Flickering Memories

Chapter 5

Copter's POV

As I bombarded my patient's fiance with questions, hoping to get a glimpse of my patient's background, I noticed that something seemed to be off. I couldn't put my finger on it but something was not quite right.

I wasn't trying to be a detective or anything but what fiance would hold off visiting his loved one in the hospital until a week after a tragic accident? I definitely wasn't going to be that kind of a fiance. First of all, I had to truly love someone to agree to be his fiance. Second of all, if I truly loved my fiance, and he had been through an accident like Kimmon, I would be at his bedside, if not for twenty four hours, then at least I would visit him every single day. This fiance was the negligent kind to say the least.

From the statements given to me by my patient's fiance, my patient was the owner and CEO of a well known garment factory whose brand of clothing was one of the most popular in the country. I know because I had just recently purchased online three men's shirts of different colors from his company and found them all to my great satisfaction.

My patient's fiance was a model from a well known modeling agency who had been chosen by my patient's marketing manager to model their line of men's clothing.

That was how my patient had met his fiance Newwie. He had felt an instant attraction to Newwie and had attended every single one of his modeling stints.

They had known each other for only six months when my patient had proposed to Newwie.

My patient must have fallen hard for Newwie to consider committing himself to a permanent relationship with him after such a short time.

I must admit that Newwie was a very good looking well built young man. I could see how anybody could fall for the charming face and the killer smile.

Well, I thought, some people fall in love hard and fast. Not me, though. I am a very cautious person when it comes to dealing with emotions.

I must confess that when I was younger I had been as impulsive a lover as my patient was, but after the disastrous love affair that I had been through, I vowed to stay away from romantic relationships permanently. I was not afraid to live the rest of my life as a single person.

I noticed that Newwie was starting to fidget. He kept on glancing at the wall clock behind me.

I realized that I had spent more than thirty minutes interviewing him. Uh oh I just remembered that I had promised my patient that I would go back to him in a half hour because that was the estimated time for the Norco to kick in. I hoped that by this time the Norco that he had taken had already done its work on him.

I stood up and shook hands with Newwie and thanked him for being cooperative with me. I promised him that I would do my best to help my patient recover his memory to the best of my ability.

But first I had to determine what kind of memory loss my patient was suffering from.

Newwie and I went back down together to the sixth floor. I told him that I had promised to go back and visit my patient. Newwie said he was heading back home as it looked like he wouldn't be able to do much with my patient at this time because of his mental condition.

We parted ways after I stepped out of the elevator.

I went straight to Room 603. After knocking briefly I walked into my patient's room.

To my great consternation, I found my patient sitting up on his bed, his face buried in his hands and sobbing inconsolably.

I rushed over to him.

"Mr. Varodom! Is your head still hurting?" I asked.

The pitiful image of him sobbing into the palms of his hands did not fail to tug at my heart.

He didn't remove his hands from his face but he shook his head so I took it to mean that his head was no longer hurting.

"Would you like to tell me why you're crying?" I asked gently.

"I can't remember anything about myself and my life and how I ended up on this hospital bed!" he cried. Damn it, my question set off a fresh wave of sobbing.

Okay, so based on what he just said about not remembering anything about his life and how he had ended up in this hospital, I could tell that he was suffering from retrograde amnesia. Retrograde amnesia could either be the result of a head injury or a traumatic emotional experience, or both.

In his case, since he had just been from a car crash, it was most likely that the cause of his amnesia was the head injury he had sustained from the accident. And then again, I was not going to rule out the possibility that he had also suffered from a traumatic emotional encounter right before the accident.

Was it possible that the traumatic emotional experience, if indeed he had suffered from one, had something to do with his fiance? Was it possible that his fiance had left out some valuable information that could help me connect the dots? These were some of the burning questions that were circling my brain as I stood by my patient's bedside, running my hands gently up and down his back to comfort him.

Suddenly he lifted his face from his hands, and with tears still streaming down his cheeks, he looked up at me and said, "Doctor, can you please give me a hug?"

My hands that were still gently running up and down his back suddenly went still.

I could not react right away to his request. In fact, I wasn't sure if I heard him right.

Many conflicting thoughts went through my brain. 

I found myself placing my hands resolutely inside the pocket of my white coat.

"Doctor, can you please give me a hug?" my patient asked me one more time, his voice quivering a little, his arms outstretched towards me.