Flickering Memories

Chapter 4

Newwie's POV

I grabbed Dr. K's shoulder. I was at least two or three inches taller than him and I was a good size wider. I could tackle him effortlessly if I wanted to.

He looked at my hands resting on his shoulder with a look of disdain.

"Take your dirty hands off me ... " Dr. K started to say, the hostility very much apparent in his voice.

How dare he consider my hands dirty, my hands that are taken care of professionally each week by the best beautician in town!

"... or I will be forced to call security on you, and I will have you blacklisted in this hospital. You will never be able to set foot in this hospital again except as a patient, and in that case I will make sure to be the one in charge of your condition."

I knew exactly what he meant by "being in charge of my condition". I can read between the lines. I'm not dumb.

Okay, if brute force wasn't going to work on this arrogant doctor, maybe I should take a different tack.

Maybe I should make an insincere apology for my action.

I removed my hand from his shoulder and bowed while clasping my hands together.

"Forgive me for my impulsive action, Dr. K, it's just because I'm very concerned about my fiance's mental and physical condition. I want to be able to help him as much as possible but I won't be able to do that if I don't have the necessary knowledge to help him," I made my voice sound as sincere as possible.

Dr. K looked at me intently as if trying to consider if I was being sincere or not.

I waited trying not to show my impatience. Finally he spoke.

"I still cannot give you any information contained in his chart, but if you really want to help your fiance, how about I interview you in my office. Any information you can give me might help me in assessing his memory loss more efficiently."

Aha! He mentioned memory loss. So that means Kimmon indeed has amnesia.

It was my turn to look at him intently. Should I help him out or should I keep things to myself. At the end of the day, if he were able to help Kim retrieve his lost memory, he would also be helping me because then Kim and I would be together again the way we were before the road accident happened to Kim.

"Very well, Dr. K," I said, "I will try to give you whatever information you need."

"Thank you," said Dr. K, "come with me to my office."

He turned to the nurse to inform her that he was going to his office but that if there was anything urgent that he needed to take care, to just have him paged.

"Yes, Dr. K," the nurse replied dutifully.

Dr. K led me to the hallway where the elevators were and we went three floors higher to the ninth floor.

I followed him as he rounded a corridor after stepping out of the elevator. His office was at the end of the corridor.

He unlocked the door of his office and motioned me to come in and sit on one of the two chairs facing his desk.

Then he walked over to a room refrigerator in one corner of his office.

"Would you like anything to drink?" he offered, "I have some eight ounce bottles of spring water and some eight ounce cartons of vegetable juice in my refrigerator."

I almost said "yuck" but held my tongue.

"I'm alright," I replied, "just go ahead and ask me what you want to know."

I was actually in a bit of a hurry to leave the hospital. A glance at Dr. K's wall clock told me that I only had half an hour left before I had to meet up with Tay. The travel time to the restaurant where Tay would be waiting for me was fifteen to twenty minutes from the hospital.

I watched a bit anxiously as Dr. K reached for a clipboard with a blank piece of paper attached to it from on top of a metal filing cabinet.  Then he pulled out the pen that was sticking out from the pocket of his white coat.

"How long have you been his fiance?" was his very first question.

"A little more than a week," I replied.

"Whaattt???" he couldn't help reacting. He was supposed to have a professional reaction but I guess it was because he had been expecting that Kim and I had been engaged for a longer period of time than just a little more than a week.

"When was the last time you were together?" was his next question.

"The night that he had the accident," I replied, "we were having our engagement party at the hotel and some hours later he disappeared from the party. I couldn't find him. Everyone else at the party couldn't tell me where he was. One of the guests said he saw him step out of the reception hall looking like he was in some kind of shock. I didn't know about the accident until the following day when it was all over the news."

"Did you go and visit him in the hospital when you found out about the accident?" asked Dr. K.

"No," I replied truthfully, but I wasn't going to tell him that the first thing I did was to meet up with my close friend Tay with whom I was carrying an affair behind Kim's back.

Dr. K looked at me long and hard as if wondering why I did not go to see Kim at the hospital the moment I knew about the accident.

"If I had been his fiance, I would have rushed to his side the moment I found out about the accident," Dr. K said.

He sounded matter of fact but I could sense some underlying tone of reproach.

Damn him! He had no right to judge me!