A Voice of Nothing: part two of Vox Nihili

The nurse’s eyes grew large, round, the whites showing. She made a sort of nervous dance, and raced out my room door.

What was going on? There wasn’t much she’d told me. Found on the sidewalk. Who am I? Why am I here? The anesthesia part-why was I full of surgical sedative if I was an emergency patient? Had I tried to commit suicide? Was that why I couldn’t remember who I was? Had I blocked a memory-the memory of who I was? These questions raced through my mind, bringing with them a pain that seemed to originate deep in my head.

Oh, what was going on?

The flustered nurse soon returned with a man, whom she pulled by the coat sleeve.

“Osborne, I’m telling you, she’s coherent, but she ain’t right. Please, look at her! I can’t deal with this! I have twenty other patients, and…” I heard her babbling as they paused outside my door.

“Hush, Jen. I’ll take care of her. Just give me the forms,” replied Jon.

He then entered my room and proceeded to re-do the whole orientation test, with the same results.

He left, returning a few minutes later with the following diagnosis:

“You appear to be suffering from biological anntegrade amnesia,” said the man in the hip-length lab coat.

“Duh,” I replied, biting my lip. State the obvious, why don’t you. And they call you a doctor…

“Under normal circumstances, a person with such an acute case of this would be admitted to the psych ward. However, you should be glad to know you are an exception. According to the orientation test’s results, you are clearly coherent. Thus, you can continue to stay in your hospital room.”

“Yah-huh. Look, Dr. Osborne, can you get to the point?” I wasn’t in the mood for people who were going to dodge the bullet.

“Well, you’re physically okay, Miss. We think you’re capable of living independently, even.”

“Uerhum,” I cleared my throat vociferously. “There’s a matter with the inherent, uh, lack of funds.”

I watched Osborne’s expression fall, and barely suppressed a spiteful smile. He was young-probably just an intern-and fun to toy with.

“Well, our neurological clinic is interested in doing research cases. Their director sent a memo asking for referrals. From what I’ve heard, you’d be a wonderful candidate.” He smiled, showing a set of immaculately white teeth.

“That definitely sounds good,” I said, trying to sound hopeful. Now we were getting somewhere. One step closer to finding out who the heck I was.

“I’ve got the application here,” Osborne placed a sheaf papers on my bedside table.

“How do I sign it?” I sniffed, almost offended by his audacity-and lack of forethought.

That was the one problem. How do you give somebody your health insurance agency number and your medical history, etc, when you don’t have one?

“Umm. You can talk to our social worker,” he looked slightly embarrassed, and began to pull at the neck of his lab coat as if it were buttoned too tightly.

“How do I do that?” So close. So very close indeed…

“I can get you an appointment with her later today.”

“Thanks.” I smiled, and he nodded, rising from the chair he had been sitting in, and left.

I let out a long breath as my room door clicked shut loudly. It was a very awkward process, discussing your future with complete strangers, all the while being referred to as “Patient” or “Miss.”

All because I had no name. One word stuck in my head, peskily buzzing like some fly on a hot dog. Somebody. Somebody-it chimed. Why wouldn’t it leave me? I was a somebody, but I wasn’t someone.

Was my brain torturing me? Not much use making me more miserable, I told my subconscious.

I stood, pacing the room on stiff limbs. I often stopped to gaze into the mirror at the face that stared back with questioning looks. Her gaze seemed to inquire of a being hidden behind the skin: who are you? Will you ever come back out? Dark, flowing wavy hair fell in unkempt tendrils on my shoulders, contrasting the sunny yellow hospital gown like a black hole to a supernova.

My skin was an even, honeyish beige, darker than many Caucasians, lighter than most Africans. That left just about the entire world full of ethnic groups! I could be Chinese, Israeli, Italian, Russian, Native American—who knew what else? My nose was longer than some, with a delicate, narrow bridge and the nondescript average nostrils. The eyes that stared back at me were almonds of white, framed by long, dark lashes. High cheekbones completed an oval face, which fell to broad shoulders and a medium build body. Muscles underlay strips of fat on my arms and legs, creating the silhouette of any young woman.

Searching my body, I found few scars; certainly nothing very distinct. I stuck out my tongue, wondering at the pattern of ollevoli that could function similarly to a fingerprint. The whorls on the pads of my fingers were faint to my eyes. Had they actually been visible, I probably wasn’t a forensic analyst. Then again, who was to say?

The minutes passed in the stagnant march of time, grains of sand in the hourglass. It was sheer bad luck that my room TV was out of service. Even re-runs would’ve been fine, because what were the odds I’d even remember seeing them? Yeah, that’s one advantage of having acute amnesia: reruns haven’t lost their appeal, I thought wryly, a smile twisting my face. Nor did I have much pretense to hate myself or have ‘regrets’, not knowing what had been in my past. But that didn’t make the situation suck any less.

I spent hours poring over my memories in an A-Z fashion: abdomen, archipelago….

