Story Excerpt:

A sensation rises in on him. Shivers run deep down his spine, and his bareback lays upon the roughness of the bed. His legs feel stiff, in fact, they are anchored, and with every attempt to wiggle his toes feel laborious, and sometimes even impossible. With time passing by, he is slowly able to slightly lift a finger or move his head. Later the sensation reaches up towards his arms, and through the length of his legs. His eyes are closed, while he continues to process his deep sleep. He hears the dull tick of the clock, footsteps tapping, smelling the waft of hospital air. The sounds that make him alert are the cries he hears, feeling the presence of bodies not too far away from him. Beads of sweat run down his forehead and roll down towards the pillow and he shifts his head from side to side as if recovering from a feverish dream. With all the sudden events, his heart still beats softly.

He is very overwhelmed by the unknown individuals who cry over him by his hospital bed. The people who embrace and hug him, until he feels suffocated, in which panic circles his mind.

Not long after, his eyes slowly open, it is a struggle to keep them fully open as the over-pouring light makes him feel blinded. As he adjusts them, he is hardly able to see anything and as a result, the sound of footsteps begins to shuffle all around him, there is a lot of muffling that seems to occur, and he can not make out any of it. The cries become louder, as hands pull and touch every corner of his body, to examine any damage that has been done due to his life-threatening coma. Within a few minutes, he is finally able to fully open his eyes, shocked to see men in white coats, and surgical masks, poking at him in every direction.

He looks to his side, to see her staring at him. Other sides of the room are filled with strangers with worried faces. Questions begin to circulate through his brain: Who were these people and how did he get here? He tries to trace back his memory, but everything seems black, dark just like a monstrous sea in the unknown.

He makes his first attempt to utter his first word. His mouth moves, but the most he can get out is a sharp grunt, which no one around him seems to hear. Next, he tries to make a run away from all this mess that he still wonders how he bought himself into.

The only words that Alan can really hear from the doctors are: “memory loss”, “brain damage”, an “accident”.

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Monologue:

This is another segment of the story, in which Alan speaks to the woman, he first sees in the hospital room.

“Do you remember just a few weeks ago, before I woke up from my coma? Your face was mostly filled with shock and disbelief. Tears had pulled and trickled down your cheeks, but despite everything, your eyes were locked onto mine, and a smile had spread wide on your face. Now that I look back, that’s the earliest memory I can think of, not my childhood and not attending middle or high school. I now find it quite funny how when I first laid eyes on you, I could not come to figure out who you were, and I stared at you blankly as the tears drip.

“Furthermore, you never truly know how it feels. To sit in this same body every day, but live completely separate lives at two different times. All I know is that my past life was dreadful, as some look at me in disbelief as I wander aimlessly down the streets observing the unfamiliar surroundings of my forgotten past; but, I do not think that I can ever touch on what exactly those past memories were. Please never tell me who I once was, I think it’s worth not knowing. I never want to think of my poor reputation, I just know it will never make me feel satisfied. Sometimes, part of me wonders if somebody would just tell me, inform me of my childhood, my brain can not seem to shape the images of riding a bike for the first time, playing sports, or getting my first car. I feel broken, inside and out, twisted reality of picturing the perfect life of never bringing myself into this situation.

“Promise me one thing, will you? Please do not inform me of what life used to be like. I want to live a new life. Escape from what was once known, to become respectable, and live on a greater reputation. Trust me on this because I know that I can make this possible. Listen to me because I know that you’re frightened just as much as I am.“