Amnesia

by Art-Over-Matter

Anthony wakes up at a hospital and he can't remember how he got there...or hardly anything of his life. Rated K plus because there's really only some bad language.

I wake up in a hospital bed. I assume it's a hospital bed, anyway, though I can't remember ever being in a hospital before.

I frown and blink blearily, turning my head to look around the room. On one side of me, there's medical equipment and a door leading out to what is presumably the rest of the hospital. When I turn my head the other way, I see a man sitting in a chair beside my bed, his head in his hands.

The man looks up, as if sensing my gaze directed toward him, and says, "Anthony?"

Oh, right. My name is Anthony. Anthony Padilla.

"Yeah?" I mumble.

The man looks to be about my age—wait, what is my age? Twenty…five? I really don't know. Anyway, the man looks to be in his mid or late twenties. He has milk chocolate-colored hair, which is in a messy bowl haircut, and below the bangs he has bright, gunmetal blue eyes. He has some scruff on his cheeks and chin that suffice as a beard. He looks extremely familiar. What's his name? Ian. Ian is what's coming to mind. Yes, that must be right. He's Ian, and I know him somehow.

He speaks first. "Thank God you're awake, man. It's been hell listening to the nurses and doctor try to figure out what the fuck's wrong. How do you feel?"

Wait a second. Why am I here? What happened in such a way that I ended up at a hospital? "I feel…fine. Uh, confused. What happened to me?"

Ian frowns. "You don't remember anything? You don't remember the car and the crosswalk and…" his sentence faded off at the look on my face. "Nothing?"

I shake my head, feeling my eyebrows try to knit themselves above my nose. No, eyebrows. We don't want to look more confused than we already are. We don't even know this Ian very well. Or maybe we do. I don't know.

"Uh, you got hit by a car, man. A lady in a Mazda hit you and you got a concussion. And a broken leg."

"Oh." I frown. My memories know nothing of this. "When did it happen? Like, a few minutes ago? An hour ago?"

"Couple hours," Ian answers, looking at me warily. He doesn't understand my confusion, I can tell. But fuck, I don't understand my confusion. Isn't that the point of confusion?

"What was I doing?" I ask. "Before I got hit."

"Um, just crossing the street in downtown LA. We were headed with some friends to go eat somewhere."

Still, nothing. I try to think back further. What have I been doing? Where do I live? What do I do for a living?

I'm starting to panic now. I don't remember any of these things. I sit up straight, even though it makes my head spin.

"What's my name?" I demand, just to verify. I need something solid right now.

Ian looks bewildered. "Anthony. Your name is Anthony Padilla."

"And you?"

"Ian….Dude, I've been your friend for, like, sixteen years or something. My name is Ian Hecox, how can you not remember that?"

"I don't know," I say through a heavy exhale. "I did remember it, but I just…" I don't bother to finish. My head is starting to hurt and I lie back on the numerous pillows on my hospital bed. This is bad. This is terrible. I can't remember anything.

"So, uh…you don't remember Smosh?" Ian asks. This seems to be just the question he's starting out with, as if to test how much I'll remember.

I think hard about this. Smosh…Smosh…. "That's a website I made a while back," I start. "We made…I think we made videos, too. But that was years ago, Ian. Wasn't it?"

Ian stares at me for a long time. I try to hold his gaze, but he has intense eyes. And eyebrows. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me, I just find it hard to look at him like this.

"No, Anthony. We're still making videos. We're big on YouTube. Second most subscribed channel? You don't remember any of this?"

YouTube...Right, YouTube. I remember YouTube, I think. It's an important part of my life, actually. But how? Because of the videos? "No, I…I remember YouTube. And…and…subscribers…." I put my face in my hands. This is so fucking hard. I'd never known my life was so complicated. Or maybe I had, and I just can't remember it now.

"It's okay, man," Ian says, sounding a little uncertain. He puts a hand on my shoulder. "It might come back to you."

Oh good Lord. What if it doesn't? What if I never remember who I am? Who Ian is? What I've done with my life?

