by Marie Ellie
I always wanted to have my nose operated on, and when I turned 18, I did it. I went to the surgeon and decided to have my nose operated on while my friends only said how much it was going to hurt me. I didn’t care; I preferred the pain of the operation and recovery to having a nose that I didn’t like. When I woke up in post-operative care, it didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel anything. Of course, the anesthesia they give you is enough so that it doesn’t hurt you and then they send you analgesics every certain number of hours. After two or three weeks you’re perfect, with the nose that you like and without having passed through the terrible pains that they had all told you about. Apparently, I felt pain but it wasn’t terrible, and it was worth it.
Pain is overrated. It’s something so personal that what is painful for one person, is a simple stinging prick for another, you shake it off and keep walking. There are very few people who have really felt pain. What we commonly feel is fear, fear that it will hurt us harder. We run to take an analgesic to alleviate the slightest hint of pain, out of fear. We do not want it to grow, we do not want to feel weak, we do not want to feel that we are faltering. We are afraid of pain. I'm afraid of it, a lot. So it was better that I lost consciousness.
I wonder if the bullet has caused any serious damage to my brain. I’ve read that these injuries result in serious damage to the functioning of the rest of the body. Apparently, the brain is the thing that gives commands of movement, so motor skills might be compromised. I don’t think it has affected much if I can still remember reading those things. I don’t think I've had a hemorrhage either because I'm sure I would have entered a coma and I don’t feel like I'm in a coma, although I don’t know what it's like to be in a coma.
This is similar to when I woke up in the EDITION or when I woke up in the Hospital after Charles took me there after fainting from having taken the Midazolam in the tea. It is curious that the reaction is the same. I expected something stronger, more serious, something more painful, after all, it was a gunshot to the head.
I would like to know how long I've been here and what happened with Andrew and my father. If they found me and brought me to the hospital alive, surely they must have found them too. And if they didn’t die? If they found them alive? If my father said that I had shot him and they are waiting for me to recover to take me to jail. He wouldn’t be able to do that to me, would he?
In that case, I'll have to find a good lawyer. One who is willing to defend me to any final consequences. Some time ago I read about the defenses that a person who commits a homicide has. I don’t remember them well, but perhaps we can say that I was overwhelmed with anger after learning that my father had ordered my kidnapping, that he held me hostage in a vault and that he restricted my freedom. I found out about all that at the same time I found out that he had killed my mother. That I shot him in a moment of anger. If that is not enough to exonerate me, then we have a shitty system. Also, I have evidence of his corrupt acts. I kept all the files that William had on his desk about my father in a safe place. With those, I can try several things. I'll have time to deal with that when I get out of here if I get out. For now, I have other things to worry about.
For example, I wonder who shot me. At first, I thought Andrew was the villain of the meeting, but that ended up being a big surprise for me. Everything has been a surprise for some time, nothing has been what I expected. William is dead, Andrew is dead, mom is dead and dad ... I killed dad, or so I think. That leaves almost zero options, my family circle is not very big. Only Charles remains. Charles ... and if he was the one who shot me? I would not be surprised, after all, my relationship with him was also false. He was another one of my father tricks to keep me under control, and the worst thing is that I always fall for his tricks when it comes to handsome men. If I survive this, I have to stop believing that someone loves me just for two or three nice things that they tell me, or how blue their eyes are. I have to be more selective and know who I fall in love with quite well if I ever fall in love again, if I survive.
Someone just opened a door. Two men have just entered the room and are talking about my condition. Their voices are not familiar to me. They have to be part of the medical staff, and they have nothing to do with me, but they are talking about me...
“Electrical Shock treatments are very effective in these cases; we hope that in a few hours we can give the second round of shocks and that once she is awake, we can control her with drugs and won’t be necessary to have her restrained.”
“All right, how much longer should she be like this?”
“Restricted? Until she receives the next round of electrical shocks and starts to improve her behavior.”
“Are you sure she will improve?”
“Up to now, 100% of the people that we submit to shocks improve sooner or later.”
“Perfect. And why isn’t she moving?”
“She’s been given a muscle relaxant, which keeps her like this until she is administered a short-acting anesthetic to start the shocks. You and your wife can observe the procedure from outside through the glass.”
“Very good. Thank you doctor for taking care of my daughter.”
“Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Then join me outside so they can prepare her for it.”
Daughter? Dad? He didn’t die? But I shot him in the head! How could he have recovered already! Also, what wife? If he told me he had killed her! I don’t understand what's happening and why they’re talking about electric shocks, it must be a joke in bad taste. What are you supposed to do to me? This is not a hospital then!! This must be a torture center. Then it had to be Charles! He shot me, he brought me here, and they’re keeping me alive to keep torturing me, now with electric shocks. It can’t be, I can’t move. Of course, if I have been given sedatives, I do not know if Midazolam or any other. This isn’t over! Now how will I get out of this?
