Confusion

As my mind slowly claws its way back to consciousness, the pain hits me like a ton of bricks. No, make that two tons.

“Muuh,” I try to make a sound, to check that I can, but my tongue and lips are so dry I can’t even open my mouth.

“Here sweetheart, take a slow sip,” says a voice to my left. A plastic drinking straw edges between my cracked lips. I sip, and cool water trickles into my parched mouth.

“Better?” the voice enquires.

“Mmm,” I reply, licking my lips to rid them of the sandpapery feeling.

Cautiously, I open my eyes a crack. There is an unfamiliar woman sitting by the side of the bed I am in. Her blue eyes are red-rimmed and shining with tears.

I look around. A hospital. I’m in a hospital room. Dotted around the (hideous) room are bunches of flowers, some in vases, some laid down on a table; some huge bouquets, others more modest. Mostly roses, in all colours; chrysanthemums; even a sunflower.

“Oh darling, you had me so worried!” exclaims the unknown woman, grabbing my hand and gently squeezing.

“I’m sorry,” I manage to croak, “but do I know you?”

The woman gasps and reels back like she’s been slapped.

“You… you don’t… recognise me?”

I shake my head. Ow. Don’t do that again.

“I’m your mother,” she says in a shaky voice.

“You are?”

“Yes, you… you really don’t remember?”

“No,” I reply, starting to panic.

“I’ll go get a nurse,” she says, leaping up and dashing from the room.

Alone for a few minutes while my… mother hunts down a nurse, I try to work out how much I remember.

I know this is a hospital.

I know I’m in a bed.

I know what a nurse is.

But I don’t know anything about me. I don’t know my name, my birthday, my hair colour, my favourite foods or music. Wait, am I male or female? How could I not know that? My voice sounded female, but there’s only one way to be sure. Huh, I’m a girl. That’s good, I feel like a girl. I feel young too, late teens maybe. My skin feels smooth and firm. Young skin. I’m Caucasian. I’m really pale actually. Snow White, eat your heart out. See, I know who Snow White is- seven dwarves, evil stepmother, blah blah et cetera. Snow White had ebony hair, I wonder what colour mine is. I feel like… a brunette. Not too dark, sort of mousy. Let’s see if I’m right.

Hey, there’s a big bandage round my head. Well duh, your head is pounding and you have amnesia, of course you must have had some sort of head injury. Ooh, here we go. Long hair. Oh, I’m sort of blonde. I wasn’t far off though, it’s quite a mousy blonde. Dishwater blonde. I wonder what colour my eyes are. That woman, my mother, she has blue eyes. Maybe I do too.

Oh, my mother (still can’t get used to that) is back with a doctor.

“So, your mother tells me you seem to have lost your memory,” he says, smiling in that doctorish, almost patronizing way.

What does he mean ‘lost’? It’s not as if I left it in a drawer or under the bed. It’s just gone, like ‘poof’.

“Umm, yeah, that’s right, I guess.”

Gosh, I’m so eloquent. But I know words like ‘eloquent’, so I must have some degree of intelligence. I also seem to have a weird sense of humour.

“How much do you remember?” asks Doctor Patronizing.

“Nothing,” I reply, “Everything is just gone.”

“Everything?”

“Anything personal, stuff relating to me.” I clarify.

“Ah yes, that can happen with some amnesia patients.” He’s nodding to himself.

“So… am I going to get my memory back any time soon? Is it going to come back ever?” I can hear my voice getting shriller and shriller with consternation.

“Umm, well, ah, that is…” stutters the doctor, who is, quite frankly, starting to annoy me.

“Well?” I demand. Apparently I have a impatient side to my forgotten personality.

“We, er, we don’t know,” he says, not meeting my - admittedly rather stern - gaze.

“Some people remember everything about themselves, others never recover,” he continues, “and it could take some time for your memory to come back, if it does.”

“Oh,” I say, slightly stunned.

“We’ll keep you in another night for observation, then the best course of action is to send you home, back into familiar surroundings. Hopefully that might jog your memory.” The doctor - John Mitchell M.D. according to his nametag - nods to my mother and me, turns and walks briskly from the room.

Home. I don’t recognise it. No precious childhood memories wash over me as I walk up the path. It’s just a house. My father walks behind my mother and me, he is carrying the small overnight bag my mother had brought to the hospital for me. He seems like an okay guy.

My mother unlocks the front door.

“Home sweet home,” she trills, obviously trying hard for my benefit.

I’m inside the house, nothing is familiar. My parents - strangers to me - are asking me if I’m hungry, if I want to watch T.V., go over photo albums. I decline. I want to see my room, close the door on all the weirdness.

Nothing in here is familiar either. I wonder if I kept a diary. I’m a teenage girl - seventeen as of January the twelfth - so it seems likely.

Half an hour - and one trashed room - later, I am sitting on the bed, a large, silk-covered book in my hands. The inside cover reads ‘Rose’s Diary’. Now you see why most of the flowers I got were roses. I open the journal, the window into my life, and begin to read…