Shaun tried, but his memory was just a puddle of mud.
‘No, nothing,’ he replied, his eyes filling up with tears. ‘Please tell me, what happened to me? How come I’m here? How come I can’t move? How come I can barely remember anything?’
The man stepped back from the operating table, disappearing from Shaun’s line of sight for a quick moment.
‘That’s totally fine, Mr. Daniels. No need to worry. To be completely honest, memories can’t exactly be trusted, did you know that? Especially the ones that are formed directly following a traumatic event. They warp, they shatter, and then, as we try to recollect, memories are put back together in ways that look nothing like the original. And that’s when the problems really start. People put so much faith in what they supposedly remember, thinking of it as a verbatim record of what happened. But that’s rarely the case. Where there are gaps in our memories, the brain takes a best guess, filling those gaps with whatever it thinks fits. Important details that can’t be remembered get substituted by imagination. Can you see how problematic that can get?’
Shaun didn’t know that.
‘Too many people take memories as fact,’ the man continued. ‘But they simply don’t work like that. They are more a perception of what happened than actual reality.’
‘So…’ Shaun hesitated, tears gathering at his lower eyelids. ‘Are you telling me that I might never remember what happened to me?’
‘No, not at all. That much I can tell you. You went drinking at your local bar, Mr. Daniels, and while doing so, you ran into some trouble.’
Once again, Shaun heard what sounded like metal clunking against metal. Not a heavy sound – more like instruments being placed on a metal tray.
‘Trouble?’ Shaun queried, his tone hesitant and worried in equal measure. ‘What do you mean? What sort of trouble?’ A tear ran down the side of his face.
The man stepped back into Shaun’s line of sight. This time, he brought an instruments cart with him.
‘You were chatting to someone at the bar, Mr. Daniels,’ he replied. ‘And that someone was trouble.’
‘What?’ Shaun asked, yet again squinting at the harsh light, trying hard to remember.
Had he been in a fight? Had he been stabbed… or shot? Did this someone who he was chatting to at the bar somehow damage his spine? Was this why he couldn’t move? Was that what the doctor was trying to tell him.
Among all those questions, a new thought rushed to the top of the pile, bothering Shaun. He tried to focus on the man’s face.
‘I don’t understand. How do you know that the person who I was talking to at the bar was trouble?’
The man chuckled, holding the suspense for a couple of extra seconds. ‘Because that man was me.’
Shaun frowned at him. ‘What?’
The man reached for something on the instruments tray to his right. ‘I have a question for you…Shaun.’
The change in how the man addressed Shaun had clearly been deliberate. From the instruments tray, he retrieved a small hammer and something that looked like a chisel with a thick, round end, instead of a pointy one.
‘For breaking bones,’ the man asked, ‘do you think this sort of chisel will do, or should I go for something a little heavier… perhaps sharper?’
‘What?’ Shaun’s eyes moved to the hammer and chisel for a second before refocusing on the man’s face.
‘I don’t want to break skin,’ the man explained. ‘I want to fracture the bone, but I don’t want to make any cuts to the skin orflesh.’ He shrugged. ‘Hematomas and bruises are fine, obviously. It’s hard to break bones without any bruising, right?’
Shaun’s heart stuttered. ‘I… I don’t understand.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ the man said, placing both the hammer and the chisel back on the instruments tray. ‘Please allow me to clarify. Back at the bar, last night, I spiked your drink.’
This time, Shaun simply squinted at him, trying to figure out if he was joking or not.
‘It was about a quarter past eleven,’ the man continued. ‘That was when you told me that you had to go. I offered to buy us one more round – for the road, you know? I knew that you wouldn’t say no to another whiskey, so, while you went for a piss, I drugged your drink.’
‘Is… this a joke?’
The man broadly gestured to the room they were in. ‘Clearly not.’
Shaun blinked and a new tear ran down the side of his face.
