…and somehow he found he found himself against a firm mattress, with the smell of white linen and phlegm in the air. It stunk like normalcy but comforted like something that was new and his alone.
"He's regained consciousness."
And then he learned what hearing was.
"Sir, can you open your eyes? Do you know where you are?"
Could he open his eyes? Had his eyes ever opened before this point? Had his ears ever heard before? Then slowly, like an infant learning to begin, he opened his eyes. Everything was white, white sheets wrapped around him, white walls enclosing him, and white beings glowing in the light. What was this place?
"Sir, do you know where you are?"
He shook his head.
"You're in a hospital." The being placed his hand on his own chest, "I am Dr. Stewart. Can you tell me what your name is?"
He shook his head. He closed his eyes and tried to remember, but every time he did he felt a cold emptiness inside of his head. Nothing was there, not even a name by which to call himself.
The doctor turned to one of his colleagues, (a lady in a blue shirt) "Subject is a John Doe. No injuries." She nodded her head, and turned away.
"Hey listen sir, we're going to help you alright?"
He looked down to his hands…large hands that felt more like spiders than parts of him. "John Doe?" He whispered, "That's my name? John Doe?"
The doctor's face turned red. "I-uh no, that's just the term we use whenever we have people who have no ID. You have a name, but until you can remember we'll just use 'John Doe' as a marker."
He smiled and ran his hands against his face. He felt it, the sharp lines of his jaw, the short hair that tickled his fingertips, the small nose that probably looked strange in-between his eyes.
"Can I have a mirror?"
The doctor smiled, and reached over to the desk and pulled out a mirror. "Don't worry, you're not hideous. In fact, some of the nurses think you're pretty handsome. Especially Nurse Nancy, she's got a thing for red-heads."
Red-head?
He gazed at his face in the mirror. Blue eyes and a red filled with hair as orange as autumn leaves. He had never seen this face before.
"I…I…"
"Let me guess, you don't recognize yourself? Don't worry that's normal. You'll get your memories back in time, but til then we'll take care of you here." Doctor Stewart smiled and placed his hand against the man's shoulder.
But that wasn't it. It wasn't that he felt that his face wasn't recognizable to himself, it was that he'd never seen it before. Everything to him was strange. Strange hair, strange eyes, strange hands that felt like a stranger.
"How did I get here?"
Stewart sighed, "We were hoping you could tell us, but seeing your current condition, I can tell that won't be possible. Well, you were brought in here by one of our ambulances out in an alley. You were," the good doctor tried not to laugh, "naked."
Like the day you were born.
"We thought you might have been robbed, but there were no markings on you, and not only that but crimes been down for a while now. Anyway you've been out for a few days."
He nodded. John Doe. Just a pseudonym, an empty mask for a man with no past. And so the days went by. Nurses came into his room to talk to him, bring him flowers, doctors checked up on him every day, they even brought flashcards with different names on them.
"Hector?" Dr. Stewart asked.
"No, that doesn't sound familiar." He would say.
"How about Carry?"
He shook his head.
"Vince?"
No again.
They had been at this game for days, name after name, possibility after possibility.
"Luke?"
And then it struck him.
"What was that doctor?"
"…Luke? Does that name sound familiar?"
And he reached far back into his mind, past the darkness, past the emptiness, past the earliest thing he could remember, the day he learned to begin, and he felt…nothing.
"No doc, it doesn't ring a bell. But I do really like that name."
Stewart shrugged, maybe it was his middle name, perhaps the name of a friend, or a father, either way it was a start.
"I take it you like this name more than John Doe right?"
He nodded.
"Alright…Luke it is then."
And Luke he was. Days turned to weeks, and Luke was allowed out of his bed. He explored the hospital, he talked with the nurses, and took his lunch outside the building on a bench in the sun. He learned what it meant to eat spaghetti with a fork, and drink coffee with a straw, and gaze up to the stars, and soon, whatever came before became irrelevant…if it ever was important at all.
"Have you heard about that John Doe guy?"
"You mean the one we found naked? Yeah. I hear he goes by Luke now."
"Is that his name?"
"No, he just likes it more. Dr. Stewart's taken a liking to him."
"The entire hospital's taken a liking to him. I've never seen a patient so…sunny. He brightens up the place."
"Yeah, it's pretty great, but we still gotta find his family. I mean they've gotta be worried sick."
"That's the thing, there haven't been any missing person ads matching his description. No birth records no nothing. It's just…like he never existed."
Strange.
The day finally came when Luke was discharged. He still had no identity, no home, but he wanted to leave…he wanted to live. Desperately even, as if something was calling for him to take hold. The nurses and doctors all urged him to stay. It was dangerous, he still had no job or place to live. What if whatever brought him there in the first place returned and did far worse? Yet, those were all risks Luke wanted to take…he had to.
Doctor Stewart used his connections to get Luke a job as a cashier at a bakery. It was a hard sell with no documentation that he could work legally, but somehow Luke managed to get the job. Maybe it was the fact that the owner had finally decided to give up on the idea of a bakery, or maybe it was because the place was so understaffed that anyone willing to even apply was a godsend. Either way, the job was Luke's. And down the street of Jefferson there was a place for him to stay (and the rent was manageable.) The place was small, in fact, Luke was pretty surprised anyone could even fit in it. The kitchen, the living room, and the bedroom was all one area. Just a wooden floor with a stove and something that could pass as a mattress.
But that didn't matter, because it was all his.
"Welcome home Luke."