by G. K. Lund
It didn’t seem to matter that the sun was going down outside, the corridors were bustling with life. I could see other patients, but for the most part, there were hospital employees dressed in their uniform scrubs, roaming around on different errands. No one seemed to pay me any attention. With no visible disease or injury, I didn’t look like anyone who needed any either.
As I kept moving between people and past different rooms it occurred to me that I didn’t know where exactly in the hospital I was. I hadn’t asked. It was this lack of interest in myself – that is to say, Ben – that the doctor and Rose didn’t like. What did strike me on a positive note was how familiar my surroundings seemed. I knew I was accustomed to hospitals. Like I had entered them more times than anyone could count. Why? I knew I had not been a doctor – I was not human after all. But why was I needed at hospitals? I knew I had to remember something. It was important, but to remember I had to know who I was. How else could I know what I wanted? The whole thing was confusing for the weak brain and it took a few seconds to realize that I had stopped dead in my tracks. I was standing right outside a patient-room and I knew, like I knew I didn’t belong in the body I was wearing, that I had to go in there. It was a strange sensation. I had been experiencing so many of those since I woke up by the river, but this was very different. It had nothing to do with the body and everything to do with me. I had to go into the room because I was supposed to be there. It manifested as this prickling sensation on the back of the neck and in the already hurting head, steering me in the right direction. I even had a hand on the doorknob before coming to this realization. No need to knock. I opened the door slowly and with no sound, and entered.
It was a room much like the one they had put me in. I turned the eyes toward the bed where a little old lady lay staring back at me. She didn’t seem particularly surprised by the fact that a stranger had entered her room. She had such a wrinkly face, lined by experiences of a long life. She was terribly thin as well. I could see the bones under her pale skin. It was her eyes that drew attention though. They were striking and gave a hint of beauty during youth. She just kept staring. For a moment it made me uncomfortable. It was the silence again. Then, she blinked and smiled at me.
“There you are,” she said with such relief. “I’ve been waiting so long.”
I had no idea who she thought I was. A grandson? Before I could ask though, her frail body suddenly convulsed, her eyes rolling back in her head, before she slumped down on the bed.
I stood there slack-jawed and staring at the old thing that was suddenly empty. I barely registered the alarm and people running in a few moments afterward. They were milling around the bed trying to help the woman. It didn’t take long before one of the nurses started leading me to the door telling me to get out. Through all the noise from the room, I could hear the body’s voice asking what was going on.
“She’s had a stroke,” the nurse said before she went back into the room and shut the door. I remained on the outside, the body struggling to draw breath with ease for some reason.
“Scaring old ladies as well?” asked a now familiar voice behind me.
“No, Detective,” I said as I turned around to see her leaning against the wall. “It’s the other way around.”
“Uh-huh?”
“Can I help you with something?”
“I don’t know. Can you? I dropped by to see if your memory has come back.”
“No such luck.”
She nodded at this, almost like she had expected it, but it left me with an uncertain feeling. It seemed that whatever I said she didn’t believe me, and considering she was a person who could make things difficult for me, that was a bad thing indeed.
“Does the name Okanov mean anything to you?” Jones asked.
“If it does then I don’t know,” I said as I realized that the noise from the people in the old woman’s room had stopped. I knew why. I did not need to be told. I started walking away and Jones disentangled herself from the wall and fell in beside me. “That was the other dead person, yes?”
“Yes. There were indeed two at one point.”
“Did I know him?” I asked, ignoring her comment.
“That’s what I’m asking you, Mr. Reed.”
“Yes, but under the circumstances, I need to be asking you.” Through the corner of the left eye, I could see her watching me.
“I’m trying to find out,” she finally said as a nurse whirled around us on her own secret errand.
“When you do, please let me know,” I said and turned right around a corner and sped up so much that there was no misunderstanding the conversation was over. If she had more to say she had to follow me, which she surely had done to the old woman’s room. That fact was, as so many other things, troubling. She didn’t come running though, and so I could at least return to my room alone and be in peace for a little while.
Chapter 7
“Why do you have a key?” I asked as Peter unlocked Ben’s mailbox and started pulling out more and more envelopes and some magazines.
“Because I’m the one picking up your mail every time you’re on a book signing thing or doing research or something.” He dropped some of the envelopes on the floor. Cursing, he bent down and started picking them up. “Besides, you don’t have a key, so count yourself lucky.”
He had a point. In actuality, I had nothing but the clothes on the body, and they were not mine either. Neither was the apartment we were on our way to see. Not in the technical sense at least. Everything up there belonged to Ben.
