Memories In Time

You remember the feel of his hand in yours, same as always and unchanging. Gentle and slightly calloused from years of working on automobiles with his dad. Your body hums with delight, a smile pulling at the edges of your lips despite the odd fear winding down your spine. 

    Those eyes were vivid, a kaleidoscope of hazel and green, like fractured sunlight tumbling in through a stained glass windowpane. You said, I love you, and he turned, keeping one hand on the steering wheel, returning the gesture. Then, the world shattered at the seams. 

    You screamed. 

    You cried. 

    You pleaded as your family’s one and only Mustang collided into a dead tree stump.

    Memories swarmed your senses, livid and wild…

    That first kiss underneath the mistletoe with your lover just two months earlier.

    The hug you gave your grandmother on her one-hundredth birthday.

    The beautiful, fluffy puppy that you rescued and called your own. 

    All things that flashed by within one blink and the next.

   There was a buzzing in your ears, blood caked on your fingers, and your lover hunched over the steering wheel, barely breathing. You shout his name, or maybe it was just merely all in your head. 

    The airbags pop out, suffocating you in their entirety. Pointy glass shards cut your flesh as the totaled car groans and tilts uncontrollably on its axis, wanting to drag you over the cliff face that looms below.   

    Another car slams into yours from behind, causing your spine to quiver as fat raindrops continue to coat the slick asphalt roads. Your eyelids grow heavy, the stark stench of muddy earth and blood making your head swarm until darkness closes over you.

   ***

 You awake in a strange room, feeling a scratchy blanket underneath your fingertips. Your nose scrunches in distaste from the hacking cough coming directly from the room to your left and then everything slams into you at once. 

   A hospital.

  You're in a hospital tucked into bed with an IV stuck in your wrist, pumping vital life fluids back into your battered and bruised body.

     Wait.

    This is odd.

    You don’t remember a single reason why you should be here, don’t even understand the strange caving of your heart inside your chest. The organ screams for somebody, desperately wanting you to run right back to them-

    The wooden door left ajar directly to your right reveals a checkered black and white floor, as the nurse’s pristine white shoes scamper hastily across it. A pen clicks, startling you as one of those said nurses wanders into your room. She is chewing bubblegum, her accent thick. “Molly?” 

   You blink at her in confusion and uncertainty. 

   “I don’t know anyone named Molly, miss.” 

    Should the name ring a bell?

    Was it yours?

    Why was there a sudden strange niggle starting in the back of your spine?

    The nurse squinted in disbelief. “Don’t be playing those tricks on me, young one. It’s bad enough that the boy in room 202 thinks this is all fun and games. I was talking to nurse Molly Thomson across the hall.” 

   But you really didn’t understand.

  The IV in your wrist.

  The way your arm was dangling in a sling and your ankle propped up and iced on a pillow.

  The way your lungs rattled with broken breath. 

  “Maybe you can help me.”

  The nurse snorted, jotting something down. “We certainly hit the jackpot this week. The doctor will be in shortly.” 

    She turns sharply on her heel and you watch her leave, your mind whirring with confusion, doubt, and a strange sort of nausea churning low in your belly.

     You suddenly yearn for home but can not link it to a specific place, smell, or sound. Your mind tries to fill in the cracks with beach houses residing on sandy, glistening shorelines and massive penthouse suites residing in the city. 

    That doesn’t work.

    You attempt to remember who you are, slamming your eyes shut to recall a kind mother, a loving father, and two teasing sisters only for it all to fall apart at the seams.

   Nothing remained behind.

   Not a sliver of hope or remembrance… you were like a baby sea turtle recently hatched and trying to make your way towards the ocean.

    Lost.

   Alone.

   Terrified.

  A clock chimes the hour, causing your skin to crawl as night time shadows wind their way across your room. They dance together, lovers engrossed in a waltz with the massive moon acting as the stage light. 

    You hum a broken tune from somewhere in the shattered bits of your mind, contemplating if you should reach for that chilled glass of water four inches away. 

    What a strange feeling. 

    You are living, yes, but more like observing from a secluded shell. 

    Something vital was stolen from you, memories, an identity, the fluttering hope of a dream. But alas, you can’t remember though you so desperately do. 

    The doctor knocks once and you plead for him to come back in the morning, wanting nothing more than alone time…

     To sleep.

     Dream.

     Hope.

    He still pokes his head in, a red beard filling your periphery. “I’ve come to discuss some medical things with you.”

     You tell him that you can’t, that your body aches in places it shouldn’t like you’ve been crushed by a giant bulldozer but he is persistent. 

   “Sorry, but this is urgent.” He pushes his thick-rimmed glasses higher up on his aquiline nose, clearing his throat. “And I will not ask again.”

    You let out a puff of irritated breath before gesturing-not unkindly-for him to walk in. “You may enter.” 

   He walks with graceful strides, a heavy clipboard tightly snuggled into the crook of his arm. “Okay, where would you like me to begin?” 

   You wish that you could answer honestly. You wish that this place, this year, the smell of rain-slicked blooms would spark some sort of recognition. 

   This day was important, you could feel it.

   In your bones.

  In your thundering heart.

  In the way the owl hooted outside the windowsill, a trill meant just for you.

  From the hallway came a frantic scream, a man bolting upright upon a stretcher and looking dead set into your eyes. He gurgled words that were meant to be comforting, trying to soothe your hurt before the nurse shushed him and carried him along. 

   Did you know him?

  Did he know you?

  Why did your heart race when those rich hazel eyes collided with your own?

  “Ahem.” The doctor cleared his throat, no doubt growing anxious. “Shall we get on with it?” 

  “Of course,” you lie, shifting uncomfortably on the bed.

  The doctor whips out that clipboard again, gesturing to a scribbled note. “You have amnesia, along with a slight fracture in your arm and a sprained ankle. A bad case of retrograde amnesia I’m afraid. Over time, I'm sure you’ll get it back. Now-”

   He goes over various treatment options, attempting to ease your mind.

   It doesn’t work.

   That acidic bile climbs up your throat again. Chill bumps line your arms and fright wraps its bone-cold fingers against your throat. 

    Retrograde amnesia. 

    How horrible, ghastly-

   “Oh, before I forget.” The doctor digs around in his pocket before pulling out a sealed tight bag with a little black box inside. “This was found at the site of the crash. The police insisted that you keep it, while they rounded up the drunk drivers that delivered the near-fatal blow.”

    He walked out the door. You watched him go, fingering the bag in your grasp.

    Dread sluiced through your veins.

   Heated tension coiled in your belly.

  With your good arm not embedded in a sling, you pry the bag open, dig out the box, and open the lid. Inside rests a shimmery diamond ring, radiant and breathtaking.

    Your heart breaks at the seams, while your mind attempts to put the pieces together for the millionth time. 

   You cry oceans.

   You turn into your pillow to silence the screams.

   Perhaps you have just lost something or someone important… that dreaded unknowing if they're dead or alive. But you can’t think, can’t move. Just stare endlessly at the wall in front of you, waiting for the next round of nurses to come in and check your vitals.