Rugadh Seabhac

Life 2.0

I see the white van pull in the drive from the main road much earlier than I expected, they must have left around five in the morning and gotten clear traffic, the vehicle stops and Rory jump out of the driving side and rush to give me a hug, which is very nice, I never realized I have missed human contact until then. Olovskaia formerly introduced Mr Nesøn who is a tall, mid twenties dark grey blond young man with a thick bushy beard, high cheek bones and almond shaped eyes, the perfect mixture of west europeans and slavs. I show them their rooms, Rory's reaction is plain to read, 'wow I get a room to myself'. Mr Nesøn insists we called him Ed and he wonders if there is a place where he can check some welding points and store his tool box, I show him the shed at the end of the garage and he settles at it immediately. Olovskaia wants to begin the physical as soon as possible and hopes to take a blood sample before I'd get food, so I send Rory to Easkey's to hit the stores: they need whatever they have for breakfasts and we need something for lunch, I told him to go ask Ed what he wants and I take Olovskaia to the upstairs ensuite.

"Not a mansion in the end, but it is a very nice datcha."

I know right, I kinda feel good here."

"No other episode? Dreams?"

"No, nothing here. I felt disconnected when I was driving on the way in but it passed. I sleep much better here."

"Still five thirty?"

"Not always. Do you have relatable informations on the readings you did with the EEG?"

"It did not pan out as I expected, however as I expected we need more readings for a comparative on the longer term. It is easy to read too much in a single imbalance or a deficiency. There are a lot of values that are perfectly normal for a newborn baby, but you are a forty something adult male, granted it could be said that you were born mere months ago and that could influence the EEG and the blood tests that is why I am doing one today."

"So nothing new under the sun."

"Nothing conclusive no."

"What do you think of the scientists, have you met all those who arrived in Dublin?"

"I have met the two Norwegians and the Swedish woman. They are scientists: focused and driven but they are also under a lot of pressure which I wasn't expecting from a self funded operation," He looks up and explains, "Mrs Flynn told me, the particulars of our customers. If it doesn't pan out they'll have no one other to report to than themselves, so there should be no pressure. People are mysterious I guess."

"Still not a brain doctor then."

"I have done my reading on amnesiac conditions, and you would be surprised at how few treatises there are about amnesia when it hasn't been provoked by blunt force trauma. It seem either your case is fashionably rare or has never yielded any conclusive treatment results for observation to be worth publishing." He flicks a switch and the screens become animated, "There was the case of a Canadian guy found naked, his body completely shaved, he was in a coma and when he woke up he had no memory of who or what he was, though in that case simulation is strongly suspected, an American was found behind a burger bar naked and sunburnt, could drive a van but knew nothing else of himself, only remembered a first name which turned out not to be his. A Birmingham man woke up on a bench with no memories at all but the wrong name again, he knew enough to go to the police station who released his mug shot and his family got him back, In Peterborough Park a Lithuanian young man was found with severe amnesia, a strong eastern accent and that was it, he was recognized by his brother later, a Kent man in a soaking wet suit and tie was found wandering, frightened and mindless, never spoke a word and would only produce detail drawing of steinway type grand pianos, he turned out to be German and was sent back to his father, a few of them had been in violent situations , car crashes, mugging, most of the others were very old, with bouts of senility, the younger ones had done drugs or had preexisting mental conditions, you my friend have what is called psychogenic amnesia or disorder, with nonorganic causes for the memory gap it means that there is nothing wrong with you and no one can tell if you are faking it or not, in most cases people are found within half a year by people who know you or have knowledge of you, but in your case your passport knew who you were, so that wasn't a question, so no searches were made, therefore no one came forward with knowledge of your previous self. Now, psychogenic because it is nonorganic often results from psychological surrounding circumstances, stress, trauma that kind of thing. I don't think one can cause oneself to forget his previous life in the case of just wanting to. So, if we assume that you are not faking it, then you are suffering from it and that's where the medic comes in, I monitored you as soon as you fell down on the twenty-third of September, your heart rate was incredibly elevated, if they had told me you'd just done cardio I'd have believed them, but it was also irregular as if you'd been scared shitless, from what you recounted I imagine it was the second option. What you saw, imagined, remembered was traumatic whatever the origin. In the case of a normal mind I would have suggested rest, stay away from violent war movies but the thing here is there also was a muscular response, the muscles in you arms and legs were working overtime trying to do something, you told me later you were trying to pull someone from a death pit, it checks out. Only if you'd imagined it there would not have been muscle response, if you'd seen it in a movie, there would not have been muscle response and the rate would have been much lower unless it had been a particularly good film. So, I do not have firm grounds under my feet to believe you but I chose to do so."