Who Am I

Who Am I?

The Blogging Lounge  -  #1
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He stared at his reflection in the mirror.  It had been two years since the accident or beating or whatever had happened to him that he ended up in the hospital.  No recollection.  No idea of his original identity.  No notion of family. That scruffy  face  staring back is just as blank as his memory.

The shrink he had been assigned to encouraged him to go back to the site where he was found.  Hundreds of trips to that bend in the road and it’s still just a bend in the road that trails down a steep ravine. Hence the question of his injuries.

There really were no visible injuries other than that nasty gouge on the back of his head.  His rescuers were adamant that it was there before they dragged him up the hill.  He still teasingly accused them of bouncing his head off every rock they could, on the way up.

The shrink won’t hypnotize him.  Says it’s better for him to either go on with life as it is or recall as the healing progresses.  She says it’s too dangerous at this time, his mind could make up a past and then never know the truth. 

People would randomly ask him about his youth, these have simply been feeble attempts to jog his memory.  Initially, those questions were quite disconcerting.  Lately he’d become accustomed to their queries and no longer deemed it as hurtful prying, instead just the innocent notions of helpfulness.

When he first awakened, in the hospital, a nurse on her rounds stopped to check on him.  Her first question was, “What is your name?”  He hadn’t been able to forget the initial shock at not being able to recall his own name.  It was a physical jolt to him.

When he begins to hound the shrink about “Alternative Medicines”, she gives him her best “I don’t think so” look and ignores the rest of his diatribe.  They’ve been down that path of discussion more than once. 

“Who AM I?”, he demands often of the shrink.  To which she replies, “We are each the sum of all of our experiences, including; all physical or mental, conscious or subconscious, real or imagined.  We are the sum of our hopes, fears and dreams.  We are the sum of ever essence or spirit we have come into contact with.  We are the end result of our ability to categorically rationalize.  Today, you are you.”

leigh