Thoughts and Random Things

Reverse Amnesia

Mrs. Pherson was out of town again, so she had recruited me to water her garden. I gladly did it, even though I wasn't getting paid. It was a simple job and I liked looking at her flowers. Plus, she didn't really trust anyone else with her garden.

It was a Thursday afternoon and I had just finished watering Mrs. Pherson's flowers. I was in the mood for a brisky, quiet stroll, so I was walking around the peak of the tallest hill in our small town (which, for the record, was very hilly). But I tripped over my own shoe. I fell down, and down, and landed on my head at the bottom of the bottom. I was passed out. But when I woke up, that's when I noticed the problem.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

It was as if a sort of reverse amnesia had descended upon the town. I remembered. My memory was still totally fine and intact. I knew and remembered exactly who I was. But no one else did. They had all forgotten. No one recognized my face or name at all. It was like I had been erased from everyone and everything. People remembered everything else except me. They went about their everyday lives, skipping anything that may have had anything to do with me.

I knew I had to reinstate myself. But my curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to see how everything would function without me there. What people and and actions would replace me?

So I didn't react straightaway. I hid away in a cottage on a lesser-known hill's top and I looked down at the rest of the city, watching them all go about their days, sans me.

After a while, it became eerie to watch. How perfectly and smoothly everything ran without me. It made me feel small, unimportant. I decided it was time to reinstate myself back into the town.

I knew I had to do it gradually, so people would slowly but surely accept me into their town and lives. I couldn't just show up and assert myself. That'd turn people off to me.

At least, I thought. I thought all that stuff was true.

For the first time in six months, I dared to show my face again. I didn't do it too boldly. I laid pretty low while I was out at the shop. No one really noticed me or cared, and I didn't really care about or notice anyone else.

That is, until I walked out of the shop and saw a young man, with my features and skin tone and build. He had the same flannel as me, the flannel I'd been wearing when I had stumbled down the hill. The mysterious man was standing by old Mrs. Pherson's house.

And he was watering Mrs. Pherson's flowers.

I started to stalk and follow the man. Wherever he went, I was always mere yards behind. And the more I stalked, the more things I saw. Creepy things. Things that bordered on disturbing.

I learned the man's name-- it was only a letter or two off from mine. I learned his address-- only two digits off, and the street name had West in it instead of East. I learned everything about this man, and everything about him matched up with me. I began living vicariously through him, if it could even be called vicarious. He was basically living on my behalf. He was basically me. And with him fresh in people's minds, it raised the question: Did anyone really forget about me, if a carbon copy of me had taken my place?

I continued to stalk the man. And I noticed the slightest change. He seemed more aggressive than usual. No one else noticed the minor upturn in his aggression levels. I was the only one who noticed, because I was the only one who knew exactly how this man acted and thought. Except, I didn't. I didn't exactly know every single unimportant detail. I didn't know what was causing him to be so agitated.

And then one day, it happened.

He was out at the cinema, seeing a movie with a girl I had had a crush on, when he left for the bathroom. Of course, I followed him. And after he had peed and washed his hands, he turned around. I was crouching down on top of a toilet inside a locked stall so that he wouldn't see me, yet he somehow knew I was in there. Contorting his fingers in a way that only my double-jointed self could do, he slid his fingers in between the wall and door and unlocked the lock.

The door swung open, and there I was, on full display for him. The original, true version of himself.

Now, if it had truly been me in his shoes, I'd be shocked speechless with my jaw dropped. But that's not what happened. As we stood, staring each other down, he frowned. I watched as, slowly, gradually, his face twisted in pure, untamed rage.

"You," he said. His voice and hands shook with fury. "You are me."

"Well, actually," I replied, as calmly as I could, "You are me. I existed first."

"You fucking fake," said the man. "How do you even manage to think you existed first?! You just randomly showed up one day, lurking in my shadow. I have always been here. You just popped up out of thin air. Explain your logic. How in hell would you have been able to exist first?"

Trembling, I spoke. "I fell down the tallest hill and when I woke up, no one had any memory of me. I--"

The man cut me off. "What does that even mean? That doesn't just happen. Amnesia doesn't work like that. Nothing works like that. Allow me to further explain my point of view.

"I know that I am me. Me equals me. Nowhere do you show up in that equation. So that's how I concluded that you are some supernatural thing trying to take my place. Are you a shape-shifting alien who desperately wants to eat me and then pretend to be me? Are you a clone, created in some kind of sick, evil lab? Are you a robot studying my behavior to use for data in some coding or something? All these are equally possible. But I'm not believing your bullshit 'amnesia' story. That made-up little excuse makes you sound too perfect and innocent. Too human. But you have no humanity in you at all. Your only intent is to hurt. And I plan to stop you before you can harm me or anyone else in this town."

I tried to fight back, but my words and soul lacked fervor. "Y-you're the one who's inhuman. You're so cold-blooded you won't let me even start to defend myself."

"Okay then," the man said, crossing his arms. "I'll let you defend yourself. I'll allow it. But if you can't make me believe in 60 seconds, you're dead meat. Go."

The man counted down, out loud, and all I could do was stammer. The more I thought about it, the more fictional the truth seemed to be. He was right-- it was a bullshit excuse. It was accurate and true and real, but it just seemed to far-fetched. There was no way any reasonable person would believe it.

I didn't even gasp when he pulled a gun from his jacket. "Time's up," he said, and I let him shoot me. I heard some sort of gibberish alien buzzing in my head as my vision faded black, yet for some reason I could understand it.

"Well, you tried," said the alien voice. "Those pesky earthlings aren't easily fooled. You were a good spy, but it's time to go home now."