#10: Regular Joe

His eyes opened just a sliver at first. The sunlight pouring in the window was too much to handle all at once. He heard a few voices around him; voices he knew but couldn’t quite recognize as his brain scrambled to restart. It was all quite confusing. There was a loss of time and space. His memory was distorted, sort of an all encompassing blur of the events that led to this particular moment.

After a few minutes, he was able to open his eyes to a thin squint. The sun was still painful, but he could make out the figures that surrounded his bed. For some odd reason, the very first thing he did was glance at his feet. They poked out of the bedsheets, covered in thick wool socks. He could feel the sweat between his toes, and for this reason knew that he must not be paralyzed. At least that was some good news.

He shifted focus from his feet towards the people that occupied the room with him. He saw their lips moving, though their faces were still obscured by the brightness of light. He heard their voices talking but everything sounded as though it was being regurgitated through water before it hit his ears.

“Get him something to drink,” said the tallest figure. “Get the nurse, too.”

One of the dark figures scuffled out of the room in an instant, leaving the remaining few to hover over the bed. As his eyes adjusted, he recognized the figures as two females and one male. All of them had rather light hair, though he wasn’t sure if that was merely a reflection of the bright sun or their natural color. Soon the person that had left returned, water in hand. He was a young boy, maybe 7 or 8, wide-eyed and delicate. Slowly, he felt the bed begin to rise from behind his shoulders, lifting him into an upright position. It was clear to him now that he was in a hospital room, but why? How did he get there?

There was silence in the room and his visitors stared at him as though he had been brought from the brink of death. Before he had time to think too much, the nurse strolled into the room with her pen out and clipboard ready.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” she said. “Your family’s been very good to you.”

All of the people surrounding him smiled.

“I…” he started, but never finished his thought.

“Hush, now,” the nurse continued. “You save your breath. Let your family do the talking for now, fill you in on what happened.”

He stared at her for a moment, nodding in reluctant agreement.

The patriarch of the group spoke. “Welcome back, son.” The man smiled.

The eldest woman had tears in her eyes as she stroked his hair. His feet were really sweating.

The nurse smiled. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” Her exit from the room was brisk. The older man gave a quick glance towards the door as the nurse left. Just as quickly, he gave a subtle nod to the young boy. The child strolled over to the large window, staring directly at him in his bed, and smiled. Without pause, he pulled the blinds shut, banishing all light from the room.

As the darkness returned, he realized that he did not have amnesia. He wasn’t missing memories; he knew who he was. These people weren’t his family. He didn’t know them at all.