Every letter manifested more and more images in my mind’s eye. Still, all were disjointed and as random as my first thoughts. Surfacing in blurred shadows, objects which were found in a billion places on the globe; nothing seemed to glean any hint of a past. As the futility of my endeavor became apparent, I began to search all the harder, refusing to admit defeat. Giving up would curse me to live as an empty shadow; hollow and wandering.

Was I missed by anyone who had known me? Were they out there somewhere, searching and calling my name? Names. What would I do to sign the application to the neurology branch? Could I just make an ‘X’ or use my fingerprint? Would I have to apply for asylum in the US, not having any proof of American citizenship?

I continued to meditate for hours, sorting and categorizing memories like most people do their filing cabinets. Only a knock on the door in the early afternoon aroused me.

“Come in,” I called.

“Hi, Miss..miss,” said a woman with short, blond hair, whose roots which starkly contrasted the ends.

Her pug nose wrinkled as she stared sourly at a clipboard that was clamped between tense fingers with perfect pink nails.

“And you are,” I prompted.

“Raina Williams, the clinic social worker.”

“Good. Now sit down,” I pointed to the visitor’s chair beside my bed.

She obeyed, still staring at the clipboard.

“On the form, you checked off as being a psych patient,” Raina said, her voice rising questioningly as she finally made eye contact with me.

“Yes, but I’m not impaired, as you can see,” I interjected.

“And it says you need financial aid as well,” she continued.

“Indeed.”

“Oh, okay. Amnesia. Now I see. Sorry. I just forgo-uh, didn’t think to look.”

I eyed her with what would become my trademark P.O.d expression. As in, hello, you don’t avoid using the word ‘see’ around a blind person, do you? Or letting deaf people see you talk? Much less start and suddenly, inexplicably stop. I didn’t know about my past opinion, but this politically correct woman seemed obsessed with living her life based upon the latter.

“Yah. Look, I don’t know if I’m an American citizen or not. And I want to find my pat, if you can understand that,” I snapped.

“Oh. Certainly. I’ll get you a line to the NYPD. ”

“NYPD? What is that?”

“ New York Police Department.”

“Makes sense. But wouldn’t an immigrations department be better?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask,” Raina Williams responded.

Huh. I’d bet. You are so definitely an intern, Miss Social Worker indeed. You don’t even read the sheet right! I smiled spitefully at these thoughts, turning it into a pleasant expression to help lessen the growing temptation to bite the naïve woman’s head off.

That was saying something, what with my having amnesia.

“Miss?” Raina was gazing at me with a look of curiosity plastered over her round face.

“Yes?” my voice was curt and short.

“Do you want…oh. You need applications for the Neurological wing. I can get that for you. Sorry, it says here you have them now. I can submit them if you’ve completed them,” she babbled profusely.

“There was this one little issue,” I said in a tone that implied confidentiality.

“What’s that?” she gave me another weird look.

“I can’t sign, because I don’t know my name,” I said, frowned at her like DUH!

“I can make a reference,” she said, for the first time sounding sure of herself.

“Good. Is that all?” I asked, much relieved by the proposed solution to my name crisis.

“Sure is. Have a good night, Miss,” she called as she left the room, leaving the door open behind her.

Whew. What a roller coaster ride, I thought, getting up to shut the door.

Nothing…to…do..at..all, I write, staring blankly at the wall. It is now evening, after supper, in the first day of my living memory. The machines by my bed purr in sleep mode, and somewhere down the hall, laughter rings out, sharp, jovial, slicing the silence. A sign hangs on the door, commanding the janitor to inspect my TV. The New York Times lies strewn on my bedside table, every line well-scanned, even the classified ads thoroughly wrinkled. The sunset’s afterlight glares upon the streets of Manhattan from endless miles away in space as I lie, gazing into the world from a window many stories above the ground. Whoever said ‘know thyself’ was right. Because I don’t, and it sucks on so many levels. See you later, Diary.

I closed the notebook, sighing. So much for journaling. It’s hard to write when there’s nothing to write about. I got up and stretched, deciding to take a walk. Find some society, whether civil or savage. Being in the circus would be a lot more interesting than my current occupation, I thought and smiled at my half-joke. I doubted anyone else would have enjoyed it. But what did I know? I wandered down the hallway, heading towards the elevator. Once in the car, I tapped the button for the floor above, which, according to the floor plan diagram, was the location of the recreation room. It dinged, and I exited, striding into the purple-walled room. On one side, a row of TV’s played cartoons, with beanbag chairs for kids to sit in. On the other, a wall of bookcases stood like a beacon. On an impulse, I ran over to the books. A’s under non-fiction…Am…Amn…Amne…Amnes..Amnesi..Amnesia. Bingo! My smile vanished as I realized the book was geared towards readers a fourth of my approximate age. A picture book, explaining the very basic concepts of amnesia… Frustrated, I flung the paperback onto a table and trudged towards the door. Wait. A computer, the internet!

