by Alec Birri
‘What?’
‘Ask me all the questions again.’
Dan got off the bed and went back to the sink. Brian furrowed his brow but did as asked. Dan answered everything as before while studying his face in the mirror. Brian asked about the World Cup, but Dan dismissed it – he was waiting for the last question.
‘What happened in the aircraft crash?’
Dan raised a finger. He stood back from the basin, but continued looking into the mirror above it.
‘What do all the previous questions have in common that’s entirely absent from just that one?’
Brian shrugged.
Dan continued. ‘I either know the answer or know something about the answer.’ He looked at Brian. ‘I know absolutely nothing about the answer to that one. Even my memory of a broken right arm and burning hand turned out to be from a barbecue accident here two weeks ago.’
Brian started to look lost. ‘And your point is?’
‘The point is, my dear brother – the reason why I can’t remember anything about the crash is because it never happened.’
Brian flopped onto Dan’s bed and put a hand to his head. ‘Then how do you explain all the burns?’
‘Exactly!’
Dan untied the draw-cord to his pyjama bottoms and let them drop to the floor. He viewed his naked body in the mirror. Brian looked anywhere but.
‘The entire surface area of my body appears to have been horribly burnt, but it’s impossible for anyone to survive one hundred per cent burns. Whatever caused this, it wasn’t fire.’
He walked towards the mirror and prodded the flesh on his face. ‘Now, the question is, what did? What causes the appearance of burns?’ He turned to Brian. ‘And why doesn’t it upset me any more?’ He went back to the mirror. ‘What’s really happened to me and everyone else in this place?’
Chapter Six
Dan stepped away from the mirror and turned around. He tried looking over his shoulder, but this hurt his neck too much. He presented his back to Brian.
‘I assume I’m like this all over? The one hundred per cent burns theory falls down otherwise. What can you see?’
Brian kept looking elsewhere. ‘I’m in your head, remember? I can only see what you see.’ He stared up at the ceiling before adding: ‘Unfortunately.’
Dan wondered how else to do it. ‘I’ll need to check all the other patients anyway, so I’ll get one of them to look me over at the same time.’
Brian seemed to think he was joking. ‘Really? And you think the best way to win friends and influence people is by asking them to take all their clothes off?’
Dan thought about the social difficulties. ‘Hmmm. There’s got to be a way. Without being certain everyone has the same all-over damage, the theory of the aircraft crash being a figment of my imagination is dead in the water.’
The door opened and a porter appeared with Gary in a wheelchair. Dan seized the opportunity.
‘Ah, Gary. Good. Look at my bottom and tell me what you think.’ He turned his back and pointed at his buttocks.
Gary threw a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Get me out of this madhouse.’
Without batting an eye, the porter reversed and pushed Gary back in the direction they had just come from. Undeterred, Dan followed them out.
‘Gary, please. I want you to look at my bottom.’ The porter outpaced Dan, who ended up standing starkers in the middle of the corridor. He made one last attempt. ‘It’s okay, I need to see you naked too.’
Dan found himself amongst spectators. He spotted Tracy striding her way through them. She didn’t look happy – again. He retraced his steps, closed the door, and leaned on it. Brian had gone. Coward, he thought.
Tracy tried to enter the room. ‘Let me in!’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m not decent.’
Tracy released the door handle. ‘What? And standing naked in the middle of the hospital is? Let me in!’
Dan kept the pressure on the door. ‘I need to put some clothes on first.’
‘Well, it’s a pity you didn’t think of that two minutes ago. Move away from the door NOW!’
Dan got into bed and pulled the covers up. She opened the door and stood there with her arms folded. Dan wondered if that was less severe than hands on hips. It wasn’t.
‘Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
‘Nothing,’ he said defensively.
Tracy closed the door. She swept his pyjamas up off the floor and proceeded to dress him.
She seemed to mellow a little. ‘Dan, you can’t walk around the hospital like that – what were you thinking?’
‘I have a theory about why I can’t remember the aircraft crash, and wanted to confirm it – that’s all.’
‘What? That you were flying in your birthday suit?’
‘You enjoy treating me like a child, don’t you? No, of course not.’
A moment of inspiration hit him and he grabbed her by the wrist. ‘You’ve given me a bed bath. In fact, you must have given me numerous baths over the last six months – not to mention having to deal with things like bed sores.’
Tracy wrestled her wrist away. ‘Of course I have.’
She went back to fastening the buttons on his jacket. He stopped her and pulled the front of it open.
‘So, tell me. Am I like this all over?’
Tracy looked at him as if it were a test. ‘More or less, why?’
Dan was finally getting somewhere. ‘Would you go so far as to say, every single square inch of me looks like this?’
Tracy took control of his jacket again. ‘Is this a trick question?’
Dan was on a roll. ‘And are all the patients on this wing affected in exactly the same way?’
Tracy stood back. Her arms remained at her sides, which Dan took as a good sign. She still appeared wary, though.
‘I take it there’s a point to me stating the obvious?’
Dan checked the door was closed and then beckoned for her to move closer.
‘What’s the largest percentage of burns a person has ever been known to survive?’