Peter had met me at the hospital when they released me and taken me home. He and his sister had wanted me to stay with either him or her but I had kindly yet decisively refused this. It was better I stayed alone in order to figure this mess out. So, I had followed Peter to Harrow, one of the five major districts in Ashdale, where Old Ben lived in one of the apartment buildings.
“For God’s sake, why do all these loonies write to you? Don’t they know about e-mail?”
“Loonies?” I said looking down at him as he picked up the last letter.
“Yeah. People who want you to—”
“Ben. Oh, Ben.” A shrill voice interrupted. “Thank God you’re safe. I was so very sure you were not.”
I barely had time to register Peter rolling his eyes before turning around and seeing the most astonishing woman I had met so far. She was a little shorter than the body I was in, ten, fifteen years older and with a high-strung energy. She had a mop of raven-black hair with a few dark red stripes in it. The makeup around her eyes was thick and pitch black. Her garments – what other word could there be? – were billowing around her in bright red colors. Her glasses were the only serious-looking thing on her. I was staring at this apparition as she seemed to float toward me.
“I have not seen you in a while,” she announced and grabbed the hands. “Were you traveling? Because you always tell me when you are.”
“I do?”
“Of course, silly.”
I looked back at Peter who had now risen with all the mail in his hands.
“Why is she calling me silly?” I asked.
Peter shook his head. “Never mind.” He cleared his throat. “Ben, this is Sophie, also known as Elena Kiselev, the seer of Sakha.”
“The… what?”
“What?” she echoed, also looking at Peter now.
“She’s a psychic,” Peter explained.
“Oh,” I said, then added a “yes” for good measure.
“What is going on?” The woman’s voice was softer at this confusion.
“Ben was in some sort of an accident and lost his memory.”
Her eyes widened a bit at this and she squeezed the hands. “I knew something was wrong. I simply knew it.”
Considering she had not known anything two seconds ago I doubted this.
“You must come for a reading. You simply must. Perhaps the spirits will tell us what happened.”
“Who?”
“That will
have to be later,” Peter interrupted. “Ben needs rest now. Doctor’s orders, you understand?”
“Of course.” She nodded vigorously, all smiles. “You are welcome anytime, Ben.” And with that, she fluttered out the doors like a wind of black and red.
I stared after her for a moment. “What was that?”
“Exactly what it appeared to be,” said Peter as he gave me a push toward the stairs. “The great seer of Sakha who forgot to choose a Russian name for her Russian persona. Or Bullfinch Sophie, if you will.” He was not trying to hide his smirk at that last part.
I followed him up to the third floor. He seemed a bit out of breath after the stairs, but out of more interest to myself, I noticed that I was not. Peter unlocked the door to an apartment that was supposed to be mine, and let me enter first in the hopes that something could trigger a memory. I obliged simply to avoid any disappointed comments.
It was tidy and neat. That was the first thought I had at the sight of Old Ben’s home. My home as it were. I didn’t know exactly what I had expected. Perhaps something more disordered from a person whose life had been chaotic enough to jump from a bridge?
I heard Peter putting down the mail on a small table near the door. Other than that, he remained behind me. Waiting for something. Expecting something from me, I realized.
I walked further into the apartment, uncertain of what to do. I didn’t know what people did in their homes at all. What was the proper protocol? I decided to have a look around, get to know the place. That was what Ben’s friends wanted me to do, after all.
It was a bigger place than it looked at first. The living room and kitchen made out the larger part, but I also found a sizeable bathroom, bedroom, and an office. In addition, there was a balcony where the resident could sit and enjoy the view of the street below and the neighboring buildings. Light colors seemed to dominate the rooms inside, the furniture as well. A lot of white. I saw abstract paintings on the walls, they provided most of the colors. There were not many photos, but I found a few on a shelf and some more on the refrigerator. All of Ben and his friends, I assumed. Some of the faces I didn’t recognize, but most of them were of Rose, Walter, and Peter. I went back into the living room and found him still standing by the door.
“Do I have any family?” I asked. The photos only showed people of Ben’s age.
Peter looked uncomfortable. “No… well yes… only… you see…” He drew breath. “You have a mother, but you don’t talk much. No father.”
I nodded at this partial and incomprehensive piece of information. It explained the photos, and no family meant fewer people to complicate things further. Ben’s friends were more than enough for the time being.
“This is a nice place, isn’t it?” I said and headed for the couch.