I whirled around the room, almost dancing with anticipation. A computer bank was nestled in one corner. No one was at them, so I sat down and opened up a search engine. “Missing Persons” was what I keyed into the search box. www.thelost.com looked promising. I spent hours poring over pages of photos, searching my own face under a headline. Children with smiling faces stared at me from screen after screen; smiling mouths that would never again say “I love you mommy, daddy,” to their parents. Endless video clips held summaries like ‘Bring Home Susan’ and ‘Bring Home Our Tommy.’

I began to wonder if there was anyone out in the world, who would cry my name in hopes of my answering. Eventually, I gave up, unable to find any clue to my past, or any note of a missing young woman whose face was mine.

Hours after I began my search, I stalked back to my room, wishing with all my might that I’d wake up in a different city, a different room, and one I recognized as my home. Sadly, that was not to be. The first thing I heard in the morning was the click of my door opening.

“Breakfast, Miss!” a voice called. I looked around myself to find a tray of steaming food lying on my bedside table, and the back of a service person exiting through the doorway.

“Oy, grits, ham, orange juice..” I catalogued the tray’s contents. It wasn’t exactly French Cuisine, but it looked-and smelled-good. I opened the paper carton of orange juice and sucked it down greedily, enjoying the zingy-sweet citrus flavor. I was about to inhale the grits when a small white card on the edge of the tray caught my eye. It read in print type:

“Sorry, but we are no longer serving oatmeal daily due to the decreasing popularity. If you wish, you can request some. Thankyou—the Cafeteria Staff”

Interesting, was my one thought before I proceeded to eat the lumpy concoction of corn grain. It was a bland, well, gritty paste that stuck to the roof of my mouth, which began to drive me nuts a f a few minutes of futile salivation. I got up and headed down the hall to the water fountain.

Taking a long drink, I enjoyed the coolness of the liquid. As I stood up, wiping my dripping mouth on my forearm, I flinched, feeling the jolt of another body colliding with mine.

“Oh, sorry!” I apologized, giving an embarrassed grin.

“No, it’s okay. Really,” replied my partner in the collision, a skinny teenage girl with hip length brown hair and a pointy chin, nose, and narrow eyes.

“Sorry,” I began again.

“No, really, I’m okay, I just didn’t see where I was going,” she continued.

“Uhm, yah,” I mumbled.

“It’s so easy to get lost here.” The girl seemed to be studying me as she spoke.

“Yes, I know. Where were you headed?” I asked.

“I was actually doing a survey. Would you like to participate?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. You’re a patient-right?”

“Yah.”

“Here goes, then. What is the type of illness you have-like the system it affects?”

“The nervous system-it’s neurological,” I replied.

“Okay. How long have you been here?”

“Forty eight hours or so.”

She scribbled something on a clipboard with a mechanical pencil.

“How old are you?”

“I…uh, don’t know, exactly…”

“I’ll skip that one…here’s the next. Would you consider yourself to be in pain?”

“Not physically. However, it’s a really bad, uh, experience.” My voice cracked a little in the last statement, and I felt my face grow hot.

“Have you had many visitors?”

“No. No family, just hospital workers. I don’t…” I trailed off, afraid to say what I so desperately wanted to convey.

“Oh. How would you rate the level of care you’ve received so far-negligent, poor, fair, good, or excellent?”

“Eh-fair. They have a lot of interns,” I murmured, and cracked a nervous grin.

“Okay. Thanks for joining. I’m Gina,” said the girl, extending her right hand.

“Nice to meet you. I’m, well, I don’t know my own name, but I’m glad I got to meet you…” I trailed off, hearing my heart pounding in my chest, and waited for Gina’s reaction.

“So you’ve got-amnesia?” Gina asked, her eyebrows forming arcs as she gave my hand a quick shake.

“Actually, I do. Organic retrograde…”

“Whoa.”

“ I know lots of stuff, but none of it seems to matter. I don’t know who-who I am.”

“Wow. I mean, like…” she continued to mumble jibberish as she processed my statement, as if she couldn’t find words to say what she wanted to convey.

Despite my best efforts, tears began to slide down my cheeks, and I stared at the wall, listening to Gina’s breathing and the silence of the empty hallway.

An eternity later, she finally found her tongue and said, “I’m so sorry. Do you want to talk?”

“Sure,” I whispered, feeling my throat tighten. She put her hand on my arm, and I found myself walking.

Hoarsely, I said, “ My room’s this way.”

“Okay,” she nodded, flashing a sympathetic smile as we went into my room.

Gina sat down in the visitor’s chair, and I sat on the edge of my bed.

“I’ve been here for a day, at least, that’s all I can remember. The nurse said that paramedics found me on the sidewalk…” I began to spill out my entire story to a complete stranger.

When I finished, I began to sob, and those turned into muffled spasms of gasps for air. Gina let me cry on her shoulder. I’d never in memory met anyone so kind.