Someone entered the room. He didn’t speak, I just heard him move around. More people came in. Nobody talked, they moved around me. Someone in the room pulled my hair back while another person is patting my chest. I feel that they exert pressure in the middle of the patches until they hear a tick, surely they are connecting cables for electrical shocks or to monitor something. This can’t be happening. They are going to electrocute me, and I’m conscious to feel everything. This is the worst of any torture.
After listening to the last tick, someone opened my mouth and puts something that seems to be a fixture to make sure I don’t swallow my tongue or something. It's like one of those wooden sticks that doctors put in you and tell you to say “say ahh,” one of those, with a thousand pieces of gauze on the end that goes inside the mouth, it really is suffocating. The monitor that registers my heartbeat starts to beep unusually, and someone enters the room.
“Did they give her the anesthesia?”
“Not yet.”
“And what are you waiting for? First the anesthesia, now we have to stabilize that heart rate.”
There is someone adjusting bands on my arm and leg, they seem to be the ones used to monitor blood pressure. I feel a bubble of oxygen over my mouth while the “beep beep beep” of the machine that monitors something in my body becomes more unbearable than ever. There are several people around me, they all have a job to do, and I can’t see any of them, I just feel them there, close and I am horrified by what they are doing to me.
At the moment, I feel two metal saucers with a cold gel on my forehead. Those saucers look like castanets, but with gel. They are fastening them with a strap around my head, securing the strap tightly. My head buzzes from the pressure.
A few seconds later I hear it's time to put on the anesthesia, I'm supposed to feel nothing. And if I'm not going to feel anything, where is the torture? What is it this time?
“In a few minutes we’ll get started,” was the last thing I heard.
CHAPTER XV
THE END
I open my eyes; I feel tired, exhausted. My head hurts a little, but it’s not a limiting pain. I look
around, and I'm in a small room. There is only one bed, mine, and everything is white. The walls are padded, and there are no edges or corners. There is a door, it has a window, but it only can be uncovered from the outside, so I can’t see what's on the other side. There are two cameras on the ceiling; I suppose they’re watching me. Why? Where I am?
I had a strange dream. I left an office at a building in the middle of New York City. I was wearing a black skirt tight at the knee and a red blouse with ruffles on the shoulders. My black heels bothered me when I walked, but I didn’t lose my style because of that insignificant annoyance. I was regal, on my way to my car with a black wallet slung over my shoulder, it had some letters embedded in some silver metal that said, Michael Kors. I was carrying books in my hands and a manuscript with staples along the left side.
I looked happy in the dream; it was as if something had happened as if I had received great news and was celebrating it with every step I took. Radiant, beautiful, in the middle of that city that is capable of eating the greatest of optimists. I didn’t care; I walked alone among so many people. Only I shone in that scene in my head. My hair moved with a breeze that did not exist, but if I were the protagonist of my dream, what I wanted to happen would happen. It was my dream, and I controlled it, I was happy while it lasted. I do not know why, but everything was perfect.
Until I opened my eyes and woke up in this white room with its quilted walls that only reminds me of a hospital room. But not any hospital, a psychiatric hospital. Like those that you see in the movies where they put the crazy people in rooms with padded walls, so they do not hurt themselves. But they only put dangerous patients in those rooms, the aggressive ones. All of the ones who can hurt or harm someone. Therefore, this shouldn’t be a psychiatric ward for two main reasons; the first is that I'm not crazy and the second is that I'm not aggressive.
I feel thirsty. My mouth is dry, as dry as if I had cotton inside absorbing all the saliva my body produced. I look to my left side, and there is a small white table with a plastic tray and a glass of water, also plastic. I sit on the edge of the bed and drink the glass of water, check that it is clean and that the glass smells good. After that ritual, which is sacred every time I go to drink something in a glass that I haven’t cleaned, I drink all the water, and I'm still thirsty. But there is no more water. I return the glass to the tray just on its little trace of moisture, the one which was formed from spending so much time in the same place. I make sure everything is as it was and I go back to lay down in bed.
I feel weird, I just remembered the dream that I had. It’s not that the dream was bad, on the contrary, I felt happy, but it is rare that it is the only thing that I have inside my head. It's like my brain is blank. As if I was born a few minutes ago. I try to think what else has happened but there is nothing. My head is clean. I only have the dream and this white room with cushioned walls, ah and the water that I just drank. I would like someone to come and explain what I’m doing here, how long I’ve been here and most importantly, to answer something that I’ve been thinking since I opened my eyes and can’t remember. I need them to tell me, what's my name?
I hear a noise that takes my sight almost immediately to the door. Someone is about to enter. Maybe they can answer everything I need to know.
“How do you feel?” Asks this man that I don’t know. He is somewhat older, with white skin and very well combed dark hair. He's wearing a white coat, so I guess he's a doctor.
“Well, a little dazed.”
“It is normal after electro-compulsive therapy patients tend to feel a little disoriented. But you’ll be fine.”
“What therapy does he talk about? Where I am?”
“You're in a Psychiatric Hospital. I am Dr. Frank Stuart; I have been monitoring your progress since you joined. A while ago you received the second session of your electro-compulsive therapy. It is a therapy for patients whose mental conditions are resistant to drug therapy.”
