Authors: Jessica Brody
Unremembered
To Bill Contardi,
a real-life action hero
(also known as my agent)
The heart that has truly lov’d never forgets.
– Thomas Moore
The water is cold and ruthless, lapping against my cheek.
Slapping me awake. Filling my mouth with the taste of salty solitude.
I cough violently and open my eyes, taking in the world around me. Seeing it for the first time. It’s not a world I recognize. I gaze upon miles and miles of dark blue ocean. Peppered with
large floating objects. Metal. Like the one I’m lying on.
And then there are the bodies.
I count twenty in my vicinity. Two within reach. Although I don’t dare try.
Their lifeless faces are frozen in terror. Their eyes are empty. Staring into nothing.
I press a palm to my throbbing temple. My head feels like it’s made out of stone. Everything is drab and heavy and seen through a filthy lens. I close my eyes tight.
The voices come an hour later. After night has fallen. I hear them cutting through the darkness. It takes them forever to reach me. A light breaks through the dense fog and blinds me. No one
speaks as they pull me from the water. No one has to. It’s clear from the looks on their faces they did not expect to find me.
They did not expect to find anyone.
Alive, that is.
I’m wrapped in a thick blue blanket and laid on a hard wooden surface. That’s when the questions start. Questions that make my brain hurt.
‘What is your name?’
I wish I knew.
‘Do you know where you are?’
I glance upward and find nothing but a sea of unhelpful stars.
‘Do you remember boarding the plane?’
My brain twists in agony, causing my forehead to throb again.
Plane. Plane. What is a plane?
And then comes the question that awakens something deep within me. That ignites a tiny, faraway spark somewhere in the back corners of my mind.
‘Do you know what
year
it is?’
I blink, feeling a small glimmer of hope surge from the pit of my stomach.
‘1609,’ I whisper with unfounded conviction. And then I pass out.
THE FALL
1
ANEW
Today is the only day I remember. Waking up in that ocean
is all I have. The rest is empty space. Although I don’t know how far back that space goes
– how many years it spans. That’s the thing about voids: they can be as short as the blink of an eye, or they can be infinite. Consuming your entire existence in a flash of meaningless
white. Leaving you with nothing.
No memories.
No names.
No faces.
Every second that ticks by is new. Every feeling that pulses through me is foreign. Every thought in my brain is like nothing I’ve ever thought before. And all I can hope for is one moment
that mirrors an absent one. One fleeting glimpse of familiarity.
Something that makes me . . .
me
.
Otherwise, I could be anyone.
Forgetting who you are is so much more complicated than simply forgetting your name. It’s also forgetting your dreams. Your aspirations. What makes you happy. What you pray you’ll
never have to live without. It’s meeting yourself for the first time, and not being sure of your first impression.
After the rescue boat docked, I was brought here. To this room. Men and women in white coats flutter in and out. They stick sharp things in my arm. They study charts and scratch their heads.
They poke and prod and watch me for a reaction. They want something to be wrong with me. But I assure them that I’m fine. That I feel no pain.
The fog around me has finally lifted. Objects are crisp and detailed. My head no longer feels as though it weighs a hundred pounds. In fact, I feel strong. Capable. Anxious to get out of this
bed. Out of this room with its unfamiliar chemical smells. But they won’t let me. They insist I need more time.
From the confusion I see etched into their faces, I’m pretty sure it’s
they
who need the time.
They won’t allow me to eat any real food. Instead they deliver nutrients through a tube in my arm. It’s inserted directly into my vein. Inches above a thick white plastic bracelet
with the words
Jane Doe
printed on it in crisp black letters.
I ask them why I need to be here when I’m clearly not injured. I have no visible wounds. No broken bones. I wave my arms and turn my wrists and ankles in wide circles to prove my claim.
But they don’t respond. And this infuriates me.
After a few hours, they determine that I’m sixteen years old. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react to this information. I don’t
feel
sixteen. But then again,
how do I know what sixteen feels like? How do I know what
any
age feels like?
And how can I be sure that they’re right? For all I know, they could have just made up that number. But they assure me that they have qualified tests. Specialists. Experts. And they all
say the same thing.
That I’m sixteen.
The tests can’t tell me my name though. They can’t tell me where I’m from. Where I live. Who my family is. Or even my favourite colour.
And no matter how many ‘experts’ they shuttle in and out of this room, no one can seem to explain why I’m the only survivor of the kind of plane crash no one survives.
