Project Human

by Sean McKenzie

hand brush down against his arm and warm exhale against his neck. Who’s there? Make the pain stop. Please help me. But he couldn’t talk. He didn’t even try.

  There was slight movement against the bed, but Darryl was already beginning to drift. Another shot? Another pill for the pain? But he felt nothing penetrate his skin, and no one pulled his jaws apart to make him swallow the pills they give twice a day.

  “See you soon.”

  The voice whispered in his ear softly. It was deep; a man’s voice. It had come to him yesterday, he remembered. It spoke words of comfort, but the tone was anything but.

  Darryl fought the drowsiness as best as he could, inched his eyes open far enough to barely make out a dark form walking to exit the room. He stopped struggling, drained from the effort. He closed his eyes in despair.

  The dream came instantly.

  He stood in the bedroom of a familiar house. It was dark out. The room had no lights. A woman whimpers. Her painful sobs filled the silence. He called out to her, but saw no one in the swirling darkness. He caught whiffs of her perfume in the air, strangely felt her presence close, just out of reach, and her crying only seemed to deepen each time he called out to her. Louder and louder he yelled, yet still he saw no one.

  Darryl awoke with a start. His body shivered, laced in a cold sweat. The sheet underneath him was soaked. The sheet that once covered him was now lying on the floor. His eyes opened wide. His breathing was short and rapid.

  The dream was real, he thought. Lying in bed now, still seeing the dark room, still overwhelmed with the terrible ache, he fought to discover who she was. He knew her; he recognized her scent. His fingers grabbed the sheet as he struggled to picture her. It was pointless. Even in his dreams his amnesia ruled.

  Yet even so, he knew that he was the reason for her pain. There was no mistaking that. Whatever it was, it was his fault.

  He swallowed hard. He tried to convince himself that it shouldn’t matter so much. He blinked it away and allowed his body to recover from the heartache.

  It was just a dream. It wasn’t real.

  But it was hard to convince himself of that when it was the same dream every time his eyes closed.

  Darryl noticed the room was dark. The only light came from the hall, shining through the window. There were no clocks, nothing of which would tell him the hour. It was early morning, he thought. But it didn’t matter.

  Time might as well be standing still.

  Darryl sighed wearily. He was wide awake now. He turned to glance up at the machine monitoring him. Its murmur was low. He could barely make out its dark form, hidden in the shadows like Death watching over him, waiting patiently. The doctor had told him that it was monitoring his brainwaves. The rest of what they had said was a blur, a mess of fragmented words and slurred syllables. Darryl had been too drugged at that time to remember most of what had happened when he arrived. Everything happened so fast, he thought.

  He lied in bed and didn’t bother falling back asleep. He wished only to put some of the puzzle pieces in order. He had been there for two days now. The first day was a wash; the second not much clearer. He had been in a car accident, one of them had said.

  The older doctor. Or was it the younger one, the one with the bitter eyes?

  Darryl frowned, angry with himself for not being able to remember even that. But the look in the younger doctor’s eyes was unforgettable. He held a look that made Darryl believe there was much more at work behind his expressionless face.

  Darryl tossed and turned. Trying to get comfortable was a painstaking process that proved fruitless. Lying in the desolate silence, feeling abandoned by the world, he pushed aside his fears that he would remain this way forever. Amnesia was funny like that. It can wipe away everything you knew about yourself and make you start life completely over; discovering yourself anew; making you a new you. Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe not. But the choice had not been his.

  He thought back then, suddenly remembering something that had passed between the doctors. It was an argument they were having about his amnesia. One of them thought he would never remember anything ever again. But the tone in his voice made it not sound upsetting. The other said Darryl needed more care and that he should be the one watching over Darryl.

  Darryl thought back hard. Everything was in such a blur. He had been drifting in and out of sleep, hearing bits and pieces of conversations. Everything had been in a wash, swirled together in a dream-like haze.