I have a headache. God dammit, this sucks ass.

"Ian?" I say without looking up, kind of pathetic-sounding to my own ears. "How old am I?"

"Uh, twenty-seven. Same age as me."

A little older than I was expecting. That means I remember even less of my life than I thought I did.

I remember some things; that's good. I remember being a teenager. I remember my parents, and my brothers. I vaguely remember meeting Ian. I remember and making videos. I remember college, maybe? Anything more recent…oh, God, I can't think of anything past college. But I was in college when I was so much younger…. Are there that many years of my life I've forgotten?

"What all have you forgotten, Anthony?" Ian asks, his head cocked to the side and a slight frown creasing his forehead.

"Everything," I say miserably. My face is still in my hands. I'm realizing the fact that I don't remember a clear image of what I look like. "Not everything," I correct myself. "But I—I can't remember much past college."

"Oh God," Ian says, probably not thinking of how condemning that sounds. "Do you know what year it is? What month?"

"I can do the math," I groan. "I remember when I was born. So it's…2015?" I look up.

He nodded. "January."

Fuck. This isn't going to be easy.

"Do you have a mirror or something?"

Ian looks mildly surprised. "No. There's one in the bathroom, though."

"I just—I just really can't get a good image of myself in my mind and it feels—weird."

Ian's laugh isn't the epitome of amused. "I bet."

With my leg in a cast, I probably shouldn't be moving around without crutches, but I'm not hooked up to any equipment, so I do it anyway. Ian slings my arm over his shoulder and helps me to the bathroom. We're almost certain that a nurse is going to come in soon and tell us off, but fuck that.

As soon as the light switches on, I can see myself in the mirror, and it's not like I'm surprised. But I can appreciate being able to see the details. My curly brown hair, almond-shaped eyes, thick eyebrows, and square jaw. It's all there. I'd never really thought of these aspects of myself like this—I assume, though it's pretty much hell if I know—but it seems right. I look familiar enough.

I make a few expressions at myself in the mirror, to Ian's amusement. "We're good," I state.

The rest of the day goes by without much incident. Ian and I talk about what I do and don't remember a lot, but it always turns out to be a very awkward and frustrating conversation, so we try to avoid it. It's decided that I have amnesia, which sounds about as scary as it is. I'm told it's extremely rare to get a severe case of amnesia from a concussion, so fantastically, it seems as though I lucked out. Not.

Memories start to come back to me on day three. They're very vague, like shapes through a frosted window, but I'm beginning to remember them again.

Ian had only recently arrived at the hospital again after lunch when I recalled Kalel.

"Ian, I remember Kalel!" I exclaim suddenly, perking up. I've been feeling tired as hell these past couple days, but thinking of my girlfriend gives me some amount of energy. "Kalel, yeah. My girlfriend…fiancée? Did I ask her to marry me? Where is she now?"

Ian plays with his watch for several seconds before answering. "You guys broke up a few months ago, Anthony. She was your fiancée, but you both decided to break the engagement. But she, uh, called earlier today to ask me how you were doing. She knows about you getting hit and all."

A troubled frown finds its way onto my face and I look down at the bed sheets. I don't remember breaking up with Kalel. Admittedly, I don't remember proposing to her, either, but that seems right. A breakup does not.

I can't remember Kalel's face very clearly. She's got caramel-blond hair, I'm sure, though it's been teal before, and she has dark eyes. We used to attempt yoga together. Isn't that right? Why did we do that? Odd that this, of all things, is what I remember.

"Do you have pictures of her on your phone?" I ask Ian.

He lifts an eyebrow slightly. "Maybe. I don't know. I can check." He pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts to search through old pictures. It takes him forever to find one, but eventually he pulls it up and hands me the phone.

She's more beautiful than I remembered, actually. She does look familiar, though. Nothing seems out of place. Ian and I are in the picture and it looks like the three of us are at a movie premiere of sorts, though I can't remember ever having been to a movie premiere.