“Uh, yeah.” Peter seemed confused by the sudden change of topic. He asked if I wanted a drink and headed for the kitchen. I barely heard myself say yes because at this point I had noticed some interesting things on the living room table. Ben’s wallet, cell phone, a list of words I did not understand and a letter addressed to ‘to whom it may concern.’ This made me suspicious and I snatched up the papers and tucked them into the pockets of the jeans that Walter had bought me. I heard Peter coming back and grabbed the phone and wallet and stuffed them under one of the couch cushions.
“Water or soda?” he asked and tossed me a water bottle when I replied. The head was still hurting and I hoped it would help. I had thought it a bit odd that though the rest of the body had healed the head would not give in. A lot had happened and I hoped it would work itself out.
“So, how could I afford this?” I asked Peter who was gulping down some black fluid.
“Didn’t we tell you?” he said. “The books… the loonies?”
“Like the one we met downstairs?”
That made him snort soda back into the can. “No, not her,” he said, placing the can on the table. Then he got up and went over to a bookcase where he found several books that he brought back to me. I looked at them. Recognized Ben’s name of course, but that was all I understood.
“Ten simple rules to improve your life. The amazing power of our brain. Life, a riddle? Really? I wrote these?”
“Uh huh. Very popular too. At least your last four books.”
“Do I…” I started, thinking of how not to seem uninterested in Old Ben’s life. “Do I believe in this myself?”
That got a smile from him. “About sixty percent I’d say. The rest is business.”
“So, this is what Ben does,” I said, looking with calmness at the books strewn over the table. There were eight of them. “What does the J stand for?” The books were written by Ben J. Reed.
Peter shook his head. “Nothing, just… you know… You freelance for Current Magazine from time to time,” he added instead.
I had no idea what that was and therefore only nodded. Old Ben was some sort of reporter. That didn’t help me at all. I needed to find out how to leave this prison, not how the previous Ben had gone about his daily life. I chatted with Peter, asked a few questions here and there to make him content that I had an interest in getting my memory back, so he, in turn, would not spend a lot of time pestering me on not wanting to heal. It was a grueling half hour, but finally, he had to go to work.
“There’s some food in your fridge, so you’ll be all right a while. And you seem to have had a cleaning day before the accident too, so that’s great. And—”
“I am not a child…” I interrupted as politely as I could.
“No, dude, sorry. It’s just… I don’t know what to do about this.”
“Neither do I.”
This seemed to lift his spirits for some reason because he smiled again. “Okay then. We’ll check up on you later.”
This made me groan inside, but I managed a smile.
“Okay then, so try to relax, watch some TV, don’t take a walk unless you’re sure you remember where you live. And if you’re curious about anything look it up on Wikipedia… but don’t take everything you find there for granted.”
Then he was out the door. I stood staring after him for a moment trying to decode his last words. Then I went back to the couch and started pulling the wallet and cell phone out. I pulled the papers out of the pockets as well. Ben had left all of this, and he had left it to someone concerned about him. I went through the wallet. Some money and a few credit cards, some receipts, no photos. I didn’t understand anything on the phone so I moved on to the paper with all the words. It took me some time, but I came to understand that it was full of passwords and four-digit codes. I glanced at the envelope. To whom it may concern. I knew what it was. The man had jumped off a bridge for crying out loud. I had seen things like this many times before, oh yes I had. Everything was neatly arranged to make it easier for those who had to take care of the practical things afterward. I sat staring at the envelope for a while, but in the end, I didn’t open it. Old Ben had not addressed it to me. That much I was certain of.
I let Ben’s life’s work and last work lie on the table and lay down on the couch. Finally, I was alone. All on my own. There were none of Ben’s friends there, no doctors or nurses coming into the room. Only me. Alone.
Time to leave.
I closed the eyes and started the process, this time with a newfound focus.
When I opened the eyes, it took me a moment to realize I was still there. I was lying on the side, one hand touching the floor and the mouth half open. Lovely. I had fallen asleep.
I sat up slowly, sleep still making me dazed. What had happened? I tried recalling what I’d been doing. Severing myself from the body, yes, but somewhere along the way, the body had taken control and simply gone to sleep again. I sat still for a long time, looking down at the hands resting in the lap. As realization set in they started shaking. Uncontrollably. The heart beat faster, I could feel the throbbing in the head and the breathing came in short difficult breaths like someone was sitting on the chest. A pressure forcing the lungs t
ighter, not letting the damn air in. I had to get up from the couch. Started walking around the living room, gasping for air and shaking until finally, I sank down on the floor right in front of the balcony door.
I could not leave.
I had tried several times. Knew what to do, or so I thought. But every time I had tried, I had failed. Why?