doctor when he came, looked no older than a high school graduate. His manner was strange but I put that down to him being tired. He looked tired.
His description of my case was disjointed, or perhaps that was me, picking out the salient features.
Car accident – other driver drunk and died at the scene – I nearly did but for a fast-acting off-duty trauma nurse – extensive broken bones – a hell of a shake-up – but I would recover.
In time … except ..
It appeared I had no memory of the accident, who I was, and a lot of other information everyone routinely knew about themselves like name, address, and phone number. Or anything personal.
How was that possible?
…
It seems a man with no name must be a criminal.
That was the impression I got when Nancy the nurse told me I was getting a visit from the police, though the way she put it, it was to try and identify whether I was a missing person, considering I had been, by this time, seven days out of circulation.
Was I supposed to feel like a copy of the daily newspaper, or an old book?
Of course, the police had to wait until the doctor decided I was well enough to cope with an intensive interrogation. By this time the boy doctor had been replaced with an elderly man, almost grey, with a permanent amused expression, and the best bedside manner tone.
Every word he spoke sounded reassuring even if it wasn’t. He could, I decided, sell ice cream to the Eskimos.
“Unfortunately,” he said, after poring over the ever thickening chart file, “I can only hold them off for so long. They don’t seem to like the idea that someone cannot remember who they are.”
“I wish I could remember. The accident, what I was doing before the accident, and whether someone out there is worrying about whether I’m dead or alive.”
“I’m sure the amnesia is only temporary. After all a car landed on you. A lot of people would not have survived. That is one of your nine lives expended.”
Odd, I felt as though it was not the first time I’d spent time in one of these places. I was due to move to a ward later today. That was when I would have the first appointment with the torturers, otherwise known as the physiotherapists.
“Thanks, but no point delaying the inevitable.”
…
Detective Lucas and Detective Samson were as different as chalk and cheese. When they walked in, Lucas, the elder of the two was first. Samson was young, enthusiastic and animated.
Lucas looked like he’d already done the graveyard shift and decided not to go home. Tired and aggravated, as if coming to see a guy who couldn’t remember his own name, was an affront to his detecting skills.
Samson hung back and had a notepad out, pencil ready. Lucas stood at the end of the bed.
“Ninety nine times out of a hundred a person who plays the amnesia card is running from or trying to hide something, and in my experience, are criminals trying to escape the consequences.”
Lucas, apparently, was the bad cop.
“Which one are you, Mr John Doe?”
So, I was John Doe. Oddly I knew what that meant. The hospital had to call me something, and I wondered how many John Doe files in their archive.
“The one that got hit by the proverbial bus. The one that nearly died. The one that will be lucky to pick up a piece of paper, let alone mastermind an art gallery heist, or drive a getaway car.”
“It’s not my first rodeo. We’ve done a facial recognition pass on you, and fingerprints, and very strange, you don’t seem to be on any database. To me, it’s impossible to believe you just don’t exist.”
They were not the only gobsmacked people in the room. “What can I say? There was no ID, a wallet, drivers licence, credit cards, anything.”
“Not even a label on your clothes. You have several wounds, long healed, but are the result of a knife, and several bullets. Can you shed any light on how or when these happened?”
“No. It’s news to me.” And scary news.
That tells me, as incredible as it sounds, that you are or were a spy, or you’re here illegally, on a mission. You will be getting a visit from the FBI, after I sent the a copy of my report.”
If he was trying to use threats to jog my memory, it wasn’t working. It was still blank. But something I discovered, I could translate the detective’s words into several different languages, especially after he accused me of being a spy.
Maybe I was.
…
The physiotherapist looked like a doctor out of a Frankenstein movie, with close-set eyes, jutting chin and receding but unruly hair. The long nose, high cheek bones, pencil moustache and thin cruel mouth completed the nightmare.
I had been asleep, woke and got a hell of a frighten when I saw him peering down at me.
“Mr John Doe, I presume?” Damn, he had a German accent.
What had happened in my life that just seeing him filled me with fear?
“One of many John Doe’s, yes?”
“I am one of two physiotherapists that have been assigned to you to get you back on your feet. At this moment it time that might see an impossible feat, but I assure you it is not. We have gone over your scans and it seems there is nothing insurmountable. Time and effort is all that will be needed, when the time comes.
“In the meantime we will be outlining the exercises we would like to do in preparation. We will begin an expansive program, bit by bit. Any questions?”
Yes, about a hundred. But only one that needed an answer.
“What is my current condition?”
“Better than it was a week ago.”
OK. Ego boosted, now tell me the truth.
“You’re doing as well as was expected. We’ll know more in a week, but it’s my firm belief we’ll have you up and around soon enough.”
“And my memory?”
“Not my field, but there are people in that field all over but there are several who work here, and you should talk to one or two. I’m sure if you talk to your doctor he will find a specialist in that field.”
….
I was woken by raised voices put on the passage, and I could just see through the partially closed blind a hospital security guard, my night nurse. And a man and a woman arguing.
