A Little Amnesia Never Hurt Anybody
by Daniel Beadle - Friday, July 20, 2007
"You remember it, don’t you? You remember that day... the day you woke up and forgot everything that mattered."Stalker can't place the voice, but it sounds familiar. He keeps his eyes shut until he hears another.
Her voice... her whisper... echoes in silence, "I love you."
Stalker's eyes snap open and look at the cracked bathroom floor tiles that are slowly filling with blood. His eyes struggle to regain focus, but he feels so tired. It’s hard for him to keep his eyes open. Stalker blinks, and his conscious mind shifts from state to state, gaining a sense of awareness. His mind feels soggy, like a wet towel is wrapped around his brain, and his thoughts have trouble manifesting themselves.
“It’s too bad about your girlfriend," says the man who isn't there.
Stalker gasps for air, and feels a slight sense of vertigo as he suddenly sits up. He looks down at his body, a sickly, scrawny thing, and all he's wearing is a pair of jeans. His fingers touch the wet part of his hair, and that's when Stalker notices that his head is bleeding. His eyes search the bathroom, and take notice that the bathroom mirror is splintered, and there are shards all over the floor.
"You remembered… vagaries. Nothing quite concrete enough to put words to, right? Well, maybe words. Just not complete sentences. The word 'amnesia' came to mind, but it didn't feel right. People don't get amnesia like that. No. You chose this for yourself." Had he? Maybe not. Maybe life has evolved to a satisfactory state. Maybe this young man we call "Stalker" was happy, but he simply forgot why. He searches his mind like a room full of clues, but there are none. Just traces that important facts have been removed.
"There she is. Look at her. My god, just look her." Don't know whose voice that is.
Stalker rises to his feet, and taking careful steps, he enters the adjacent room. It looks furnished enough to be a hotel, maybe a motel. He looks out the window. A street. Cars. People. What did he expect? Stalker doesn’t know why he's there, but he knows there’s a reason. Something bad happened, and because of that, something bad has to happen again. Something about two wrongs... making everyone hurt. He has to cause someone pain, because they caused him pain. Can he let it go? Will memory loss save him? Or do these things matter?
"Given that all humans are inherently narcissistic, many will advertise the seemingly mundane details of their lives in a public forum, the foremost of these being the Internet. ...Yes, the Internet has become the stalker’s best friend." Who said that one? Who talks that way?
He doesn’t know his name. We call him "Stalker" because he is a man who is not satisfied with the now. He is a gatherer of facts and information. But is there another reason?
Stalker goes to the bedroom mirror. He looks at his reflection. His hair is black, tangled, and matted. He is pale, sickly. He looks like he's been stressed out for months. Stalker is thin, and his face shows it. He wonders why his mind is intent on narrating his every action and thought.
He looks in the mirror. He is a stranger to himself. But Stalker knows certain things, things like how sensitive he is. Like how his sensitivity makes him feel things more deeply than he probably should. Like how that sensitivity can make him act irrationally sometimes. How people get hurt. How sometimes he takes things too far. Just like now. Just like he's planning to. Planning? What is he planning?
"There is so much to do."
“I woke up today... to find myself in the other place... With a trail of footprints from where I ran away.”—Trent Reznor
