LITMIR.BIZ

      ISBN 978-5-4474-6093-8

      Created with intellectual publishing system Ridero

      Becoming Amy

      I wake up and open my eyes. There is a bright light above me, so bright that I have to close my eyes again. Where am I? The surface I am lying on feels hard and my head feels empty. I wonder if it is supposed to feel like that. I try to remember how I got here, wherever it is, but I get nothing. I try to open my eyes again, unsuccessfully – the light is too bright.

      – Amy? – I hear a voice somewhere close to me, a female voice. It is pleasant and soft. – Amy, are you awake?

      I wonder if she is talking to me. “Amy” does not feel like my name at all. However, I have no idea what my name is, so it might as well be Amy.

      – Yes, I am, – I respond. – The light is too bright, I cannot open my eyes.

      – It’s all right. Wait a moment. – I hear a switch click. – You can open your eyes now.

      I do that. The lamp right above me is turned off, but there is still some light, only dimmer now. I want to sit up and look at the woman with the pleasant voice, but I cannot. Suddenly I realize that I am strapped to whatever I am lying on. I wonder how I have not noticed that before.

      – It’s all right, – says the pleasant voice again. – It was done only for your safety.

      She walks up to me and I hear heels click on the floor. I turn my head to look at the woman. She seems rather tall, at least from the angle I am looking at her, and she has long blond hair of a very nice warm color, like honey. Strange how I can remember the color of honey and can come up with such a comparison, but cannot remember how I got here, where I am and, to think of it, even who I am.

      The woman unstraps me and helps me to sit up. I look around the room. It looks very much like a hospital room, with white walls and whitish everything. I am sitting on some kind of a gurney or hospital bed and in the corner there is a table and some equipment, blinking with red and green lights. The woman with the pleasant voice is wearing a white coat. Is she a doctor? A visitor? She could be my mom and I would not remember that. Is this amnesia? What happened to me? The woman smiles.

      – It is good to see you up, Amy. We have been worried about you.

      Amy still does not feel like my name, and I decide to tell her that.

      – You keep calling me Amy… – Talking is hard. Not physically hard, but I need to make some effort searching for words. – But it doesn’t feel like my name. Is it? Is my name Amy?

      The smile on the woman’s face fades.

      – You don’t remember? – it sounds like a statement, but it seems to me, or maybe I am just imagining, that there is a question, even a hope in her eyes that I am pulling her leg. But I cannot justify her hope.

      – No, – I shake my head. – I don’t remember anything. My head feels empty. What has happened to me?

      – I… I… – the woman stutters. – Wait a moment, I’ll bring someone to talk to you.

      She rushes out of the door, leaving it ajar. Outside I can only see some bright-lit corridor. “Wait a moment” – as if I was in a hurry to go somewhere. As if I could go somewhere without remembering if I am at all supposed to go or be anywhere, let alone remembering who I am. To pass the time I get off the bed and walk around the room to stretch my legs. It takes the woman much more than a moment to get back, or at least it seems to take her rather long. Finally, she reappears in the door with a dark-haired bearded man whose head hardly reaches her shoulder. So, she is tall.

      – Hello, Amy, – says the man and smiles. The woman next to him looks pale and worried. – My names is Doctor Smith, this is Doctor Jones. She tells me that you don’t remember anything. Is that true?

      Right, as If I would be joking. It is not such a funny joke, anyway.

      – Well, not anything… – I do not know why but it feels good to tease them a little bit. I make the pause a bit longer for the dramatic effect. – I remember words, you know, names of things, how to talk…

      The man frowns, but also tries to keep smiling pleasantly at me, and the combination of these two expressions looks funny on his face.

      But I do not really feel like laughing.

      – Also, – I continue more seriously, – Amy doesn’t feel like my name. And I can’t remember what my name really is.

      – Your name is Amy, Amy Mills, – the man continues to frown and smile at the same time. The woman, what was her name, Doctor Jones, tries to say something, but he silences her with a wave of his hand.

      – And it might feel strange for a while. You seem to be experiencing some temporary amnesia after the accident.

      The woman wants to say something again, and again Doctor Smith raises his hand to stop her.

      – What accident? – I ask. – And how do you know that it is temporary?

      – Because I have experience with such things, Amy, dear, – he comes up to me and lays his hand on my shoulder. He smells of tobacco and coffee. – You were in a car accident. There was no serious damage to your health, but you had a minor head trauma which seems to have resulted in amnesia. In such cases it is mostly temporary, so in a day or two, I believe, a week at most, you will get your memories back.

      – What about my parents? Or… Someone must be looking for me, no?

      – You are in your father’s private research clinic and hospital. He was on a business trip when this happened and he will be getting here as soon as he can.

      I see Doctor Jones pulling at the man’s sleeve, like a kid, to get his attention. He finally turns to her.

      – Not now, Sarah, – he says in an urgent loud whisper. – We will talk about it later. – he makes a lot of emphasis on later. – Can you wait for me in my office?

      The woman looks at him intently, trying to say something important with her eyes only and then leaves. Doctor Smith turns to me.

      – I am sorry about that. Where were we? Right. Your father will be coming soon, don’t worry. If your memory does not return by that time he will answer all of your questions, and until that time we will do our best to recover your memories and take exceptionally good care of you. Does that sound good to you?

      It does sound good. Nothing is seriously wrong, my amnesia is temporary, my dad is coming… So, why doesn’t it feel good? I still have a vague feeling of something being not quite right. But I also feel tired despite having woken up literary minutes ago and disoriented, and maybe this is all just the effect of being in a car accident, so I say:

      – Everything is fine, yes, sounds good.

      – Splendid. Now, shall we take you to another room? You need some rest, and this examination room is hardly suitable for that, do you agree? – he seems to be going out of his way to please me, but he is right. This room feels cold and unwelcoming and naked.

      – Yes, please, – I say and smile at him to make him feel at ease. – I will gladly have some rest somewhere else.

      Doctor Smith smiles back even wider than before if that is possible and leads me out of the room into the brightly lit corridor.

      The corridor is as white as the room we have just left and even emptier – there is nothing on the walls, and there are very few doors. There also are not any signs, but Doctor Smith seems to know where we are going as he leads me confidently on. At first I am trying to remember the turns we are making, but then I give up. There are too many, and also why would I want to find my way back to that unpleasant room anyway?

      – Here we are, – says Doctor Smith finally. We are standing at a door just as white and empty of any signs as all the other doors were.

      This

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