Lost Hours

         I wake up in the hospital bed, feeling better than I’ve felt in a long time.  My brain is pleasantly fuzzy, and the memories swirl indistinctly in the back of my mind.  Except, of course, the ones I just had erased.

         The doctor notices that I’m awake and gives me a chilly smile.  “How are you feeling?”

         I smile back, savoring the sense of infinite possibility that always accompanies these visits, that lovely feeling that anything is possible, because the troublesome past is gone and the future stretches on forever.  “Great.”

         She picks up the clipboard on a nearby counter and looks it over.

         “What’s five times seven?”

         “Thirty-five.”

         “What year is it?”

         “Twenty thirty-one.”

         She surveys the clipboard with an uncertain air.  Her lips purse as she asks the final question.  “What’s your name?”

         “Ummm...”

         Her lips tighten.  “Don’t worry. That’s why we always have you write that card before the operation.  Remember?”

         I do remember.

         She unclips something from her clipboard and hands it to me.  It’s one of the clinic’s business cards.  On the back is my name, along with the date, my age, and my address, all clearly in my handwriting.  It eases my mind a little, until I reach the sentences at the bottom.  “Country in civil war.  Boyfriend thinks you’re addicted to memory erasure surgery.  Lie about where you’ve been.”

         Her voice interrupts the sinking feeling in my mind.  “Is there anything you think we forgot to erase?”
         
         I sift languidly through my remaining memories and find nothing really negative.  “I don’t think so.”  She starts shuffling papers around, and then she walks to the monitor in the corner of the room.  She attaches the electrodes to her temples, and the monitor flickers to life.  A white chart pops up; its spaces start to fill with words.

         I begin to wonder what her name is.  I can recall seeing her every time I’ve come to this clinic.  Her nametag and the screen are too far away to read, and my eyes are almost as unfocused as my mind.  I don’t worry too much, though.  All that messing around with scalpels and electric currents in your brain can make anyone muddled.

         They finally let me go, after making me sign a few forms, and I keep the card in my pocket just in case.  I set off through the wet streets under a murky gray ceiling.  My apartment isn’t far from the clinic, and I remember the way.  The strange thing is, though, the street names aren’t familiar.  There’s the familiar green awning of that boarded-up shop on the corner, but I don’t recognize that name either.  And then I turn left out of habit and walk down the street, past the row of skeletal trees, to the corner where the rubble of a bombed building spills onto the sidewalk.  I can’t recall the memory of this building’s collapse.  Is that what I’ve erased?

         I wrack my memory for things I’ve had erased in the past, hoping that will give me a hint.  My recollection of the first operation is a bit unclear.  I was sixteen, and it was an experimental procedure.  They weren’t very skilled back then.  I can’t remember a thing about that experience even if I try... except maybe the feeling of waking up in the clinic with my whole future stretched  out before me, gleaming with whitewashed promise.

         And then there was that time I ran over that little boy with my car, quite a while ago, maybe ten years ago.  I wanted the memory to be there, to warn me to be more careful in the future, so I only had the guilt erased.  That’s a fairly common and straightfoward procedure as well.  All the best politicians do it, anyway.  The worst ones don’t need to.

         Then there was that time when my old boyfriend-- three boyfriends ago, actually-- died.  It was unusual, the way they did that operation.  I can’t remember what he looked like.  When I try, I can only see his eyes.  Deep, vivid green.  His face must’ve been too nice for me to hold on to, since it’s just a blur in my memory, but I guess I couldn’t let go of his eyes.  I can’t remember his name, or the way he died, or where he’s buried.  I can recall a few random little things-- him opening the door for me, cooking me an awful dinner, apologizing for crashing my car into a street lamp.  And then I woke up in the hospital bed.  The note I left for myself said that my boyfriend had just died, died instantly if you must know, didn’t feel a thing, and I wasn’t too attached to him, to be perfectly honest, but I needed to dispose of most of my memories of him, because I didn’t want myself to fall in love with only the good memories of him, because that would be quite a mess, wouldn’t it?

         I wasn’t very concerned about the whole incident because I trusted my past self.  She was me, after all.  And I was drunk with that familiar yet still fantastic feeling of having no limitations, no weaknesses, no embarrassments.  They can do whatever they want inside my brain, but they never erase that feeling.  It wouldn’t be the same.

         I decide that considering all this won’t reveal my true purpose in coming to the clinic again, and I probably don’t want to know anyway, so I push that to the back of my mind and pull the card out of my pocket.  Out of curiosity, I reach into my pocket and look at the index card, just to remind myself of my name.  My mind is a bit fuzzy, after all.

         Four blocks later, I’m completely lucid and more anxious than ever.  What will I say to my boyfriend?  I try to remember his name, but it’s not coming to mind.  I can’t even remember my own.  Every twenty feet or so, I take the card out of my left pocket, unfold it, study my name intently, fold the card up again, and put it back, only to feel my identity slip out of my mind again.

