Young Writers Society

I open my eyes to see a man cloaked in white fire. His clothes are white (white as the moon that spits waves of mocking light over earth by night.) The mask strapped over his mouth is white (white as a sword blazing with ice-fire.) His eyes are white (white as death.) He leans in closer and closer to me, and I sink deeper into my bed, trembling.

"Good morning, Dear Girl." The man whispers. He smells too clean. Dear Girl is not my name. But I cannot remember what my name is.

"Who are you?" I ask the man cloaked in white fire.

"Dear Girl, ‘Who are you' is certainly the wrong question to ask. Who I am is no one's business but my own." He taps my chest with his fingers, which are gloved in white latex.

"But you may ask me what my name is." He puts the latex fingers on my shoulder, and I shudder. His fingers feel like eels against my skin, but they are dry, too dry. I notice with increasing horror that the shoulder which those dry white eels rest on is blotchy red and the skin is sagging. My eyes sweep over the rest of my body, seeing my pale wasted limbs, my gown (it is white!) and the needles connecting to my arms. I am sick.

"Since you are obviously not going to ask my name, let me tell you. My name is Doctor Sanchez. Now while it may not be your business to know who I am, it is my business to know who you are. In fact, it's my job. And since you do not know who you are, let me tell you."

I let out my breath in a wavering rattle as Dr. Sanchez pulls his eel fingers away from me and adjusts his clean white mask.

Jets of anger wash through my veins, like hot lava. I do not need this man to tell me who I am. I know who I am. I am I am, I am...

Blank. Nothing. An empty hermit crab shell floating out to sea with the tides that go in and out, in and out. The tides never stop repeating their cycle. Life never stops repeating its cycle. I have been washed back to beach in an oncoming tide, but all that I know is the previous few minutes. All I can remember is the man cloaked in white fire. If that is all I can remember, than that is who I am. I am a sick girl with a white demon hanging over me, and nothing more.

I open my mouth to scream, but I chock on the sound, as if there is a great bomb lodged in my throat.

The man seems to sense my fear and takes off his mask to show me that he is smiling. It is a cold smile, that is carved into his face like rock. As if he practices it every morning in the mirror before he goes to the hospital, his everything-is-going-to-be-okay smile. As if this is supposed to comfort me. He snaps his mask over the smile with a thwap.

I hear the putrid sound of a deep moan from an unknown place. It is a moan of pain, not physical pain, but a deep mental anguish. I don't dare look to see where it is coming from, and I think for a second that it might be coming from my own throat.

"Meet your neighbor, Jacki. She will most likely be here for life, just like you, unless she is able to find her brain again." Jacki moans again, that same lost, pitiful sound.

"But what was I saying? Ah yes. I was just about to tell you who you are. Your name is Karlena. You are 16 years old. You are in the long term facility care section of the Gregory-town hospital. Your parents died in a car accident three years ago. You have an array of diseases that I don't care to list, and you have amnesia." He stops his monologue abruptly, and there is a silence that hangs like the eye of a hurricane between us: a silence that is white. The bomb is still caught in my throat. I can almost hear him add silently, That is who you are, and that is all you will ever be.

The tides go in, the tides come out.

Jacki starts to spew gales of laughter. It is desperate laughter, it is white laughter. It grows louder and louder, and when I start to scream, no one can hear me.