Tracy raised her eyes as if searching for the answer. She appeared to find it. ‘I don’t know what the record is, but a casualty presenting with more than seventy to eighty per cent probably wouldn’t survive.’
Dan sat back and grinned, satisfied. He became serious again. ‘If I tell you what I know, will you tell Doctor Adams?’
Tracy widened her eyes, and exaggerated a slow nod of her head. ‘Of course I’m going to pass on anything of significance to Doctor Adams. You’re a patient in a hospital that specialises in neurological illnesses. Any memories you recall or form might be important to your recovery.’
Dan thought about that. He could keep his discovery to himself, but he needed to move on to the next stage, which was finding out what had actually caused the damage. He knew Tracy would in all likelihood either lie or go along with whatever he had to say anyway, because that’s what his treatment demanded. He decided to take a chance.
‘You can tell the good doctor,’ he chose his next words carefully, ‘I don’t think I, or anybody else here, was involved in an aircraft accident.’
Tracy nodded, picked up his pyjama bottoms and offered them to him.
Dan was disappointed by her reaction. ‘Don’t you want to know how I came to that conclusion?’
Tracy grabbed his left foot and fed it into one of the trouser legs. ‘Only if you want to tell me, but I assume your question about burn percentages has got something to do with it.’
Dan grabbed her wrist again. ‘You know full well none of the patients here could possibly have been in a fire, so what caused this?’ He held up the back of his left hand.
&
nbsp; ‘Dan, are you going to tell me something else? Because if you are, I’m going to need pen and paper, otherwise I’ll just forget.’
He became frustrated. ‘You know exactly what did this, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do, but if I tell you, you’ll only turn it into a recovered memory and I’ll get the sack for causing it. Sorry, Dan, but you’re going to have to work it all out for yourself.’
Dan harrumphed. ‘It’s a conspiracy, if you ask me.’
‘Well, that’s the nature of the human brain, I’m afraid. If it can’t think of a rational explanation, then why not give paranoia a try – even healthy people do that.’
She got his pyjama bottoms to his thighs and invited him to carry on. He pulled them up and retied the cord. There was a knock on the door and an orderly brought in his lunch.
Tracy glanced at the other bed. ‘Looks like you’ve scared off your roommate.’
Dan decided there was an upside to his latest contretemps with Gary after all. ‘Yes, that’s a pity – very unfortunate.’
She scowled. ‘I’m sure we can find a replacement.’
He scowled back. Tracy turned to leave.
‘Nothing else you want to add before I go?’
Dan couldn’t think of anything, so Tracy left. Dan began idly picking at the contents of his lunch tray while musing what to do next. Brian appeared on the other bed.
‘Is it my imagination or has Tracy lost weight?’
Dan ignored him. He was going through an imaginary list of accidents other than fire that could cause burns. Brian carried on about Tracy.
‘Whatever it is, she looks a lot healthier – prettier even.’
Dan was thinking of a list of chemicals that could produce acid burns when he picked up on what Brian was saying. He put down the sandwich and made his way into the corridor to see if Tracy was still there. She was chatting with a colleague some twenty feet away. She had her back to him, but he could see enough to get where Brian was coming from.
The rolls of fat Dan had so judgementally observed the day before seemed to have all but disappeared. They were still there, but only just. The difference was remarkable given the time interval. Her legs looked longer too and for a moment he thought she must be wearing the stilettos he used to fantasise about – but no, still the same flats. He went back into the room and closed the door.
Brian continued while Dan pondered the perceived transformation. ‘Maybe she’s got a new boyfriend or just dumped one. Women have a habit of being able to transform themselves under those circumstances.’
‘I must have been mistaken yesterday. She looks as if she’s lost a good two stone in weight since then, but there’s no way that can happen overnight.’
Dan put the idea out of his mind and went back to pondering a list of corrosive substances. ‘Maybe we were all involved in some kind of industrial accident,’ he speculated to himself.
Brian changed the subject. ‘There is something else we might have to come to terms with if we’re right about the aircraft crash never happening.’ He sat up. ‘Maybe we’re not a pilot? Maybe we’re not even a squadron leader in the RAF?’
Dan stopped thinking about chemical factories and burst out laughing.
Brian folded his arms. ‘Listen, if you’re going to mock everything I say, then at least have the decency to think through it first. Give me one good reason why you must be a pilot.’
Dan managed to control himself. He wiped a tear from his eye. ‘Okay, okay, Brian.’ He tried to be serious. ‘If I’m not a pilot in the RAF, then what am I?’
Brian looked a little foolish. He cast his eyes down at the floor and drew an imaginary circle on it with his foot. ‘I don’t know. A factory worker maybe?’
Dan stared at his hallucination. ‘Brian, do I look like the kind of person who has to labour for a living?’ He sneered before chuckling at that nonsense too.
‘Okay then. If the crash never happened, then that explains why we can’t remember the type of aircraft involved – because there wasn’t one.’ He challenged Dan. ‘But I assume you can name the different types of aircraft we have flown?’
