Short Story / The Lost Man
I wish I knew if I had a family. Am I wealthy or poor? I would have killed to know if I had a favourite football team. I am a man but a man with a locked mind. A mind that doesn’t want to access the information I long for, that I really need to know. There is a scar deeply hidden in my hair, long ago healed but still fresh in my mind as though it happened yesterday. People take their memories for granted. They try to help me unlock my memories. Nothing helps though, but it always seems they want something specific from me. Maybe there’s something else locked inside my head.
The accident happened when I was driving. The car lost control on a corner, ploughed through a fence and a field till the car hit a tree. Well that’s what I was told. I was found with a piece of paper screwed up in my hand. The piece of paper had four numbers on it: 0726. No one’s sure what the numbers mean. For all I know it could be my date of birth, my pin number for my bank card, if I have one, or maybe it’s something someone thought was worth dying over.
As I look out the window of my room, I rub at my forehead, wondering if one day the big locked door in my head will ever open. I turn to face my room. There’s a small desk in one corner, where I write down my dreams in my journal as the doctor had suggested. Supposedly it will help me in the long run gain access to my memories, but I have a nagging feeling that he wants the information as much as I do.
The door creaks open and a familiar face pokes his head around the door. “Hey Joe, how you feeling today?”
“Fine, thanks.” I say, not use to hearing that name. “What we doing today?”
“The same thing we do everyday, mate, trying to get your memory back.” The younger man sang entering the room with his arms folded. I sigh trudging my way towards the doorway and move past the nurse to go through the doorway.
“Come on, I’m sure your memory will pop up soon.” He says as he pats me on the back, trying to reassure me but mostly to reassure himself. I’m beginning to think that maybe I shouldn’t remember. Maybe there’s a hidden reason to why I forgot. I remember what one female nurse said to me, when I was recovering from the accident, ‘People only forget the useless information’ she said to me with a kind smile. I liked her. She was kind and honest and there wasn’t the feeling of a hidden agenda around her. Not like the people here at the hospital.
Something nags at me, something’s wrong in this hospital but I don’t know what. I want to act on my gut feeling, but what am I suppose to do? I don’t know what’s wrong. There’s always people coming and going. Patients never get better though, which I guess isn’t that odd when dealing with the mind. But some of these patients should have gotten better, or at least had their family visit them.
I walk down the freshly buffed hallway, my trainers squeak on the shiny surface, looking as though it was a calm stream beneath my feet. My trainers aren’t the only ones squeaking, patients are being taking back and forth from their rooms to the doctor’s offices. I don’t like the place much. I don’t feel I belong here.
I turn a corner and I’m hit with an amazing smell, perfume I think. It intoxicates me. Wraps its tendrils around me and engulfs me into a hug, kissing all of my senses. That’s when it happens. That’s when I remember her, the red head. I’ve seen her a few times, but I thought at the time she was just something of my imagination. She draws me into my mind and I find myself standing in a living room. A voice calls me, asking for my assistance with something. It draws nearer.
Suddenly the red head enters the room and smile kindly at me. “Nathan, didn’t you hear me?”
“What, sorry?” I apologise even though I don’t know what she said.
“Can you help me with this zipper?” She asks moving over to me, turning to show me the back of her dress. “You better hurry and finish getting ready. We’re late as it is.”
I zip her dress up. “Plenty of time, just let me check something in my office and then all I need is my jacket from upstairs.”
She kisses me on the cheek and turns seeming to be happy with my reply before leaving the room. I stand in shock wondering where my reply came from.
Rubbing a hand across my forehead I venture out of the living room and begin searching for my office. I feel at home as I go through the house. I pass a picture hanging on the wall. It’s the red head and me. In the picture were stood very close together, her head is resting on my shoulder and we’re both smiling. Behind us in the picture, there’s a long beach with a blue ocean lapping onto the beach and the sun is shining brightly. Are we married or is she a relative?
Before I enter the kitchen, I notice a door to my right is ajar and look in to see a computer. I push the door open and enter an office. There’s a safe in the corner. I shuffle over to it. On top of the safe there’s a paper, the headline reads ‘Man killed in horrific car accident’. I read the first paragraph and find it odd that the man who died has the same name as me. I shake the thought away and enter 0726 into the keypad of the safe. It beeps. My numbers are the wrong ones.
The pain suddenly comes to the back of my head. Voices call me “Joe”. I want to stay being Nathan. I want to talk to the red head. I ignore the voices and lean forward onto the safe, I hiss at the pain.
“Joe?” A voice much nearer now calls. I look round to see who it is, but it only triggers a tsunami wave of pain. I hear more voices, as I fall to my knees and close my eyes. What’s wrong? Why am I getting this pain?
Opening my eyes I find myself back in the corridor with the male nurse and two other nurses joining him. I look round trying to see how I got there. The nurses try to lift me back onto my feet, calling me “Joe”.
“My name isn’t Joe, for Christ sake!” I shout at them, shoving them away from me. The nurses frown at me and one of them grabs my arm to try and help me up again.
“For Christ Sake!” I roared at him grabbing him by his throat and pinning him up to the wall. “My name isn’t Joe! It’s Nathan! Nathan Morgan!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the other two nurses whispering something to one another before one of them disappear into a room. The other one begins to grapple with me, trying to pull me off of his colleague. The nurse, who disappeared, reappears with a needle and joins in the fight to get me off the other nurse. I feel a prick at the top of my right arm and sleepiness washes over me. My eyes are closing and I feel myself slump to the floor at the feet of the nurses.