         I reach my home, a short and grimy brick building with a short iron fence and nothing but weeds growing in the flowerbeds.  I can’t remember being poor.  Was I trying to forget that, to escape it for just a few hours?

         A shot rings out.

         I bolt to the iron gate, fumbling with the locking mechanism, because the keypad broke long ago.  A twist this way, a yank that way, connect those wires, and I’m in.

         The sound of return fire assaults my eardrums as I slam the heavy door behind me and race up the staircase in the back of the ugly lobby and to the left of the broken elevator.

         Panting wildly, I reach the second floor.  The firefight continues, clearly right outside the building, probably in the adjacent alleyway, as I make my way to the door labeled 5.  I pull my key out of my pocket and jam it into the lock.

         My apartment is tiny and miserable-looking, with dirty carpeting, beige paint peeling off the walls, and outdated furniture.  The doorway looks straight onto the living room.  There, my boyfriend is cowering in
front of the couch, which is situated right in front of a large window.

         He has light brown hair and blue eyes.  I know he’s sweet because I can only remember him being sweet.  I know I love him because I can only remember loving him.  But I don’t know his name.

         His eyes widen as I burst through the door, and then they narrow ominously.  Outside, the fighting intensifies.

         “You’ve done it again, haven’t you,” he says.  It isn’t a question.

         “Done what?”  I’m not very good at acting innocent.

         He just shakes his head.  “Do you know who I am?  Do you know who you are?”

         “Of course.  I always do.”  And I always did, before this.  I know he won’t get anywhere with that line of questioning.

         He knows it too.  “I told you not to go out.  I warned you there would be fighting today.”

         “There’s always fighting,” I reply dismissively, hoping I’m right.

         His expression tells me otherwise.

         “They haven’t concentrated on this city before, as you know,” is his icy rebuke.  Then, the query I’ve been dreading: “Where have you been?”

         “I... took a walk.”  Why can’t I come up with something better?  Why can’t I think?

         “You’re addicted,” he growls.  He stands up, all fear of stray bullets forgotten, as pain and fury fill his eyes.  Each word scares me more than the rebels firing at the police outside. “It’s a drug,” he snarls.  “Admit it.  You’ve lied to me.  You’ve stolen from me.  And all for that, killing your brain piece by piece!  Do you know why we live here, even with me making what I do?  Do you know why you don’t have a car anymore?  Or did you erase that too?”

         I can’t remember anything about a car.  Didn’t my old boyfriend crash it into a street lamp once?  But it’s not fair, the way he isn’t giving me a chance to think, to defend myself.

         He lowers his voice.  “What’s my name?”

         I swallow.  My eyes flicker around the room for some indication, some hint that might help me remember, but of course there’s nothing.

         “What’s my name?” he repeats.

         I feel belittled and betrayed.  Why doesn’t he give me a chance?  Does he have any respect for me?  If he could just give me a minute, I could certainly recall his name.  This is just a tiny malfunction, completely commonplace.  People forget things all the time, only to recall them later.  Why can’t he understand?

         “You don’t remember,” he says quietly, suddenly looking defeated.

         Why didn’t I write his name in my note to myself?  How could I be so stupid?

         “Why were you trying to forget me?” he demands.

         “I wasn’t!” I protest.  “I remember you!”

         He doesn’t say anything.  He just glares at me.  A round of bullets outside is accompanied by screams.  I want to scream too.  I want to force him to understand.

         His face is in his hands.  There is only one thing I can say.

         “I can’t remember my name either.”

         A bullet shatters the window.  We both duck instinctively.  He sidesteps over to the wall, head down, his heavy boots crunching the shards of glass scattered all over the stained carpet.

         “I’ll pay for it,” I offer, not even knowing if I have any extra money.  By the way I can’t remember, I probably don’t.  But I’m looking for anything, anything at all that might help.

         His face softens slightly, and he steps away from the wall.  A single shot rings out.

         “Do you promise to stop?” he asks quietly.

         The look on his face is breaking my heart.  “Of course,” I say.  And I mean it.  All the worst memories are gone, aren’t they?  I can handle anything after this, can’t I?

         A deafening bang, and he falls to the floor.  Blood trickles down from the ragged hole in his left temple.  The scarlet pool beneath his head is soaking into the carpet.  His eyes are still wide with gratitude and his lips are still pressed together hopefully and that hole in his head makes me want to throw up.

         I step over to him and close his eyes, blurring my vision, trying not to look.  I straighten again, dizzy and unsteady, and lean against the cold wall.  I don’t know what to do.  I don’t even know his name.

         With shaking hands, I pull the business card out of my pocket.  My mind is suddenly perfectly clear as I slip his cell phone out of his pocket and call to set up my next appointment.

         He lies there on the floor, and I stand in the gray light, and I’m blocking him out, blocking out everything, and thinking only of waking up in that hospital bed, blissfully ignorant of a world where history repeats itself.