The Bell

Tears stream down to the corners of her mouth as she talks, but I’m not listening. I haven’t been awake for more than a few hours, maybe only minutes, and I don’t remember falling asleep in a hospital room. There’s a lot I don’t remember. My name, for instance.

The nurse almost pokes her own eye out with those fake nails as she wipes away a tear. When she wipes the ones that had gathered around her mouth, it smears her makeup, revealing the faint moustache she’d tried to hide. It rings a bell somewhere in the back of my mind. A strange wave of déjà vu. The moustache reminds me of Prince, though I can’t remember who he is or what he looks like.

I think she knows I’m not paying attention. My excuse, though, is that I have to distract myself from the pain in my chest and the sharp sensation in my left leg. It’s no use trying to convince myself the pain isn’t real, and it doesn’t help to think that someone might be running around the highway right now, searching for the leg that my brain thinks is in pain. I’m sure she mentioned a highway, but I don’t remember what happened.

Knowing full well that much of my memory is missing, I’m afraid to think about how much I’m not even aware I’ve forgotten. I’m certain I haven’t told the nurse my name, yet she kept saying it over and over when I woke up. What was it again? Eddie? Emmet? Something with an E.

The nurse breaks down, sobbing. As she grabs my hand, she leans her head onto my shoulder, which I instinctively pull away. She looks up with betrayed-puppy-eyes, that should make me feel flattered, but instead, it just annoys me. This is too much. She’s being outright unprofessional.

She sniffs and wipes a snail trail of snot across the back of her hand. It’s only now that I realise she isn’t a nurse. That’s why she doesn’t have a name tag, unlike the blonde woman in a white coat who comes into the room. Her tag reads Dr. Sandra Lewis. She tells the woman, who isn’t a nurse, that I need rest and that she can come see me later. The doctor speaks on my behalf, as if I’m not even here, but I don’t mind her kicking the woman out.

“I assume Mrs. Dawson told you about the accident,” Dr. Lewis says.

“Accident?”

“Your memory is probably still a bit fuzzy, but we’ve seen many patients recover from that.”

That relieves some of the pressure. I don’t remember many frustrating moments in my life, but if I did, today would probably be at the top of the list. It’s like someone painted polka dots over the photo album of my life, and the things I can’t remember are always just on the tip of my tongue. The name Dawson rings a bell, and so do the flashes of being in the car before I drove under the bridge.

“The woman who was just here,” I say.

“Andrea.”

Andrea Dawson makes the bell ring even louder. “Yeah, her. Was she in the car with me?”

“She was, but she got away with just a few scrapes from the seatbelt.”

“Are we… close? She and I?”

Dr. Sandra sits on the bed where my leg should have been. “I think she’ll have to explain your relationship to each other, herself,” she says, but she doesn’t seem comfortable with the idea.

I’m not particularly interested in what my relationship with her was. I can’t even remember which of us was in the driver’s seat. Until a minute ago, I didn't know that there had been anyone else in the car besides me.

“I’m so sorry, Ezra. You must have so many questions. I’ll do my best to answer as many of them as I can.”

The first question I want to ask, but don’t, is what on earth kind of name Ezra is. No wonder I couldn’t remember it. It doesn’t suit me at all. It’s starting to dawn on me that when so much of my life is lost, it’s hard to long for something specific. It’s like how it's easier to choose a soda when the vending machine only has two options instead of twenty. I don’t even want to meet my parents, as I’ve already formed a picture of who they might be. But what if it turns out they’re divorced junkies, each trying to convince me that I was on their side during their separation? I can never learn anything about my old life without hearing it from someone else’s perspective.

"I don’t have that many questions, Doctor—”

“Just call me Sandra,” she says, shifting further onto the bed.

“Sandra. Okay. I guess my question is if anyone can tell me what kind of person I was. I assume you’re not the right person to ask.”

“Well, we actually knew each other. Or, we did as kids. We went to elementary school together. I can really only tell you who you were back then.”

“Really? It must be fate that I ended up here, then. Do you think I’ve changed much since elementary school?” I suddenly realise I don’t even know how old I am, but if I was in school with Sandra, I must be in my late twenties. At least, I don’t believe that she’s a day over thirty.

“hopefully,” she says, grinning. “We’ve crossed paths a few times since then, but I don’t really know you personally.”

“No, neither do I.”

She hides her smile behind her hand, as if it would be unprofessional to giggle in front of a patient, but it’s contagious anyway. “You were a good kid. According to both students and teachers. Good at biology and physics, but bad at maths and geography.”

“According to the students, too? Were you one of them?”

This time she laughs without holding back. “You weren’t exactly popular, but everyone loved how you could dance.”

“Dance? Me?”

Sandra glances down as if she’s just now realising where she’s sitting. “That’s probably over now, anyway.”

“There are good prosthetics these days,” I say. “But the reason it’s over now is that I don’t wanna learn it all over again.”

“I think there are other hobbies that might suit your new lifestyle better.” With her pinky, she tucks a single light strand of hair that’s fallen into her eyes behind her ear.

I have no real interest in learning to dance again, and honestly, it’s hard to imagine using my body like that. “Maybe you could teach me one of your hobbies.”

Sandra hops off the bed. “I think I have an idea,” she says, and slips out of the hospital room without another word.

Just a few minutes later, I see her through the small diamond-shaped window in the door, as white coats rush back and forth in the hallway. She walks in with a flat, square wooden box, about the size of a large binder.

“I thought this might help stimulate your brain a bit, but I actually thought of it because we used to play in elementary school.”

She places the wooden box on my lap. Its lid is chequered black and white, hiding an inventory of black and white pieces.

“Chess,” I say.

