It's been seven years since he woke up in a hospital bed here in London, a flash of blue light his only island in a vast ocean of nothingness.
The hospital workers tried to give him other islands; they told him how it was a girl, tall, dark, and strong, who brought him in, set him down, and left. He was unconscious, of course.
He isn't quite sure what to make of that. Maybe she was exasperated family, or maybe just a pitying stranger- it hardly matters to him. He doesn't have to know who she was to know what he was to her- it's the same any way you slice it: baggage.
Somedays he wishes he at least knew his name. Most days it's just another small, superfluous item floating amongst the hundreds of other Things He Doesn't Know. Most days, he's quite happy with the name he's picked for himself: "Fred Williams". But some days he's brave enought to admit that it's not quite right, it doesn't quite fit. Like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Like trying to float a holey raft on his oceans. He keeps pumping air in, trying to keep afloat, but all the things he doesn't know rise up around him, flood him, and before he knows it he's drowning.
Wea-
Weasel-
Weas..ley?
No, no. That can't be right.
Williams. Fred Williams, he's sure.
He's absolutely sure.
Holey. There's another one. That was the word that led to whole raft image, did you know? Holey. It's another island. It's supposed to mean Something, right? It could be his ear, of course. His lack of one, rather. That's probably the best fit. The easiest fit.
But there's a deeper, darker sense of loss inside him, not from his missing ear or his missing memory. It's just a sense of missing, period. Maybe that's it. Maybe it that he doesn't even know what he should be missing.
..doesn't even know what he's missing..God, Fred would have a laugh at..-Fred? What is he thinking? He's Fred. Him. Flesh and blood, missing ear and all. That's Fred. Not some ghostly remnant in his mind. Not what he's missing, of course. How could someone miss himself? It's ludicrous. Ridiculous, even.
Honestly George, you call yourself my brother?