I’m called Nathan and I have a wife, the red head, Jenny. My work leads me to this place, the hospital. I’m dressed as an orderly, wandering around the corridors and going into any room I want. I’m in Dr Conyers’s office flicking through a filing cabinet in the half dark. The door opens flittering light in from the corridor and reveals me to the security guard. He was big, bear big, ready to take anyone on. My gut tells me he isn’t going to step aside and let me through.
“What’re you doing?” He booms. “This office is out of bounds for you! How did you get in here?”
“Erm… The door was unlocked.”
The frown on the man’s forehead furrows deeper. “No, it wasn’t!”
“Well, anyway, no harm, no foul.” I said making my way towards the doorway. He grabs my shirt. I duck under his arm, raising my elbow to meet his face, breaking his nose and his hold on me. I grab a handful of his shirt and shove him away from the door.
I run from the office and down the corridors, searching for the exit and the safety of my car. I am being chased. When I’m finally outside, I jump into my car and it roars to life before I race down the tarmac driveway, heading for the country road.
Looking in my rear-view mirror, I saw three pairs of headlights following me. I drop the car down a gear approaching the hospitals front gate, pull the handbrake up slightly and turn the car right, sending the car sliding sideways through the open gates. Putting the handbrake down, I race the car to fifth gear and floor it, speeding down the country road.
In the mirror the lights were a few miles away. I reach into the side pocket of my door and retrieve my mobile. I place the phone into the free-hands kit and open the ashtray to get a slip of paper with the last digits of Jenny’s pager number. I can never remember the last few digits.
Sneezing I lose sight of the road for a couple of seconds, when I open my eyes the car smacks through a wooden fence and mows through grass to be stopped by an oak tree. The airbag deploys saving me.
Twenty seconds pass before I can breath, the airbag deflated. I sat back in my seat taking everything in. I see smoke bellowing out of the front of the car, the bonnet is folded in half and the lights are pointing in opposite directions. Opening the door I fall out into the long wet grass, soaking me in a cool freshness. I start to crawl through the grass back to the road.
Two of the cars that had chased me were parked by the road. Four blokes are waiting for me. One of the men made his way over to me. I drop my head down and pray, “Please, please, let Jenny be alright. Please, let me be able to see her again some day.” A size eleven boot kicks me in the face. After that, they must have taken me back to the hospital and drugged me up.
I wake to find myself back in my room, lying on my bed with my hands and feet strapped to it. The door opens and the male nurse from this morning enters. I notice there’s something in his hand. The needle glistens in the light coming from the corridor and my hope for escape leaves me. The nurse stoops over me and aims at my upper arm, the needle’s sharp as it pierces my skin. Slowly the needle is pushed down and the sedative cocktail makes it so I’ll always be stuck inside this memory, hoping someone else remembers me.
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Overall a good story. There were quite a few grammatical errors, misspellings, typos, etc. The constant switching of present to past to present, “I saw three pairs of headlights… I drop the car down…” Needs a bit of polishing, but certainly an interesting idea.
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I like the premise of the story and the pace is great. I think you have some great potential for extending this story into a book length form. I won’t go into and grammar problems as others probably already helped you out there. I do have a couple of questions though;
“I remember what one female nurse said to me, when I was recovering from the accident, ‘People only forget the useless information’ she said to me with a kind smile. I liked her. She was kind and honest and there wasn’t the feeling of a hidden agenda around her. Not like the people here at the hospital.”
This part of the story makes me believe Nathan/Joe was somewhere else before he was transferred to this hospital. Where was he before? Why was he moved?
I would also like to get a feel for where he is now. Go into a little more depth on how the structure looks. Exterior and interior. What is close to the place. Maybe he looks out windows and see things. You might also want to create little relationships with some the hospital staff in future chapters.
You got me hooked. I want to find out what happens next. Is it just a circle that he will never get out of?
Keep on writing!!
”...the red head enters the room and smile kindly at me. ‘Nathan,...”// smiles. that was the only error that I really found.
I like the concept of the story. I’m still confused as to what kind of hospital Nathan or Joe was in and I would have liked to know the story behind the needles, the number, and the newspaper clipping that suggested Nathan died in an accident. I mean, what I’m confused about is whether this is a psychiatric hospital and all of this never really happened, or that his Nathan’s death was a cover up of some sort.
I do think it’s a great base to expand on. I enjoyed reading it, but it left me hanging in the end. I don’t know if that’s what you intended it to be, an open ended story. Anyway, great job. It flowed well and kept my attention.
I thought this was very well written. You have described the confusion of the character very well, and his dawning realisations. The problem is I suppose that there is some confusion for the reader, between what is being experienced in the present and what is recalled. The swapping between presnt and past tense needs to be carefully managed, and I would go back through and make sure. e.g. para begins `I’m called Nathan and… (then later) ... He was big, bear big, ready to take anyone on. My gut tells me he isn’t…(should it be `He is big…’ assuming he is in present tense within his mind, and not recalling)What I am saying that outside of interludes which define recollection internally and the present there seems to be some small inconsistencies. Perhaps this is intentional, but as I said it may be overly confusing for the reader.
...doctor had suggested…(leave out `had’)
...not use to hearing…(used)
...I zip her dress up…(perhaps `zip up’ would read better)
...no foul.” I said (say – one of those inconsistencies talked about earlier)
...safe, I hiss at the pain…(separate sentence or conjunction needed)
Hope this has been helpful. Thanks for the read.
Now wait is the main characer in a psy. hospital or does he have memory loss. It is very good don’t get me wrong. Just tie up some loose ends. I love stories about nut cases. I have a under in psy so if you ever need any info, just run it by me. Good story.
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