  Darryl groaned, mad again at himself for not being able to even know if what he thought he had heard was true. He could have been half-asleep, half-dreaming, contorting the reality with his imagination. It was hard for him to trust what little he remembered. And trying to think only make his head throb even more-so. He had hit his head on the steering wheel hard enough to have knocked him out, and the headache from it still had not lessened. It was the reason why he couldn’t remember, they told him. He could have not been wearing his seat belt and went flying through the windshield and been killed, they reminded. But at the moment, Darryl couldn’t tell which was the lesser of two evils.

  God, why can’t I remember?

  He closed his eyes, praying that the pills they gave him would help him remember something.

  The spinning came abruptly, as it so often did, and Darryl drifted into slumber.

  The light shining in his eyes woke him. A doctor stood over him, the old one, the one with the friendly eyes and gentle voice. “Hold still. Just checking your pupils.”

  Doctor Whitmere kept the small flashlight shining in his eyes for a few seconds longer then shut it off. He smiled. Somehow it brought peace to Darryl.

  The room was well lit now, with the hall beyond filled with daily commotion as doctors and nurses conversed in passing.

  “How am I?” Darryl’s voice was still sore. He watched the bald doctor move away to stand beside him, nodding with a slight smile.

  “I think under your circumstance, everything will work out in time. You’re a young man; your body will heal quickly.”

  “It doesn’t feel like it, doctor.”

  “For now it shouldn’t. It’ll lessen soon enough; the healing will begin.” Whitmere turned from Darryl to check the machine next to the bed. Pushing a series of buttons, reading what the monitor gave him, the doctor nodded to himself in satisfaction.

  Whitmere turned to Darryl, finding his patient struggling to rise. “Easy, Darryl. Lay down, relax. When your body is ready to move, it will.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he groaned.

  Darryl did as he was told, resting back on the bed, sighing at the strain it took.

  “I’ll have some food brought in,” Whitmere said. “Darryl, your body has undergone a drastic change. The crash left your body unable to respond to…well, a lot. The road will be long, and very hard.”

  Darryl’s eyebrows bunched together. “I can’t just—”

  He began coughing. The pain from that nearly made him cry.

  Whitmere frowned. “This is what I’m talking about. You’re trying to do things that your body is not ready to do.”

  Darryl rubbed his throat gingerly. His cough settled. He remained quiet.

  “In a day or two, you’ll be better. I promise. But until then, all you need to do is rest.” Whitmere was quiet for a moment, before adding, “The mind is a wonderful thing. Precious. Capable. Defeatable. But in the end, it’s like everything else human—it can be made anew.”

  With a pat on the shoulder and a smile, Whitmere turned and walked out the door. Darryl stared at the door long after the doctor left. It was going to be hard to accept any outcome that didn’t involve his memory returning.

  After a short while, the door opened again. A tall man with a stern look entered, pushing a cart towards the bed. He handed Darryl two orange pills and a cup of water. Darryl obediently took the pills and drank what he could. The male nurse exited without comment.

  Darryl frowned at his cart of food.

  He suddenly wi
shed that he wasn’t so hungry.

  T H R E E

  Her hair was dirty blonde and shoulder length, pulled back away from her face. She slept quietly. Her face was sparkling in a few places due to the dust of broken glass. New patients often arrived with traces of an accident evident.

  She was young, he thought. Mid-twenties, youthful, vibrant, cute. She had an active lifestyle. Her muscle tone was prominent; she carried very little body fat. A jogger, he wondered. He was pressed close to her; her scent was surprisingly warming to him. His right hand held the injection gun, his left hand reached out and brushed against her forehead in through her hair. It was something that he had seldom done before. Never to a male patient. He had no reason for it, though he was compelled nonetheless.

  Doctor Barton stopped himself right then. He was getting too carried away. It wasn’t good for him to speculate on the lives of his patients. Whether he was right about them or not.

  Adelle stirred gently, reacting to his touch. Barton flinched, drawing his hand away from her, studying her movements carefully. He wondered how much she remembered. Would she be any different than the male? Than any of the others?

  Stop it!

  Catching himself again, he acted quickly. With one fluent motion, he jammed the needle into her forearm and shot the injection solution at once. His face turned angry then. But it was done. And she was the last.

  Adelle’s body began to quiver, slightly at first, then abrupt and thrashing. Doctor