Work Text:
“It’s good to finally see you awake, Ms Rowan. I’m sorry to say that due to a complication, all personal memories were deleted.”
Rai stared at the doctor hovering respectfully beside her. She searched for the meaning of the word ‘personal’ and then carefully tried the definition out with her mouth: “Personal, adjective - Of or concerning one's private life, relationships, and emotions rather than one's career or public life.”
“I’m quite sorry, Ma’am, but we weren’t able to salvage even the smallest parts. In and of itself, this is a very rare side effect of the surgery you undertook and I have never heard of a case where the deletion was so complete. There’s usually a few years missing, never the entire life.”
Rai did not remember ever having done something that would fit the definition of personal. If the doctor was talking about a deletion, however, there must be something she didn’t remember.
‘The entire life’, Rai wondered, ‘how much storage space must have been freed for my work through this process.’
“In cases such as this, the medical society recommends ongoing therapy without work for at least a year to counteract the shift in priorities that can come from forgetting one’s private life.”
The doctor looked at her silently, seemingly studying her reaction, but Rai was determined not to let anything show. Emotions were unprofessional. You should not let them show. Rai caught herself.
‘Unprofessional’, adjective - not appropriate for the workplace.
Most behaviour not appropriate for one specific place was appropriate elsewhere. But what good could emotions be? How should they improve the efficiency or quality of work?
“Ms Rowan, I asked your family members to stay outside while I explain this to you.” The doctor paused. “Would you like me to let them inside?”
Rai really didn’t want that. But the expected answer seemed to be: “Yes.”
The doctor studied her, almost sceptically, as if sensing that Rai did not actually want to see people she didn’t recognize. But he seemed to accept the answer he had been given and stepped out of the door: “You may go in now. Only one at a time and I will be present the entire time. Should I tell you to do something, I need you to do it.”
There was a soft, high voice that tugged at something Rai did not quite understand: “Of course, Doctor Rynald.”
The person who stepped through the door was wearing a stained sweatshirt, had red, sleep-deprived eyes - how unprofessional - and stared at Rai for quite a while before seemingly regaining the ability to move. She stepped closer and held out a hand: “Hello, Rai. I’m Lucy.”
The hand stretched out towards her wore a thin golden ring and no other jewellery. The ring tugged at something, just like the voice had. “It’s nice to meet you”, Rai replied, shaking the hand and letting her automatisms take over.
Lucy did not seem good at hiding her emotions. The flash of pain in her face was quite apparent. A storm of emotions thundered through Rai’s chest and she averted her gaze, staring out of the window instead of in Lucy’s face.
Despite not looking at it, the face was still at the forefront of Rai’s mind. She remembered it now. She remembered a younger version of Lucy in the doorway to the university room where she’d been tutoring. She remembered intelligent questions. She remembered her hand accidentally brushing against Lucy’s arm as she leaned forward. She tried to focus on it, tried to find the memory. But what came after had vanished completely from her mind.
So she searched for other memories. She found them. Plenty of them. Studying for exams - peppered with holes that almost always followed a look that was exchanged with a smile. Working at the institute. Discussing strategies in large red comfy chairs ( Comfy, where had that come from? ). Lucy popped up everywhere. It seemed like Rai’s entire life was interwoven with memories of Lucy.
There seemed to be others like her. Well, not completely like her because none of them produced the longing sensation that Lucy did. But others that were interwoven with her life. Because they popped up everywhere and yet Rai couldn’t place them in her life. In that way they stood in contrast to the people Rai definitely could place:
Robert Potter, the IT chef. Losianna, the cheerful secretary. Those were the people with clearly defined roles.
And then there was the boy, who she’d explained maths to when he was maybe ten, and who’d popped up at her graduation. Who’d sat next to her at a dining table so many times, both of them working with their laptops or books.
There were the two that were much older than her. The man who had explained political systems to her. The woman who had taught her how to do her taxes. They had been at every important event in her life, standing calmly on the sidelines.
There were several people who were her age, who had sat through classes with her and studied with her. Their words often marked the ending of a memory. The act of pulling something forth from a backpack ended the fragment of her life she was allowed to look at.
Rai didn’t realise how caught up she had been in her memories until she looked up and Lucy was no longer in the room. It was only Doctor Rynald and her, now. He looked at Rai. He seemed to be waiting without any hurry. As she looked back, he seemed to decide she was back in the present once more because he stood up, brushed imaginary dust from his scrubs and stepped toward her:
“I know this must be very confusing for you. I’ll leave you to think on all of this for the night. If you need anything, there’s a call button at the side of your bed.” Rai looked where he was pointing and nodded. “Do you have any questions?”
Rai shook her head, feeling much too dizzied by all of the questions in her head to ask any of them now.
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning with a colleague, who specializes in this type of memory loss. We’ll discuss further treatment and actions with her then, okay?”
Rai nodded. She felt too tired to do anything but. There were too many emotions. Useless, stupid emotions. She just wanted to be left alone, to sleep. She wanted all her memories. Or maybe she just wanted to stop seeing the ruins of the ones she had lost. She didn’t want the edges where the memories had been torn apart. She wanted to stop cutting herself on all of those stupid edges.