Remembering Raimondo (Complete)

Mistakes

I took one last look at Raimondo and made my way to my bedroom. After getting comfy in his covers, which smelled heavenly, I reached for my phone. I loaded the pictures I took and closed the lamp on my night stand. I enlarged the image.

“Raimondo. Do not react quickly to this note. Read it through, you have a problem. When you awoke you looked up and saw a massive image of a man, the mirror on your wall proved the image to be of yourself. Beneath your image it says, “Raimondo Recchia, This Is Who You Are.” You have written this letter in order to inform yourself that you have a memory problem. You cannot remember anything every time you sleep.”

I stood upright in my bed.

“You have images of people close to you, and people you work on your wall in order for you to function daily...”

I stared at the image in disbelief. My heart sank deeper with each line I read.

“...You also have medicine in your first cabinet... on a hook besides the door, you have a set of keys. These are your car keys. You work as a cab driver and your GPS system guides you through the cities... you have a father and your mother died when you were a child.”

I stopped reading the letter on my phone and made my way to where he slept. I flipped on the light and stared at his sleeping face trying to find something. What? I didn't know, just something. I looked at the phone in my hands and continued to read the letter. The last line instructed him to do the impossible.

“...do not panic. After you sleep tonight you will do the same thing when you wake up tomorrow.”

Suddenly everything made sense. Ema said that he had a memory problem and I never cared enough to regard it as an issue this serious. Him not knowing the man that asked for his money. Ema's sister. All of it. He has no memory. And here I was reading the instructions for how he was to live. I stood there, shifting from foot to foot not knowing what to do next. Something in my head told me there was something that I had to do, but I couldn't figure out what that something was.

Unaware of my agitation I clenched my phone hard and accidentally pushed the ringer volume button from silent to vibrant. A grunt made my head snap towards the sofa. I held my breath.

“Don't wake up. Don't wake up.” I begged just below a whisper.

Asleep, Raimondo grabbed the blanket and pulled it tighter around himself. That's when I remembered. If he doesn't wake up accordingly to the letter... there's no telling what will happen to him in the morning.

I ran out into the hall. His friend didn't come yet. So I dropped down, crossed my legs, and decided to wait.