Day 1

The walk down the hall to the old man’s office was taking longer for her than it had seemed in the past. Perhaps it was because of the anxiety or maybe because she was just so worn down from the presence of competition, something that she saw as beleaguering to the task of helping people. Her footsteps felt like pauses and her heartbeats seemed like the pounding of some huge drum, possibly the very same thing that was trying to confine her, the leathery heads moving just enough to vibrate but holding her in despite their agreement to flex. After an eternity of moments that would have only been seconds had she been watching the clock, she arrived at the stern and experienced doctor’s door. His name was printed in some fancy bold, black lettering that spoke of his importance on the milky white window.

The day was already a depressing one for the newest psychoanalyst working under Dr. Fitzpatrick. She had completed her schooling at Kansas State and had come to New York to find work. What she found was a quality of near perfection in the office where she now worked. Every day was a challenge and with a specialty in amnesia, her work was rarely relied upon when most people just wanted answers to why someone acted the way they did, not to who a person was or where they came from because the person in question did not even know the answer. And the day had just grown intolerably worse when Dr. Jessica Fairchild was called to a private meeting with the wizened Dr. Fitzpatrick.

She knocked. The rapping of her knuckles on the door dissolved her fiendish demeanor; enough, in fact, for the thought that Dr. Fitzpatrick’s voice did not seem too angry to seep in and disrupt her constant pessimism when he had called. He answered the knock, “Come in, Mrs. Fairchild.”

She turned the knob and opened the large wood door with the milky white glass in the top half. The room inside was warm enough with its dark cherry bookshelves and a large cherry desk that were both weighted with books and files. There were two black leather chairs that faced the desk toward the rear of the room and in a high-backed swivel chair sat the good doctor. A small tropical plant of some variety she did not know sat before the large glass window behind the white haired but strong and handsome man.

His eyes slid up from some document on his desk. He took in her navy blue suit and looked into her worried features. Despite biting her lip and the timid look on her face she was still very pretty with her shoulder length dark brown hair and her bright blue eyes. She gave a weak smile as she noticed the elder doctor looking at her and he could tell that she had a full smile that would be warm and welcoming. She was short, only a little over five feet, but she had an athletic build, he thought softball player, and yet she was still somehow able to pull off the dainty, pretty look with a bit of innocence. He huffed at the thought, there were no innocents left.

Doctor Fitzpatrick put out a hand toward a seat indicating that she should fill it, “Please, Mrs. Fairchild, have a seat.” She let the door close behind her and took the seat warily. “I know this is not what you expected, but I believe you should be offered a chance to use your skills. My associates and I have come to the conclusion that you should be allowed to work on a project that you should be able to handle. We know that the competition in this firm is a bit much for someone from a small town and think that this may allow you to get an edge.”

Jessica lit up and the eagerness to begin work on the project made her blue eyes beam. Her jaw dropped and she suddenly felt more awake than she had earlier. “I’d love to work on it,” she spouted.

The man raised an eyebrow and he seemed to speak with concern, “You haven’t even heard the offer yet. Perhaps you should wait until you know what it is that I’m about to ask you to do.”

She leaned up in her seat to take in what he was about to say. “What, what is it then?”

He opened a drawer and then took out a file folder and placed it on his desk in front of her. “This file discusses a strange incident involving a young man, probably in his twenties. The man was in a coma for an undetermined amount of time and they were about to give up on him. They told one of the new nurses, a pretty blonde haired woman to move the young man to a different ward. He suddenly awoke and then brutally attacked the woman. It took five orderlies to pull him off and inject him with two tranquilizers, enough to put down a bull. The first injection only seemed to slow him down. They moved him to a room where he could be restrained. Shortly thereafter, they had him taken to the Arthur Ulbrik Hospital for the Mentally Ill. There, he is being held in protective custody and being watched by several analysts and doctors.” He pointed to the file. “All the details are in there. The reason they want to get you in there is because he’s one of those quiet types. They thought that someone with a less business-like demeanor might get somewhere. Of course, if you were to ask me, I’d say that there are other qualities that they might also think would be helpful. A young man is more likely to open up to a woman. And you may need to keep that in mind as a possible approach.”

“What about the attack, do you really think it will be safe for me to talk to him?”

“Truthfully, that is the only case of him attacking anyone. He simply does not like talking. He is always helping people when he is allowed to interact with them. I don’t think you’ll have any real problems with him. Besides, you’ll be under surveillance of armed guards.” He tapped the file with a thick finger, “If you want to take this opportunity, you can drive up tomorrow morning to the Ulbrik Hospital. It’s just south of Albany.”

She reached out to the manila folder. She slipped her fingers around the edge and paused. Fitzpatrick raised an eyebrow. “I’ll do it.” She looked him in the eye, her bright blue peering into his dark green. “Thank you.”

She stood and began to walk away. “Mrs. Fairchild, be careful, sometimes they get to you before you get to them, especially the ones that seem sane.”

She turned to look at him. His face was almost too somber. His calm was offsetting. She backed away before turning back to the door. That gaze would stay with her for hours as she studied the file. The case seemed simple enough, but there was something that did not seem quite right about the attack. Then, there was the fact that the subject’s amnesia was almost perfect; no recollection of name, home, friends, anything. When she thought on it, she saw Dr. Fitzpatrick’s eyes looking at her through the haze of concentration.

She kept looking for somewhere to start the questioning that she knew would be necessary to unlock his memories, but there was nothing to start with. He had been found in an alley with only the capacity to breathe. He was rushed to a hospital and never woke up. They kept him because he did not need life support to keep breathing. They decided to move him and then he suddenly awoke and then brutally attacked the nurse. Afterward, he seemed to be a perfectly ordinary individual apart from the fact that he had absolutely no memory of anything prior to the coma.

She could not find even the smallest bit of information in the file to lead her to a beginning. He had shown no real interest in anything. He rarely spoke and even in the cases where he would help other patients, he would only make gestures and speak when it made conveying a point easier. She finally tossed down the file and looked at her wristwatch. It was already four-thirty.

She bit her lip and then started packing everything back into the folder as close to the way she had pulled it out as she could. She then packed up her laptop and looked around the desk she worked at to check for anything else before grabbing her keys. She then took a deep breath, grabbed up her keys and started on her way out. Even as she left, her mind was consumed with where to begin with this subject. She did not even have a name to start with.

She left the office and then decided to take the stairs to get to the ground floor, hoping it would help her think. The only thing it helped to do was tire her before the three block walk to her apartment complex. By the time she made it to her small apartment she did not want to think about the strange man that had no past anymore. The man was already too troublesome and she would have to see his face in the morning after almost two hours on the road.

Four hours of painfully obvious TV shows and two boxes of order-in Chinese food later she decided to get some sleep before the upcoming day. She stopped on her way to her bedroom to look at the file left on a small round table. The file was her only hope of proving her worth in the office and yet it offered no help other than the fact that if she could solve the puzzle of the young man’s mind, she would be accepted. She tapped the file and let her mind wander on the possibilities. Then she went to her bedroom.

After dressing in a loose fitting nightgown, she crawled into her bed and looked to her nightstand. She set her alarm clock and then took a moment to consider reading the book she had bought. She shook her head and then pulled the chain to her lamp. It was only a few moments before she drifted off into a deep and relaxing sleep.

Next Chapter: Day 2