“The walls have ears”, “Your home shares your fondest memories” are just a couple of rather meaningless things my grandmother used to tell me when I was a little girl. However those words were the first thing that came back to me as I was fighting amnesia. Nobody had a clue why, and quite frankly, everybody was so happy that I was starting to get my memory back that nobody seemed to care about anything else.
I didn’t care either, not at first anyway.
My amnesia was caused by a car accident. I was lucky to survive even though I suffered from temporary amnesia for quite some time. My family had a pretty bad time, but things started to get better. Unlike the first few weeks, when I couldn’t recognize anybody, kept crying myself to sleep and just felt overwhelmed by all the people coming to see me and talking to me about who I was and what happened to me. I’ve went through a long period of denial but as stubborn as I was, the bits and pieces started to come back and I started to remember. I still don’t remember all the minor things I used to do or like, but overall I’m pretty much myself again.
That’s a good thing, right? Well I don’t really know…
I’ve moved back home from the hospital just a couple of days ago, and I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not, but something is weird. No it’s not the fact that I occasionally forget my brother’s name, or forget where my room is or other amnesia related stuff; I was told that they are normal symptoms that linger on for a few months in cases like mine. However that’s not what’s bothering me.
It’s something else. I think I might be losing it, and I’m scared to death. Maybe is some kind of damage my brain suffered from the accident, or maybe it’s from all the stress; I really don’t know what it is, but it freaks me out.
It all started when I was unpacking my stuff the other day; I found an earring and I spent quite some time turning the bags inside out, looking for the second one. Despite the effort, I failed to find it so I asked my mother if she had seen the other one. She smiled and sat down next to me: “You always put on just an earring, dear. It was like your own unique style of wearing earrings.” she said. She insisted that I’ve spent years wearing only that one ring. Apparently it all started when I was in such a hurry at a birthday party that I forgot to put on both earrings and some boy I knew noticed it and said I looked pretty that way. She said it just stuck with me since that day.
I tried to remember, but I couldn’t. As I was struggling to access my lost memories, she asked if I want her to buy me a new pair, but I preferred to go back to my old habits, or at least try. I thought it would, I don’t know, maybe help me recover my whole memory or something. So I put the earring in the left ear and continued to sort out my things.
When I finally finished, I stood up and looked at our beautiful garden trough the window. I suddenly noticed that my reflection showed a brief shine of light coming from my right ear, as if I had an earring in it reflecting the moonlight. I was getting closer to the window when my mother came in. She scared me, and I momentarily forgot about the reflection. She then noticed my earring and kindly told me that I put it in the wrong ear. I was freaking out, but assuming it was just my brain’s way to remember stuff, I didn’t mention anything about the reflection and tried to act normal; after all she went through a lot and I didn’t want to scare her. I just took the earring off and went to sleep.
Today, after I woke up, I put the earring in my left ear again, and as I was brushing my teeth, the reflection once again showed it in my right ear. It was not just a shiny weak reflection now; it was a crystal clear reflection in the mirror, showing the earring in the right ear. My eyes were wide open, and I was slowly putting the earring into the right ear as the reflection stood still. As I was doing it, I was afraid to even blink.
Now it’s in the right ear, and I’m staring at my reflection’s terrifying grin as it strokes its right ear…
