Vicious Memories

Chapter 5

Two hours is a torturous amount of time to spend by yourself when you have no memories.

There was precious little to think about, and my mind turned into the world's shortest carousel ride. Washing up on the beach, being attacked and bound, walking through the jungle, being attacked again, interrogated, meeting a handful of quirky people. It took a mere fifteen seconds to do a full lap, but I wasn't allowed to get off the horse I was riding, and the carousel just kept going round and round for hours.

That's something nobody tells you about total memory loss. You don't know what you don't know, and you have nothing to dwell on. It's incredibly frightening and disorienting. I had no other experiences against which to judge this one.

Somewhere in the middle of the dark cabin, when the noise coming from outside was loudest and tinged with the most merriness, I cried to myself. I wondered who I was, what I enjoyed, whether people liked me, hated me, cared about me. I let the tears run down my cheeks, hoping I was getting it all out. At the end I was forced back onto the carousel.

Any remaining light in the cabin disappeared.

"Step aside, please."

"Sorry, can't let anyone in. Gabriel's orders."

A short pause, then the new voice again. "Mohammed, I have to check on him. When has Gabriel ever taken exception to anything I do?"

I strained to hear what was happening. Someone let out a small grunt.

"Thank you," the voice said.

"On a personal note," the guard murmured, "Arun doesn't trust him. Be careful."

"I understand, I'll be careful. Thank you." The voice was so soft, so passive, I could barely hear it.

The tarp leapt aside and the speaker stepped into the cabin. She took a long look at me, not coming closer than that first step.

I cocked my head, waiting.

Seconds dragged by painfully, and still she didn't move. I knew I couldn't wait much longer, terrified that she would leave and I'd be left on my own again.

"Is it something I said?" I asked.

"No, no," she said, the spell broken. She shook her head and smiled. "You have a nasty cut on your forehead."

"Oh, right," I looked up, straining foolishly to see. "I noticed on the beach, but I didn't feel anything."

"Head wounds bleed a lot. Half your face is stained red. Just a shallow cut, I'm sure."

As she stepped forward I gave her a once over, trying not to be obvious about it; white tank-top, men's cargo pants cut off halfway up the thigh, dirty blonde hair pulled back in a long French braid that lay happily pulled over one of her shoulders. I noted the small white case with the red cross that she set on the ground as she knelt next to me.

A hand went under my chin and firmly tilted my head up. I stared directly into her narrowed, ocean-blue eyes for what must have been thirty seconds. She peered at me curiously, a spark behind her gaze that might have been empathy. The hand moved my head side to side, then she released her hold on me.

"Thank you," she said. "I'm Beverly, the nurse around here. You can call me Bev."

"Oliver. You can call me Ollie."

"I've heard."

"Always knew I'd be famous one day."

She laughed at that, long and deep, an intoxicating sound that transported me away from the dingy little cabin for a moment.