They talk about something called a passenger manifest. I’ve deduced that it’s a kind of master list. A register of everyone who boarded the plane.
I’ve also deduced that I’m not on it.
And that doesn’t seem to be going over very well with anyone.
A man in a grey suit, who identifies himself as Mr Rayunas from Social Services, says he’s trying to locate my next of kin. He carries around a strange-looking metal device that he calls a
cellphone. He holds it up to his ear and talks. He also likes to stare at it and stab at tiny buttons on its surface. I don’t know what my ‘next of kin’ is, but by the look on his
face, he’s having trouble locating it.
He whispers things to the others. Things I’m assuming he doesn’t want me to hear. But I hear them anyway. Foreign, unfamiliar words like ‘foster care’ and ‘the
press’ and ‘minor’. Every so often they all pause and glance over at me. They shake their heads. Then they continue whispering.
There’s a woman named Kiyana who comes in every hour. She has dark skin and speaks with an accent that makes it sound like she’s singing. She wears pink. She smiles and fluffs my
pillow. Presses two fingers against my wrist. Writes stuff down on a clipboard. I’ve come to look forward to her visits. She’s kinder than the others. She takes the time to talk to me.
Ask me questions. Real ones. Even though she knows I don’t have any of the answers.
‘You’re jus’ so beautiful,’ she says to me, tapping her finger tenderly against my cheek. ‘Like one of those pictures they airbrush for the fashion magazines, you
know?’
I don’t know. But I offer her a weak smile regardless. For some reason, it feels like an appropriate response.
‘Not a blemish,’ she goes on. ‘Not one flaw. When you get your memory back, you’re gonna have to tell me your secret, love.’ Then she winks at me.
I like that she says
when
and not
if
.
Even though I don’t remember learning those words, I understand the difference.
‘And those eyes,’ she croons, moving in closer. ‘I’ve never seen sucha colour. Lavender, almos’.’ She pauses, thinking, and leans closer still. ‘No.
Violet.
’ She smiles like she’s stumbled upon a long-lost secret. ‘I bet that’s your name. Violet. Ring any bells?’
I shake my head. Of course it doesn’t.
‘Well,’ she says, straightening the sheets around my bed, ‘I’m gonna call you that anyway. Jus’ until you remember the real one. Much nicer soundin’ than Jane
Doe.’
She takes a step back, tilts her head to the side. ‘Sucha pretty girl. Do you even remember whatcha look like, love?’
I shake my head again.
She smiles softly. Her eyes crinkle at the corners. ‘Hang on then. I’ll show you.’
She leaves the room. Returns a moment later with an oval-shaped mirror. Light bounces off it as she walks to my bedside. She holds it up.
A face appears in the light pink frame.
One with long and sleek honey-brown hair. Smooth golden skin. A small, straight nose. Heart-shaped mouth. High cheekbones. Large, almond-shaped purple eyes.
They blink.
‘Yes, that’s you,’ she says. And then, ‘You musta been a model. Such perfection.’
But I don’t see what she sees. I only see a stranger. A person I don’t recognize. A face I don’t know. And behind those eyes are sixteen years of experiences I fear I’ll
never be able to remember. A life held prisoner behind a locked door. And the only key has been lost at sea.
I watch purple tears form in the reflecting glass.
COVERAGE
‘Mystery continues to cloud the tragic crash of Freedom
Airlines flight 121, which went down over the Pacific Ocean yesterday evening after taking off
from Los Angeles International Airport on a non-stop journey to Tokyo, Japan. Experts are working around the clock to determine the identity of the flight’s only known survivor, a
sixteen-year-old girl who was found floating among the wreckage, relatively unharmed. Doctors at UCLA Medical Center, where she’s being treated, confirm that the young woman has suffered
severe amnesia and does not remember anything prior to the crash. There was no identification found on the girl and the Los Angeles Police have been unable to match her fingerprints or DNA to any
government databases. According to a statement announced by the FAA earlier this morning, she is not believed to have been travelling with family and no missing-persons reports matching her
description have been fled.
‘The hospital released this first photo of the girl just today, in the hopes that someone with information will step forward. Authorities are optimistic that . . .’
I stare at my face on the screen of the thin black box that hangs above my bed. Kiyana says it’s called a television. The fact that I didn’t know this disturbs me. Especially when
she tells me that there’s one in almost every household in the country.
The doctors say I
should
remember things like that. Although my personal memories seem to be ‘temporarily’ lost, I
should
be familiar with everyday objects and
brands and the names of celebrities. But I’m not.