Based on a true story.
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Prologue:
What's my favorite tea?
It's a very strange thing to not have any memories of your own life. I don't know if I can explain it. For me, it's like this big void in my mind. Like you're walking around in a dark room, trying to find something. Every now and then you'll find something, but it's just too dark to see what it is. It's not like forgetting where you put your car keys; it's more like you've forgotten where you put yourself.
I wish I could tell you about how I got hit over the head in a very dramatic way when I was trying to defend the love of my life, or how I had some mysterious disease that slowly destroyed my brain, but the truth is that I don't know what happened.
I woke up in a hospital bed, staring up at a white ceiling. I didn't know how I got there or what was wrong with me. Then, after a while, I started to realize that I didn't know who -I- was. There was just this big blank -nothing- where the memories of my life should have been. Let's just say that I panicked big time.
Someone had found me lying unconscious on a football field and had called an ambulance. They hadn't found anything physically wrong with me, it was just like my mind had blocked everything on it's own. Don't ask me how, because I don't know. The doctors that examined me don't even know how it happened.
All I knew for sure was that I was 1: a nail biter (a really bad one, if the state of my nails told me anything), 2: I liked Drumstick lollies (I had two wrappers in the pocket of my jacket) 3: I was a fan of a football team called Chelsea (At least that is what my blue and white t-shirt told me. I also found out that my name was not Frank Lampard as my t-shirt said. Frank Lampard was, according to Dr Johnson, a traitor to all West Ham United fans (himself included), but a hero, according to Dr Sidwell (Chelsea fan), who should be honored for his fantastic goals that secured Chelsea's victory over Bolton, thereby helping Chelsea to win their first title in 50 years by a 12-point margin. This football lesson by the two doctors almost got to the point where I got to see my first football hooligan fight right there in my hospital room) 4: I for some reason hadn't cut my hair in years (I'm serious, I was fucking sitting on it) and 5: I was gay (the stirring in my groin whenever the cute nurse by the name of Justin Marshall smiled told me that).
So I was a nail chewing, lollipop sucking, pillow biting Chelsea fan with hair down to my ass... Interesting.
I didn't have any ID on me when they found me, so they had no way of knowing who I was.
I stayed at the hospital for almost a week before someone finally came looking for me.
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A woman walked into my hospital room. I had absolutely no memory of ever meeting her, but she claimed to be my mother. A man followed who said that he was my father. It was surreal. The strangers hugged and kissed me and I tried my best to act like I was happy to see them, even though I wasn't. They were just strangers to me. I felt nothing for them. I might as well have been hugged by the postman.
I felt so unbelievably alone, even more so than before they came. Before, I had the hope that when my family came looking for me I would suddenly remember everything, or at least something. But that wasn't what happened, and the loneliness and the disappointment made me cry myself to sleep. That night was the first night I could remember dreaming.
I dreamed that I was walking down a pier. Seagulls were flying over my head and I could hear the waves below me. I was feeling calm, happy... in love. Someone was walking next to me, holding my hand. I couldn't see a face, just long, dark hair that blew gently in the wind. I called this person Fei-Fei.
The next day my parents came and took me "home." Home was a two storey building in the suburbs. It was nice, I suppose, but I had no memory or emotions coming forward as I walked around the house that, according to my "parents," I had lived in for almost twenty years.
I looked at old toys, old school books, photo albums and home videos, but nothing gave me any feeling of recognition. The kid/teen/man in the photos and the films did look like me, but it might as well have been someone else.
The only thing that I had that I could call a memory was that dream that I had over and over again, but my hope was quickly destroyed when my parents told me that there was no one named Fei-Fei.
I met the people that called themselves my friends. Most of them seemed nice and all, but I just... didn't know them. They showed me a bunch of videos that we had made during different trips over the years. Tropical places, football games and clubs. Only in my eyes it looked like it was all one big trip filled with alcohol, half naked men and parties set in slightly different sceneries. The whole thing just made me sad. I didn't want to be the man that the recordings said I was, that my friends and family said I was. Oh, they didn't come and say it straight out. It was more in the lines of "And then Tim was like 'no way you can drink all that' and you were like 'wanna bet?' " and "Are you sure you don't want another beer, sweetheart, you only had two, usually there is no stopping you."
It became pretty obvious that my friends and family were trying to pick and choose what I should know and not know. They all twisted what they were saying, trying to made it sound better, or covering up that they were leaving some things out. Everyone kept telling me about all the good things I did and all the things I was good at. Then how come I had been more or less homeless, sleeping on my friends' couches (probably why it took them over a week to realize that I was missing)? I didn't have an education. I had apparently had a pretty well paid job at some kind of computer firm, but I had been fired for some reason over a year ago. I didn't have a boyfriend and had apparently not had one for quite a while. My life was shit, and I and everyone else knew it.
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It wasn't just myself that I didn't know. I didn't know anything about the world around me either.
So I set out to explore this – to me – brand new world. I started out in my parents' garden. Have you ever looked at the grass? I mean really looked at it. The way it bends, the way it smells. Do people realize how many beautiful things there are in the world? I got stuck in a flower shop down the street when I roamed around looking at and smelling all the different plants and bouquets. From there I moved on to created beauty. I went to art shows, looked at architecture, became totally fascinated by graffiti and got annoyed when I found out that only females were allowed to wear make up, because it really looked like it was a lot of fun. I went to the museum and looked at everything with wide eyes.
I watched a couple of documentaries to learn about the world's history, and cried my eyes out when I found out that there had been "world wars," where so many people had been killed and tortured. I think a lot of people have been jaded by all the evil in the world, so they choose not concern themselves. They know that so many people are suffering and they just don't care.
I was so upset the first time I watched the news and saw pictures from Darfur, where people were being killed and children starved because of their ethnicity. This horrifying war had been going on for years and there was no end in sight. I looked around me, expecting everyone to be as upset as I was, but no one seemed to care. There was a close-up on a small child that was nothing more then skin and bones. The mother was crying and begging for help, and no one cared. The next newscast they showed was about a dog that had been locked in a car and almost died from the heat. This got a reaction. Mutters about how some people shouldn't be allowed to have pets and how the poor thing must have suffered. They cared more about that dog than about the thousands of people dying because they had been born in the wrong place. I felt sick and had to leave the room.
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It's a very frustrating thing to not know yourself. I didn't remember what kind of things I enjoyed, but people kept telling me what I liked and didn't like. I think they started thinking that I was like a child that needed someone to take care of him. In some ways they were right (I didn't know that you had to push a button to get a green light before you could cross the road. I almost got hit by a moped before my father pulled me back), but at the same time I was a grown man who wanted to live his own life without someone holding his hand.
It was very frustrating in the beginning to have everyone explain everything to me all the time. Everything from how to work the toilet to how to use the phone. But even if I don't remember anything, there are still some thinks that are still there. I can read and write even if I don't remember going to school and if I don't think too much, I know how to ride a bike (it was when I started thinking that I would fall over or end up in a ditch).
When you have your memories and you know some basic things about yourself you take a lot of things for granted. What kind of movies do I like? Do I like apples? How do I want my eggs? What kind of music do I like? Do I want mustard on that?
A 'friend' of mine told me that he thought that it would be fun to get to know yourself for a second time, but I tell you its not -fun-, it's bloody horrible. It's a battle, a war to try to take back your life.
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This is the first time I've written this kind of fiction. I hope it came out ok. Please review... or review the first chapter instead if that feels better. Please?
Thanks to Reikoyazumi who beta read this for me.