As I hand the phone back to Ian, nodding, there's another person on the edge of my mind. Ian's girlfriend? It seems like Ian should have a girlfriend, but I can't for the life of me remember her name. I decide against asking about it; maybe the memory will come back to me.

"So Anthony," Ian begins, standing so he can put his phone back in his pocket, "I asked you this yesterday and you couldn't give an answer, but maybe now that you've remembered Kalel, you'll remember them too. Can you recall the Smosh Games crew? You know, Mari and Joven and Sohinki and Wes and Lasercorn and…." He fades off, even though I know the list should go on. He's looking at me with a slight cringe, seeing in my expression that I don't remember them.

"Dammit, all the names sound familiar, but I can't call to mind an image or anything." A raw anger twists in my gut. These people are probably my friends, but I can't remember a fucking thing about them. Smosh Games? That's our gaming channel, isn't it? That would make sense, given the name. Duh, Anthony.

"Why is it so fucking hard to remember?" I say, winding my fingers through my hair, which is curling and sticking up in every direction. "I—I don't like this, Ian." I look at him, calming my expression but actually feeling very desperate. "What if I just never get these memories back? What if I have to relearn my entire fucking life?"

Ian gives me a sad sort of smile and looks at his hands, folded on his lap. "I think it'll come back to you, Anthony. It just—it'll take some time."

"But Ian," I insist, "what if it doesn't? Seriously, what am I gonna do? Next time I see the people who used to be my friends, it'll be like I'm just meeting them for the first time. That'll fucking suck."

"Yeah, but—I mean—you'll get over it. It can't be that bad after you…." He doesn't end his sentence because he knows his point sucks. He's not going through what I am and he knows he can't relate. With a sigh, he pulls out his phone again and glances up at me from under his bangs. "Does it help to look at pictures and videos of stuff? Because we've got a shitload of videos you can watch if it'll help you remember."

Somehow, this is the first time I've considered this. "Maybe…maybe it does help. I don't know yet. But I would be interested to see what I've been doing with my life."

We spend the next few hours watching videos, everything from main channel Smosh to Lunchtime with Smosh to Game Bangs.

At first, it's one of the strangest experiences of my life. I see evidence of things I've done on-camera, things I've said—and I remember nothing of them. At the end of the first Game Bang we watch, which is not the most recent but isn't very old, the whole crew does a dogpile on top of Wes, while I calmly walk over and sit on top of them, looking at the camera and giving it a thumbs-up with a triumphant smile. I know I should remember something like this. But I don't. I don't remember making the decision to not jump in with the rest of them. I don't remember what the camera looked like as I grinned at it.

But as we start watching more, memories start to slowly drift into the near foreground or distant background of my mind. They're either a little too close to be in focus, or a little too far away, but they're there. Things are familiar, even though I recall no details.

Ian says it's weird for the two of us to be watching our own videos like this, after all the editing is done. It's something we've never really done before. But it's kind of nice, this time around, once I become accustomed to the weirdness of it. If I need specifications on anything, Ian's there to explain. He points out the people we know best and tells me their names, if I don't remember. He tells me things that happened between takes, and also points out that I'm kind of lucky in that I get to experience all the shit we do without knowing every little in and out of making it. I suppose he's right about that.

Visiting hours are about to end at the hospital and, after turning off his nearly-dead phone, Ian stands up and stretches, yawning. "Well? How are your memories doing after that?"

"Okay. I mean, I'll admit this whole thing is still scary as fuck, but I'm doing better. Thanks for being patient with me, man. I must be pretty fucking annoying."

Ian smiles a bit and shrugs. "No more than usual. I'm gonna get going, I've got a life." He points to me briefly and says, "So do you, so work on remembering it."

I give him a side-smile and raise an eyebrow. "We'll see how I do with that. I'll try. And give myself a headache."

Ian chuckles. "See you tomorrow, dude."

So, amnesia sucks. But I'm starting to remember more and more things as time goes on. I'll probably never remember the actual incident that caused this rip in my life, but I don't need to.

Slowly but surely, things are coming back to me.