I have led a very good life, at least that is what I’ve been told.
According to my driver’s licence I am Mark Nielson, and I was born on March 27, 1959. The face in the upper left corner looks a bit like a slightly younger version of what I see in the mirror each morning, but since that guy is a complete stranger to me, he really hasn’t been much help figuring things out. I have been given no reason to doubt that this is who I am, but I also have no way to verify it either.
You see, a short while back I suffered what the doctor called a Transient Ischemic Attack, or to us non-doctor types, a stroke. Actually it is what is known as a mini stroke, not quite as severe as an actual stroke, but it is usually a good sign that one should change his lifestyle before the big one comes along and really does some damage. As if this one hadn’t done enough. In most cases, the effects of a mini stroke will dissipate after about 24 hours, but in some cases they can last longer, and the side effects of the stroke can vary depending on what part of the brain was actually affected. Many people will experience slurred speech or loss of vision or shaking arms or hands, but none of that happened to me. At least not that I am aware of. Instead, somewhere deep inside of my skull, a blood clot or some such thing broke loose and shut off that little switch that houses all my memory.
Not many people can say they remember their very first memory, but I can. At first there was just cold and darkness. And music. Then there was a beep. I am not sure how long I sat there with my eyes shut, the music starting and stopping every now and then, and when I finally opened my eyes there were these numbers floating around in the air. I closed my eyes again, but then the beep snapped me back awake. I was sitting in some sort of vehicle on the driver’s side and it was lightly snowing outside. Past the window to my right there was a sign that read Golden Dragon Casino Shuttle and to my left there was a chain link fence. Beyond the fence there was traffic, and a lot of it. Straight ahead through the snow on the glass, I could see the changing red, yellow and green lights. I knew there should be a way to clear away the snow to give me a better view, but before I could figure that out the music started again.
The music was coming from inside me, or actually inside my clothing. I dug around in the pockets of the coat I was wearing until I found the small black and silver rectangular box that was playing the music. A green screen on the top blinked in time with the music. It displayed just a single word.
Randi.
When the music and the lights stopped I sat there just looking at the box. I knew I was supposed to do something to it, but I couldn’t figure out what. There was no panic or frustration, in fact there was really no emotion at all. Just an emptiness and a lack of anything that made any sense. Then the box beeped at me again. Shortly after that, I heard the tapping. It was coming from the left, and when I turned to see what it was. There was a man standing the window. “Are you Mr. Nielson?” he asked. And then he did the strangest thing. He talked into his shoulder and said, “I think I have him.”
The man was dressed in some sort of blue uniform with a black padding on his chest. I could see lights flashing in that mirror just outside the window, and instinctively I knew he was there to help. I held up the rectangle box and asked, “Do you know how this works?” Those are the first words I ever remember saying. Not very profound, and it actually sounds a little dumb now that I’ve told the story a few times.
“Are you ok, Mr. Nielson?” he asked. I heard him pull at the door, and then he spoke again. “Can you open the door?”
“I don’t know.” Then I corrected myself. “I don’t know how.”
”Just pull on the handle.” he was saying as he pointed at something through the window. I grabbed a hold of the lever that he seemed to be indicating and suddenly the brisk air was rushing right into my face. That is when the music started up again, so I held up the box right in his face.
“Do you know how this works?”
The man took the box, opened it up and the music stopped. “Hello.” He walked away with the box in his hand, and then after a brief conversation he handed it back to me and said, “She wants to talk to you.”
“Hello?”
“Mark? Mark is that you?” It was a womans voice. ”I was so scared. Where the hell have you been? Bob said you never showed up at the sight. He’s pissed about his truck.”
“Who is this?”
Her name is Miranda, but she will only answer to Randi. In the short time that I have known her, she has been nothing but considerate and understanding. She is also my wife. Outside an original burst at the hospital where she told me to “Stop fucking around with everyone,” she has not shown much interest in what I do or don’t remember. She seems to have taken most of this situation almost too well. When she brings up something from the past and I look at her with that blank face, she usually just laughs and say, “Of course you don’t.” It doesn’t really seem to bother her. If it’s important enough, she takes the time to fill me in on the details. I’m not an idiot, which most people don’t seem to get. I have no memory, but I can hear and think just fine. Slowing down and talking louder will not bring the memories back. Randi seems to be the only person who gets this. She just talks to me like she talks to anyone else. I could easily see how someone would fall in love with this person. Unfortunately, I just don’t know if that someone was me.
It seems that along with my memories, that blood clot also took with it my capacity for emotion. Without the foundation of the past fifty some years of history that most people my age store away in their brains, I find I lack the ability to feel. It is not so much that I don’t care, it is that I don’t know what to care about. When everyone is a stranger, and you have no point of reference in your own history, it becomes very difficult to figure out what should matter to you. I have no dreams. No ambitions. Although I also lack the ability to dream in the physical sense. When I close my eyes to rest, all I see is darkness. There are sometimes these shades of light and darkness, but never anything that is very clear. My dreams are nothing but a fog, where all of the images are obscured. As I try to get closer to clear them up, but I can’t. All that is left of my memories are a bunch of mind shadows. The ghosts of a life I can’t seem to bring back.
I didn’t remember I had two children. Randi had to fill me in about all that, and she had to introduce me to my daughter when she came to visit in the hospital. Her name is Teri, and she is tall and blond and pretty, but I guess a dad is supposed to say those things even if he doesn’t remember she’s his child. When I commented about how much she and Randi looked alike, they both just laughed. Turns our Teri’s mother was my first wife. Randi and I don’t have any kids of our own, but from what I’ve heard she was glad to step in and be a mom for both Teri and my son, Mark. I haven’t met him yet, but we did talk once on that silver box phone thing. He lives on a mountain somewhere. Colorado, I think they said. He had to move out there shortly after he failed out of college. Randi said he was running with the wrong crowd and he needed to get away from all the bad influences. I think what she doesn’t want to tell me is that the bad influence was really me, and there is probably more to the story than they are willing to explain to me just yet. The conversation we had was more than the usual awkward, and I wasn’t the only one who came across as cold. But he seems to be getting his shit together as he said, and he is now taking after his old man. He is an apprentice with the plumber’s union.
To be real honest, I don’t remember a thing about plumbing. The other day Randi asked me to look at the toilet because it was running. I looked at it for a good ten minutes before Teri walked by and took the top off the back of it. Inside was this balloon looking thing floating on top of the water, and a rusty chain thing that hung down into the tank. After a couple of seconds, and once she had figured out I had no idea what to do, she stuck her hand down into the water and fidgeted with something until the sound of running water stopped. I don’t have a clue what she did, but a couple of days later she was in there banging around and it hasn’t been running since. Nothing was ever said about my inability to fix the toilet. I think they wanted to save me some sort of embarrassment, but there really wasn’t any, at least not on my part.
Randi says that despite this set back we are just like any other people. We keep moving forward, each day trying to figure out our lives. Only difference is that I don’t know where I am coming from. If I understood what my past entailed, it might all be different somehow. I know there are a bunch of questions that someday I will need to ask and get answers, too, but for now I am content just being who I am today. I can’t be disappointed or miserable, because I don’t know what I have to be disappointed in or miserable about.
Shouldn’t we all be so lucky?
