Memory on Trial

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. Walls painfully white with cream carpeted floors; a lone seascape on the far wall is likely meant to be comforting, but to me evokes only the mystery, the great black unknown depths. And whatever monsters lurk there. 

The ocean. Have I seen the ocean? I can’t pinpoint a specific experience, but I know what the ocean is like. I know what it’s like to squish wet sand between your toes, surf encircling your ankles, while the sun does its best work creating new freckles on your already stained shoulders. 

I had to have been wearing a swimsuit- was it red? It could just as easily been black, red seems ostentatious. Black, yes, it was black, braided hair, my style. And in an instant I could smell the salt on the air coming off the waves of the…the… 

Damn it, what ocean was it? What’s any ocean? How many are there? Seven feels at once too much and not enough. Maybe, 

The double doors to my right burst open interrupting my consternation and I realize I am reclined in bed. 

“How are we feeling this morning?” A chipper woman with bright red lips and a little metal name tag with “Dr. Faruque” pinned to her pocket simultaneously snaps on a pair of rubber gloves and flips open a Manila folder. This woman commands the room and I am in her care. 

A hospital, of course, I must have just had an accident which is a great explanation for why I can’t remember my name. And Dr. Faruque is right, there are dim rays of morning light seeping through the beige curtain of the far window. Was I at the beach when I had my accident? Is that why I was thinking of oceans? That’s why my lungs feel heavy and my mind is muddled. Did I drown?

“Will I be ok?”

Pathetically, the only thing I can think to tell the doctor and I am astonished at the sound of my own voice. I’ve never heard it before. It’s whinier and girlier than I would like. 

Dr. Faruque throws her head back and laughs. “Yes, of course, you’ll be fine. And you asked me that yesterday.” She raises an eyebrow as if in reproof. Great, I’m already getting a B minus in being a patient. 

“Sorry?”

She chuckles again. “Don’t worry, that’s actually a great sign. It means the trial is working.” She clocks the next question on my lips as she double clicks her pen and gently encircles my wrist with her other gloved hand. “Remember, we don’t ask about the trial.” 

My stomach churns. I don’t remember the trial, but my body must. My muscles tense and I feel unnaturally sore at the elbow. 

“Finger.”

“What?”

“For your vitals.”

“Oh.”

I limply hold up my hand in an ET salute. ET. That’s what I remember. A battery of tests follow, all more invasive and disconcerting than the last. Breath tests, a blood draw, a urine sample.

“Now, before your injection, I have a few questions for you.”

“Injection?”

Her eyes were hazel before, I could have sworn. But as her eyes fix on mine for the first time that I can remember, her pupils are fully dilated, her voice barely above a whisper.

“This is the last time I will remind you not to ask about the trial.”

I gulp and stare at my feet.

The doctor grunts and monotonously recites questions from her clipboard, her tone annoyed.

“What is your address?”

“I don’t know.”

“What is your cockatiel’s name?”

“I have a…why a cockatiel?”

“What did Jack say to you on the third of November outside the Department of Motor Vehicles?”

“Doctor, I don’t even know what today is- do I have any family here that can help me?”

“We are officially terminating this round as you seem to be unable to restrain yourself from endangering the results of the trial.”

She snaps her folder shut. Tears well up in my eyes and my hands tighten to fists.

“Please, just let me go home!”

“I thought you didn’t know your home? You said you don’t know your address. At least, that’s what you told us.” Her eyes narrow to slits and I realize her gloved hand is back on my wrist, wrenching it tighter and tighter. Her voice softens to a whisper. “If you’re lying this could seriously disrupt the results of the trial. You don’t want to disrupt the trial, do you?” 

“No, no I just…”

“It’s time for your injection.” 

Dr. Faruque lifts a needle from the pocket of her lab coat, I remember enough that that’s not where sterile needles should come from. Before I can release the yelp that’s rising from my chest, she has stuck my arm. 

“Goodnight.”

Her clipboard grasped in both hands is raised high above my head. 

I scream. I flinch.

Black.

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. 

The double doors ease open and a squirrelly man with metal framed glasses peeks in. “May I?” 

“May…yes?”

He steps further in and Dr. Fuciareli’s small metal name plate is clipped to the pocket of a white jacket. A doctor. A hospital. Of course. I breathe a sigh of relief now given some context even though Dr. Fuciareli’s presence isn’t particularly settling. 

“We need to do some tests on your memory.”

Dr. Fuciareli grips the clipboard as if wringing out a wet sponge. He shifts his weight from foot to foot and shifts his gaze constantly from his watch to the door as if waiting and hoping for an interruption. They made this guy a doctor? He rocks on his heels and squeezes his eyes shut as if in pain.

“We NEED to do some tests on your memory, do you consent?”

“Sure?”

“I need something a little more affirmative to begin.” 

“Yes.”

“Good.”

His eyes snap open, he is ready to get to work. A deep sigh brings Dr. Fuciareli closer to my bed. I lift my finger. This only makes my nervous doctor look even more unnerved. He looks down, then up, down then up.

“What’s that for?”

“Oh, um…I…reflex I guess.”

I shrug and rest my hand back on the knitted blanket. Dr. Fuciareli worriedly scribbles on his clipboard shaking his head to himself. 

“They told me it wouldn’t matter, they told me it was a blank slate…” 

He’s mumbling under his breath with disdain.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“NO, no questions!!”

I startle and sink back into the sheets. He lowers his voice but all the malice remains.

“You cannot ask me questions, I cannot be asked questions today, I will not be party to the disruption of the trial.”

I’m feeling guilty for causing so much turmoil in the mind of this doctor. He begins a litany of tests. A breath test, a blood draw, a urine sample. 

Throughout, I try to ease his anxiety, make simple conversation.

“That’s an interesting art piece.”

I indicate by nodding my head in the direction of the painting on the wall since my arm is occupied with a needle. 

“I’ve always like that one.”

Shockingly, he cracks a half smile.

“It always reminded me of the ocean.”

The ocean. Hmm. I could see that I guess. But the swirls of blue and green are too abstract to correspond to anything literal. 

Dr. Fuciareli’s words have stirred something in the back of my mind. The call of a seagull, I remember what that sounds like. Wind pushing strands of hair in your face you have to open your mouth to release. The general vulnerability of standing in public in a swimsuit. Maybe that part was unique to me. 

So lost in my head, I looked up to find the doctor staring at my face, looking as if he were trying to read my thoughts. If he were more warm maybe I would have let him see in, but from the jump he set me on edge, and now I understood even more why. His pupils were fully dilated.

Fuciareli looks back down at his hands and nods lightly to himself as if convincing himself that everything would be alright.

After a soft pat on my hand he turns to leave the room. I soften. He’s halfway to the door.

“Thank you, Dr. Faruque.”

He halts. His shoulders are up to his ears. Without turning he whispers.

“What did you say?”

“I said…I said, thank you.”

He looks near to tears as he suddenly and hurriedly turns and strides back to my bedside, mumbling erratically.

“I didn’t want to do it, I said I didn’t want to do it, you just wouldn’t cooperate; I won’t be held responsible…”

All this and more as he pulls a needle from his coat pocket.

“Wait, this time I’ll be better, this time I’ll remember!”

I try to scoot my body back in the bed, but there is nowhere to go and my body feels heavy like a stone.

Finally, I remembered. The Atlantic. That’s what it was called.

A brief surge of euphoria before the tunnel vision descends. I’ve been here before.

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.