Wiosna

Prologue - Part 2: Amnesia

          My name is Lance. I like wearing dark green long-sleeved shirts and blue jeans. My only hobby is reading, though I'm told I used to have an interest in video games. I was born in 2001, and the year is 2016. Which, of course, means I am 15 years old. I'm 180 centimeters tall. I'm a boy who has long, dark brown hair. My hair goes just to my shoulders, nothing past. I wear rectangular-lensed glasses. I'm fairly skinny, though I'm not what most people would consider "a twig."

        I live with my mother Megan and my father Mutou. My dad met my mom online 15 years ago, in a public chat room. My dad had lived in Japan and had been studying English for 4 years when he met my mother, and now we own a house in the rural parts of New York. Both my parents are age 37. My dad stays at home most of the time to look after the house, since mom is usually really busy at work and doesn't have time for cleaning. My dad is an author, so he's able to stay at home most of the time. My mom is an art teacher at Star University, which is a 45-minute drive from our house. That's why she gets home so late on most nights. She has to clean up her classroom, deal with "trouble" students, and create lesson plans for the on-going school year.

        Currently it's November 21st. Autumn is well upon us and Winter is very near. My "breakdown," as most people refer to it as, happened on August 20th. Ever since then, I've had social anxiety. The cause of the social anxiety is mostly due to my lack of knowledge on certain things—I'm secluded due to my inevitable ignorance on who or what things are—though I believe part of it is also of who I was before the incident, leading to recurring opinions and mindsets on different subjects.

        Before then, a lot of people knew me to be rather stern and professional-looking and in manner. I liked being polite to people. I'd say now that I have amnesia, not much has changed. Maybe I still am who I am and my feelings towards many things will come back naturally. For all I know, I feel foreign to those who are around me and to myself. I feel foreign, but at the same time that feeling is conflicting due to me not having anything to base it off of.

        They had kept me in the hospital for about a month and a half after I was diagnosed. I wasn't released until the end of October. The doctors still wanted to try and find a cause for my amnesia. In that time, I had tons of time to ask my parents-—mostly my dad—things about me and the family. That time as a dull moment in my life, I'd say. I was numb with troubled emotions due to recent events and not understanding a lot of things, though at the same time I was curious for what had happened—just as much as anyone else was or would be if they were in that situation. My mom told me that I was at home in my room when I passed out due to stress, just after the first week of school. No one knew what I could have been doing to cause it since my computer hadn't been on at the time, and neither had my television.

        The list of effects of amnesia can go on for hours. From what I've been told, I have it almost as worse as it gets. Random things can trigger anxiety attacks. Words, places, or even out-of-the-blue feelings that create headaches where memories should be. The doctors said there's close to no possibility I'll fully remember everything about my past before my coma. I'll have only what other people tell me--and the few memories that do come back occasionally, but that's rare. Other than that, I should have no permanent damage whatsoever.

        Starting over from scratch was obviously a good thing, for stress was not good for my health if it caused my brain to shut down for a month and give me amnesia, which then led to social anxiety on top of that. I convinced my mom and dad to have me stay home from school until next semester, after Winter break is finished, and the Christmas hype had died down. I haven't done well at all in public places recently. I become unresponsive, paranoid, insecure, and afraid that someone will notice me and I won't remember them. Being left to my thoughts is almost as interesting as reading to me.

        Any plans I had built up for the future are now gone, but mostly because I was the only one who knew them in the first place, according to other people. I wasn't very open to people, but I wasn't as secluded as I am now. That could be for better or for worse. My mom and dad told me that I had a best friend, but they hadn't elaborated on that fact. When I asked them about it in the hospital, they always brushed it off. It seemed they were hesitant to bring it up, so earlier I disregarded it thinking my well being was more important to them.

        Reading had become more important to me while I was in the hospital. I didn't really have any way to pass the time, so I took my parents' suggestion of reading and asked them to bring me a few books. They seemed a bit taken aback when I willingly accepted. They explained how I hadn't been a big reader at all before, and that I was much more into video games and being on the computer. Even outside of the hospital, my addiction to have a book in my hands at all times was apparent. I asked my mom about the nearest library when my doctor told me I'd finally be able to go home. She told me that there wasn't a library near us, so instead she said she would take me to the nearest book store and buy me some novels in celebration of my release from the hospital.