N0thing

~ Gerald ~

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My first memories were of, well nothing.


-What do you mean nothing?-


Well, just that; blankness, darkness Nothing. Then, well, it was all cold and lonely. But, at least that was something new right?


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Who can be the ultimate token of authority? Sometimes we can never tell whether or not it is the choice that makes us, or we make the choice.


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Gerald is big.


Not of body but of mind.


He sits in a chair with wheels. The old analogy comes back: Ironside was in a wheel chair. Well, so what. I’m not Ironside, and he was a fictional character anyway, wasn’t he?


Gerald didn’t want the pity, the scorn, the “Oh, I’m sorry. It must be awful.” They didn’t know. Everyone telling him he could be anything that he wanted. They just didn’t get it. He just couldn’t be anything that he wanted. The doctor’s telling him it wasn’t any use. Therapy would not work. The muscles just weren’t responding. It was as if they just didn’t want to do the job. No physical damage. No mental damage, at least that they could find. The nerves weren’t destroyed. They still functioned when stimulated.


So what was the problem?


The storm raged inside his mind. Why? Why me? I do not deserve this reality. I do not deserve this immobility.





Most people in this situation would make other allowances. Their minds would be come almost like a genius. Gerald was 15. Gerald did not remember anything. Not a lick, zilch, Nothing, except, that he was Gerald and that he was in a wheelchair. He didn’t even remember that he didn’t remember. Everyday he would wake up and start over again.


The doctors couldn’t find the problem. In every session they would delve deeper into his mind. The memories just weren’t there. Under hypnosis, they weren’t there. No breakthroughs. No scarring could be detected. He just didn’t remember.


He had no visitors. No family had ever been found. No relatives. Searches had been done on all the databases; in every major city, state, and federal locations, nothing.





He had been at the clinic for 5 years. He had not visibly aged.


It was as if the world had also forgotten Gerald.


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