“Sorry Doctor but I don’t understand, I do not remember anything, I don’t remember my name.”
“Well, then we should start there. Your name is Helen, Helen Taylor.”
“Helen Taylor. That doesn’t sound like me, I don’t remember anything about that name. It's like you were lying to me and that wasn’t my name.”
“That's normal; it will take you a while to return to normal and recover your memories. Everything is a process, Helen.”
“Helen, then my name is Helen, Helen Taylor.”
“Yes, let me tell you a bit how you got here. Do you want to know?”
“Please…”
“Sure, your name is the most important thing. Try to remember only that, try to associate your face with the name Helen.”
“My face, I do not remember my face,” and it was the most terrifying thing a person can say but it was true. I don’t remember my face.
“Okay, wait, I'm going to look for a mirror.”
I nodded, and the Doctor left the white room with the padded walls. I felt afraid, I didn’t know exactly what the word afraid meant that the feeling was that. Not knowing who you are is frightening. The Doctor didn’t take long, the door opened again, and he entered with a mirror in his hands, one with a long plastic handle. He sat on the bed right next to me and offered me the mirror so that I could take it in my hands and look at myself. I took it but waited a few seconds to look at myself. I was afraid to do it.
“Don’t be afraid, you won’t be displeased with what you see,” and those words gave me the strength and courage to raise the mirror, put it in front of me and open my eyes.
“Helen. My name is, Helen,” I said as I looked in that mirror big enough to see my full face.
I do not recognize myself. I see a pale but beautiful face, big blue eyes, and a reddish mane, but I do not recognize myself. I can’t associate with that name. It's like he's lying to me. And if he is lying to me? If my name is different and he’s trying to trick me?
“Ready to keep listening more?”
“Yes.”
“Well Helen, you came to this place several weeks ago. Your father brought you after he couldn’t help you control the panic and psychotic attacks you were suffering from a car accident you had.”
“Accident?”
“Yes Helen, you suffered a car accident on Quita Avenue, near 59 St. It was not serious, but you suffered a blow to the head that caused you to start suffering psychotic episodes again.”
“What kind of attacks?”
“Paranoia. In your mind you thought that everyone was out to hurt you and you started to physically attack everyone, to speak incongruities. Until they brought you here.”
“When?”
“Exactly 28 days ago,” and I didn’t know what to say when I heard that I didn’t remember anything, not even before those 28 days, nor during, nor now. - Doctor, you said “again,” this isn’t the first time?
“No, you had episodes of this nature at an early age and then in adolescence. But with drugs and your parents' help, you recovered very well. Everything had been controlled; you led a normal life. Until now.”
“And what happened?”
“First, we started with a drug therapy, but it did not work, then I talked with your parents. We talked about the violent events within this institution that caused us to isolate you in this room. Your mom brought me a manuscript that they found in your car the day of the accident, and that explains a lot of your behavior.”
“What manuscript? What are you talking about?”
“Helen, listen to me. You are Helen Taylor. Your parents are Roy and Lauren Taylor. You worked as a book editor in New York City and the day you had the accident you were carrying a manuscript you were editing. You had received the news that the publishing house was going to publish that manuscript that would be titled “The Vault.”
“The vault?”
“Yes, I had the opportunity to read it, and according to your behavior all this time, I came to the conclusion that you adopted the identity o
f the protagonist of the book. You have been hallucinating about that story. You took on the role of Grace McLaren, and you gave her life.”
“But how, why don’t I remember anything?”
“Helen, the drug therapy wasn’t working so we had to use an electric shock therapy. Your memory is a little altered, but that will improve as the days go by. It was the only way to bring you to reality.”
“Reality?”
I don’t remember anything, and this is my reality. The doctor has told me a story of which I’m the main character, and I don’t have a single memory. I'm an editor, they were going to publish a book I was working on, a book called The Vault. I still can’t believe everything the doctor told me. How can a person get so far away from reality as to build their own? How powerful is the human mind to make you believe things that aren’t really happening? How many people have gone through this or are going through this and worst, how many of them can’t get out of their own story to live in reality.
“Doctor, can you bring me the manuscript? I would like to read it and see if I can remember something.”
“Sure, Helen, I'll ask someone to bring it to you. Do you need anything else?”
“Yes, water. I'm thirsty.”
The Doctor leaves the room, and a few minutes later, a nurse enters with a plastic jug filled with water. She tells me that my parents will come to visit me and that as soon as they arrive, she will let them in. She mentions that they will bring me the manuscript I asked for. I nod, and she leaves the room. She seems to be very busy.
I'm left alone in the room once more. I move to the edge of the bed and pour water into the plastic cup I had previously used. One glass was not enough, so I filled it again and drank it without stopping. I put the glass back in its place and settled into the bed. I wonder how I will react when these people arrive. My parents. I don’t remember them. I don’t know how they look; I don’t understand how I'm going to be able to not seem like I’m rejecting them. It must be sad for a father that his daughter doesn’t recognize him, but my situation is also sad; I don’t recognize myself.