“You remember?”

“Not exactly.” I reach into the box and pull out a handful of pieces. “But I remember their names. This horse here is a knight, and this one with the axe wound in his head is a bishop.”

“That’s right,” she says, sitting back down on the bed. I can almost feel her warmth where my leg should have been. “But I’m pretty sure we didn’t know their names back then. You must’ve played since.”

“Maybe, but I don’t remember the rules.”

“We didn’t know them back then either, so let’s just play by our old rules. I’ll explain as we go.” She scoops up a handful of pieces and starts sorting them. She tosses all the white ones to me. She closes the box and places her pieces strategically on her side of the board. I set my king in the corner and surround him with rooks, followed by two layers of pawns.

“Each piece moves one square in any direction, except the king, who can move two. Knights can jump over other pieces. The first to kill the other’s king has bragging rights, but the game only ends when one player has lost all their pieces.”

“You’re probably going to have to explain that to me a few more times,” I say, tapping my temple with a finger.

She laughs, then puts on a serious face as she moves her front pawn one square forward, advancing toward my army. I move my pawn to meet hers.

“Mrs. Dawson sends her regards, by the way,” Sandra says, pushing her pawn forward another square. “I saw her out in the hall. She said she’ll come back in a few days, once you’ve had more time to recover.”

“Okay.” I push another pawn forward to back up the first. If Mrs. Dawson doesn’t mind waiting a few days to see me, then we probably weren’t as close as I originally thought. “But she’s alright, though? You know, after the accident? She didn’t tell me much about what happened.”

Sandra advances her pawn, taking out one of mine. “I don’t really know how much I’m allowed to say.”

My pawn immediately avenges its fallen comrade, knocking her piece off the board. “Was I the one driving?”

“How about I talk to the head doctor when we finish the game? I’ll have him decide whether you’re ready to know more.”

My knight leaps over one of my rooks, preparing to attack. “Was I at fault for the accident?”

She sighs and moves her bishop away from my knight. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. And you weren’t the one driving, so I can promise it wasn’t your fault.”

I take a deep breath, while my piece continues its pursuit of hers. “I was the only one who got hurt.” It’s not a question, but Sandra nods.

“You had your legs up on the dashboard. It could’ve been a lot worse.” One of Sandra’s pawns tries to sacrifice itself for the bishop, but my knight seizes the opportunity to leap over it and move an extra square forward. The bishop is dead.

“So the queen doesn’t have any special powers? She can only move one square too?”

She shakes her head. “In the real rules, she’s the most powerful piece in the game.”

“Well, then I think we should play with the rule that she gets two lives.” Our pawns have their own little war, while the bishops are making their way to guard the king.

“Deal.” Her queen jumps over a knight, landing in front of one of my lonely pawns. “But she can do this too.”

“Isn’t there anything you can tell me about my life after elementary school? Nothing in my medical file?” My pawn claims one of her queen’s lives before being obliterated.

“It says your blood type is B positive and that you’re 183 centimetres tall.”

“I guess I’m only 123 in the wheelchair going forward.”

She laughs, forgetting to move her queen before my poor little pawn kills her off for good.

“Well, like I said, I didn’t know you after we finished elementary school.”

“Why did we stop hanging out if we were chess buddies back then?”

“We just slowly drifted apart. You got a girlfriend, and understandably, you wanted to spend more time with her, so we just didn’t really find time for each other.” Most of our pawns were now dead, so it was my two bishops against her one. “The only new thing I know about you is that you were wearing a Sleep Token T-shirt when they brought you here," she says, killing one of my bishops. "Maybe you were a fan. They had to cut it off in the ambulance, though.”

My bishop dies after killing hers, but my queen takes both her rooks.

“Maybe I should try listening to their music. It might bring some memories back,” I say.

“It’s a good sign that you know it’s a band,” she says. The game is nearing its end. Now, it’s just king versus king. “But we can try. Sleep Token is one of my favourite bands. There’s a Bluetooth speaker in my office. I can grab it and get some snacks from the vending machine.”

She had asked Mrs. Dawson to leave because I needed to rest, but apparently, I can rest just fine with herself present.

“So, you’ve already given up?” I ask. I think I’m going to take her up on her offer. For a man with no memory, it’s pretty impressive that I’ve already landed a date.

“Uh, no, I’ve won. It’s my move.”

“Oh no, it’s not, you cheat.” I poke her arm with my elbow. A sharp pain shoots through my chest, but I hide it well. She smiles at me and reaches for her king. I bat her hand away. 

“Stop it.” I don’t even know what my own face looks like, but I can tell it’s blushing right now. She doesn’t say anything but just sits and listens. There’s something happening out in the hospital corridor. I hadn’t noticed it until now. I have just enough time to imagine a team of doctors rushing to save a patient who’s gone into cardiac arrest before the door to my room flies open. Three policemen in thick vests step in, the one in the back has his hand on his holstered gun.

They stop and glance at our chess game. My heart is in my throat. Have they found out I have some deadly virus, and now they’re here to take me into quarantine? Then one of the two in front pulls out a pair of handcuffs and walks toward the bed. He looks at me the entire time, but then he grabs Sandra and locks the cuffs around her wrists.

She avoids my eyes and doesn’t even look surprised as she’s led out of the room without saying a word.

The officer in the back steps up close to my bed. Even though he’s let go of his gun, I can feel the contents of my catheter bag rising. I can’t remember what, but I know we must have done something wrong.

“Mr. Dawson," says the officer, his voice low and gravelly. “I’m sorry about the situation this puts you in. I understand the accident affected your memory, but due to new evidence, we need to hear everything you can remember from the day you and your wife were involved in the crash. You think you’re up for it?”