‘Of course I can.’ Dan sat up and put out the fingers of his left hand to reel them off. Except that he couldn’t. He stopped seeing the ridiculous in Brian’s suggestion and became quiet. Dan dismissed the question with a shake of the head. ‘I’ve temporarily forgotten them – that’s all. Just like I temporarily forgot England won the World Cup.’
They pointed at each other and shouted in unison. ‘I’VE REMEMBERED!’ They tried to celebrate by shaking each other’s hand, but ended up grasping at thin air instead. Dan picked up his sandwich and took a bite to congratulate himself that way.
‘Don’t worry, Brian, the aircraft will soon come back to me. It’s just a matter of time.’
He hoped the same could be said for the rest of his flying career, as he couldn’t remember any of that either. He wouldn’t admit it, but he couldn’t even recall being in the military, let alone a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force. He just knew he was. He had to be.
Dan lay back on the bed to think about chemical factories, when he found himself standing in the middle of one. He must have fallen asleep. He knew he was dreaming this time, though. Dan was surrounded by giant silos with different chemical formulae printed on the sides in large letters like H2SO4, HNO3, and HCI. All of them were highly corrosive and he waited for one to burst open so he could identify the real cause of the burns. Nothing happened. Brian’s got to be here somewhere, he thought. He shouted out his brother’s name a few times, but it just echoed around the cavernous building.
Dan could see and hear a machine being operated further within the factory so decided to investigate, all the time expecting at least one of the silos to erupt and cover him in acid. The thought wasn’t particularly concerning, as Dan figured he would just wake up. To his disappointment, it didn’t happen. He approached what appeared to be factory workers carrying out the duties of whatever the plant’s purpose was. As with the previous dream, Dan didn’t recognise any of them, but thought he should. Their activities concentrated on a large conveyor belt running through the centre of the building.
There were various bits of old machinery, like washing machines, vacuum cleaners, fridges, filing cabinets, and even cars, being conveyed along the belt. The factory seemed to be a disposal or recycling centre. One of the workers offered Dan the red pill. He refused it. The worker looked disappointed, but neither persisted nor insisted, and went back to whatever he’d been doing.
Dan recognised some of the items on the conveyor belt as aircraft components, and it dawned on him that perhaps the purpose of the dream was to remember the type of plane he flew. He followed the belt alongside in the hope of identifying them, passing some workers along the way. They each tried to get him to take the red pill, but he ignored them all.
The aircraft parts were getting away, so Dan leapt up onto the conveyor belt and picked his way forward through the other bits of scrap to get to them. The belt was heading towards a crusher, and Dan calculated he would be waking up in around thirty seconds. He grabbed a wing flap and turned it over in his hands, looking for a clue to its origin. He was about to drop it and pick up a cockpit instrument when he heard the familiar sound of a filing cabinet drawer being opened.
He looked up to see Brian taking a folder from it and straight away Dan recognised it as aircraft documentation. He called out for Brian to pass the folder but to Dan’s frustration, Brian did the same as the last dream: indicated he didn’t want to be disturbed. Dan looked past Brian and, realising the dream was about to end in seconds, lunged forward and grabbed the file. Brian kept hold of it and they entered into a tug of war.
‘Give me the file, Brian.’
Dan’s eyes flicked back and forth between the crusher and his brother. Brian shook
his head. Five seconds to go, but Dan only needed to glance at the contents to get what he wanted.
‘Give me the file. NOW!’
Less than two seconds, but Brian was still holding firm.
‘I SAID, GIVE IT TO ME!’
Adams looked at Dan. ‘I’m afraid I can’t.’
Dan was holding one end of a notepad. The hand at the other end belonged to his doctor. Dan glanced at the empty bed opposite. Satisfied he was now awake, he let go.
‘Do you know who I am?’
The usual questions were then reeled off and much to Dan’s relief, he managed to answer them all – including the one about the World Cup. He guessed Tracy would have informed the doctor about the aircraft crash being a figment of his imagination, so stuck to his guns and repeated the same. The doctor just seemed to accept it. But then he would react in the same way if told fairies lived at the bottom of Dan’s garden. For all Dan knew, he may even have said that.
Dan became sheepish. ‘I’ve answered the question about the World Cup correctly before and then forgotten it, haven’t I?’
The doctor nodded.
Dan cleared his throat. ‘I think I may also have mentioned something about…’ He felt silly saying it, but knew if he didn’t, it would only bug him. ‘Fairies? Fairies, er, living at the bottom of my garden?’
Adams stopped writing. ‘You were just making a point. It was clear you didn’t actually believe that.’
Dan breathed a sigh of relief.
‘The good news is you’re starting to recognise the vulnerability of your short-term memory as well as the long-term. The bad news is they will both get worse unless you restart your medication.’
Adams pointed at what was on the bedside table. Dan sneered at it.
‘Tell you what, Doc, I’ll take your pill if you tell me what caused this.’
He tapped his face with a finger. The doctor replied with a question.
‘Why did you decide to stand naked in the corridor yesterday?’
With a mixture of exasperation and embarrassment, Dan explained the method behind the apparent madness and waited for Doctor Adams to give his usual reply. He managed to synchronise it with him.