More visitors for me most likely. I looked at the clock on the wall, and it was a few minutes past six on the .morning.
A pre dawn raid by a police department, though the two were dressed in plain clothes, I believed they were with the FBI.
It was tactics to burst in, just before dawn, when everyone was asleep and tired, just in time to wake them up and ask questions. Hoping their guard would be down. Hoping my guard would be down.
Argument over, IDs flashed and threats made, the two came in and the male agent introduced himself as Agent Rostrum and his partner, Agent Bairns.
I remembered watch the X files where the agents always introduced themselves as Agent something, as if they had no real first name. They were nothing like Mulder and Scully.
They took up positions either side of the bed, as if they expected I was going to make a run for it.
Rostrum started. “We’ve been told you can’t remember anything.”
They could have started less confrontational, but I was guessing this was part of the shock treatment, hoping I was half or completely dazed after being awaken abruptly.
For some strange reason it felt familiar. What was worse, I felt a strange calm come over me. I should have been outraged.
“You’ve been told correctly.”
“So, you don’t remember anything before during or after the crash?”
“Not at the moment. The doctor seems to think the shock of a vehicle landing on me has caused temporary amnesia, and expects my memory will return, sooner or later.”
He looked at his partner, then back at me. Clearly, he didn’t believe me. “The number of suspects who have used that lame excuse tells me you have something to hide.”
“Then you tell me who I am, and why I was where I was when the accident happened. Was I fleeing scene of a crime, because the police would have told me that.”
I looked steadily at him, unblinking, and waited for him to crack first.
“Was there a crime within a fifty-mile radius?”
No answer, so apparently not.
“You could have been on the way to committing a crime?”
“Was I in a car when I had the accident?”
“Yes.”
“Was there anything in the car to suggest I was running from or going to a crime?”
“No.”
“Who was the driver of the other car?”
“A seventy four year old retired schoolteacher.”
A blink, then a light bulb turned on in the recesses of my mind. The description that it was a seventy four year old retired schoolteacher stuck a chord, a familiar chord. Why?
“So, I’m driving along, he comes out of nowhere at speed and the cars collide. It’s a logical series of events that make sense to me. Wrong place wrong time, but no, you think I’m some crime lord with a fake memory excuse?”
“Aren’t you? The circumstances are compelling evidence. You just about described the whole event fir someone who can’t remember.”
“Anyone with a brain could work that out for themselves. If that’s all you’ve got then you can leave now.”
“We have….”
Another person walked in the door, a woman dressed far more stylish than the FBI agents. Someone who reeked of authority. A lawyer?
She had a card and flashed it at the two agents. “This interview is over, and you two can leave. I’ve spoken to your boss. Ring him and check. Meanwhile, scoot.”
“This is highly irregular.” Rostrum was not pleased.
“This will turn into a very bad pain in the ass if you disobey a direct order. Leave, now.” The woman had not raised her voice but it felt like she was shouting at them.”
“Who are you again?”
“Ring your boss, though by this time I’m sure he’s well into writing up your insubordination record. I suggest you hurry to get ahead of this.”
Once again he looked at his partner and she nodded, at the same time heading towards the door. She was not going to be branded with the same brush as her partner. Rostrum reluctantly followed.
When they left, the new arrival closed the door and came back.
She looked at me for a full minute, before saying, “You really don’t remember?”
I looked at her. Yes, there was something, but it might be that she had an unforgettable look.”
I shook my head. “There’s something there, but it’s not clear.”
She sighed. “We are together Michael, we have been for about a year. It’s taken me all this time to find you. You really don’t remember?”
Michael?
Something in my head dropped into place.
Michael?
A fragment popped into my head, a memory of a woman, a photo in a magazine. Another fragment, a room, a large table, a man, a woman, not the one here with me, a map.
A photo in a magazine.
She looked very different in the photo, standing on the deck of a yacht, in a bikini so small it was barely there, but it was the golden hair and oversized sunglasses that stuck in my mind.
Like a movie actor, or something else, maybe the wife of a billionaire, the man who owned the yacht.
It was definitely not me.
And she was definitely not my wife, or partner, and we would never be involved, not in the way she was intimating.
She must have seen my expression changed.
“You remember something.”
“I have seen you before, yes. On a page of a magazine, though slightly less dressed than you are now. But beyond that, nothing. I’m sorry.”
She gave me the same look as the FBI agents did. They didn’t believe me either.
“That’s alright. We can get the best doctors and figure out what’s happened. It’s only temporary, after all.”
She said it almost too offhandedly, perhaps to put me at ease.
Another fragment popped into my head, and this one was slightly more terrifying. That seventy-four-year-old retired schoolteacher, coming out of the cabin of the yacht, holding a gun.
What the hell was I mixed up in.
She saw the expression and smiled. “There it is. Harry said if I turned up, you’d remember.”
And oddly, right after she said that, she looked very strange and then collapsed on the floor.
I had just enough time to recognise a hissing sound and looked up at the air conditioning vent in the roof. Gas.
I could do with some more sleep.
…
© Charles Heath 2026
