“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not making sense. How do I know I’m this Elijah?” I questioned as I felt the pain push me like a boxer after a fight.
Peter reached into a leather jacket and took out a driver's license and handed it to me. I looked at it for a few moments. There was a picture of a man. He had brown styled hair and light blue, wide eyes.
“Get me a mirror. I want to look at my face,” I said as I wondered about everything.
Peter passed me a mirror, and I held it level with my face. It seemed he had told the truth; I was Elijah Hanson, but that was just a name. Who am I though? Who is that person behind the name? The harder I tried to remember, the more my head hurt.
Peter exited the room, and I looked around for more clues, but I could see nothing. All I had was this license with me on it.
I stared back into the mirror. I could see my face as it looked back at me, my light blue eyes showed me no recognition of who I was or what had brought me in here. Nothing filtered at all.
I closed my eyes and laid my head down on the firm pillow. Had I lost my memory permanently, or would it come back? I started to feel a bit apprehensive and scared... should I be scared? Would I have been scared before the accident?
I looked toward the door as Peter returned with the doctor.
“Good morning, Elijah. How are you feeling?” the doctor asked as he placed his fingers on my wrist and mentally counted as he took my pulse.
“I feel confused for sure, I don’t know who I am,” I replied feeling lost.
The doctor explained that they would run some tests and that for trauma like this it was normal for the mind to shut off temporarily.
“Thanks, Doc,” I said as he walked out of the room and started to talk to one of the nurses in the busy hall.
I felt a little relieved to be told it could just be temporary, but I still had a nagging doubt about it all.
The doctor returned, and then the nurse wheeled in a small machine. She connected some electrodes to my head and turned the machine on, and it beeped. The doctor studied the electronic machine as it churned out reams of paper with a chart on it. I could see a line that had dips and spikes at varying points. I assumed the spikes were good, and the dips were bad, but what they meant, I didn't know.
“So, what’s the conclusion?” I asked as the nurse removed the electrodes from my head.
“It appears you may have some long-term memory loss. As to the extent of it, we are unable to definitively tell until you start to remember something, then we can tell if there is damage or it’s trauma inflicted,” the doctor explained as he smiled.
“You mean he could have brain damage?” Peter asked as he used his puzzled look again.
“The cat scans revealed no signs, but that is not to say there is no neural damage somewhere else. The best thing you can do is to be with Elijah to help him, and try to help him remember,” the doctor said as he checked the wall clock.
“There is no time like the present,” I said to Peter. “Pull up a chair and tell me who I am.
Peter spent hours with me that day. He had explained we lost our parents a few years ago, and that we inherited our father's logistics company, which just happened to be a fortune 250 company.
He also explained that I had a love affair with extreme sports, fast cars, and fast motorcycles. It appeared it was the latter which led me to be in a hospital. I was shocked at how bad I had been. How stupid I acted.
“The doctor told me you had traces of alcohol in your system. Had you been drinking?” Peter asked concerned with the news.
“I don’t even remember my name. How can I remember if I like to drink?” I replied as I groaned in pain from my shoulder.
“Good point. It was a bit dumb for me to ask,” Peter had a slightly ashamed look on his face.
“I need to rest. I’m tired,” I said to Peter as my eyes began to close.
“No problem. I’ll go home and have a shower and come back later,” he said as he squeezed my hand and left me alone.
My mind drifted as I slipped toward sleep. The nurses spoke in the distance, as if down the hallway a bit. The voice of a doctor rose, his words painful. He informed someone that their loved one had passed unexpectedly.
I laid there and listened as the family wailed out in the hall. When it finally relented, I heard a voice that sounded familiar. "Mark my words."
As I opened my eyes and looked toward the corridor, I saw the shape of a man as it disappeared into the distance. Like a warning that rang as I drifted to deep sleep.
***