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There must be something in your eye, you think. Yes, that's it. Probably blood, bone, brain matter. Maybe it's stupidity, solidified into granules that irritate the mucus membrane of your tear ducts.
It may well be. You don't remember where the tears come from, if you ever knew. Just another origin lost in a life of solitude- or you presume. You wouldn't remember any of those who existed if they did exist. You don't remember...
You take another shot. Pack up your gun, swing it over your shoulder, make for the stairs. Another job done. Professional. The one thing you can pride yourself on anymore. If you were ever unprofessional, you don't remember it. You don't want to.
Sometimes you wonder what your name used to be. Did you have a name? Was it different than this one? But what sort of a question is that. Tony Masters is a fabrication, an expensive knock off, just like everything you do and know. You hurt- huff and go back to yelling at your students. It's time to up their stupidity pills.
You don't let yourself think often. No, that's not right. You think all the time- just not about this. Keep it professional, you tell yourself. You work so hard all day that you don't have the time or energy to ponder your life at the end of the day. You like it that way.You claim it's for the money. Did you ever believe that?
You work alone. You don't take risks. You take money. You took a vacation, once. You took a job instead of going. You like it that way.
Sometimes someone says something. Flirting. Usually your response is a swift kick to their temple. A glare. A shot. Today, you figured, what the hell? and responded. You have a date. You don't know what went wrong.
You wonder, as she slowly strips for you, if this non-feeling is new. You're sure that you had this all figured out at some point, you're confident enough in your intelligence to know that, but you don't remember. What a surprise. You watch yourself, as she beckons you to the bed, for a response. All you can rustle up is the thought that she looks ridiculous. Slightly constipated. Instead of following, you leave the room. You could use a beer.
Her cat stares at you as you gulp down the alcohol. You glare back against the backdrop sounds of her dressing. There's a bit of yelling, a bit of glaring, and you leave. You take the rest of the six pack as you go.
You take more jobs. You don't come back to headquarters for a while. When you do she glares at you from a doorway. You insult her cat. You're back where you started.
You write the word, the revelation, down, keep it on a sticky note inside your mask until the paper against your cheek drives you insane. Plus, if anyone ever found it, you would never live it down. You resign yourself to repeating the episode somewhere down the road.
Somehow you end up stuck with the cat again. You only nearly throw it out the window. You buy yourself a broadsword in congratulations.
There's a new team you fight, and the pay is good, and your memory's wrecked. You're alive. You take out your license first chance you get to find your address. When you stumble in the door, your face in the mirror isn't recognizable. You throw your shield at it and immerse yourself in the written records you keep. You still don't trust yourself, or the words on the page.
When you don't show up at work someone comes to find you. You go and nearly remember their names. You ignore them and ask about the money.
There's a cat in your apartment that hides under the table when you come in, smoking from bullet holes. You feed it tuna. It's nice to have a friend.
When the cat laps at the blood leaking from your shoulder, you lock it in the bathroom. It meows accusingly as you stitch your shoulder back together. You think it must be the first time you've considered pet homicide and not followed through.
She comes to pick up the cat the next day. You do not feel tears itching at your eyelids when she does.
Your apartment is blown up. You lose all your records and charge AIM for the damages. You spend the money on a ring-shaped ultra-secure memory chip that you keep on your person at all times. It fits into a groove on your ring finger that you didn't remember was there.
You don't remember your furniture tastes, but you know better than to trust your (coworkers? friends?) with the decorating, so you hire someone. You claim you're too busy, it's delegation. You catch a hint of pity in her eyes.
You don't remember where September went. You wonder if that's a problem. You decide it wouldn't do to worry about it.
You wonder if your fighting reflexes will ever go. You're not dead yet, and that's the only proof you have.
You wonder if partial chronic retrograde amnesia counts as a disability. You figure, even if the government is too bitchy to give you compensation, at the very least you should be able to park in a handicap spot once in a while.
You google it, and the results prompt you to decide that you are cursed to never remember where you put your car. You get it fitted with a gps tracking device and fit your phone with the corresponding app.
After your car gets riddled with bullet holes for the second time in four weeks, you spend a little extra and get it fully armored. The next day after you take it home, it's already got dents from a spray of bullets, and somehow a katana ended up buried in the driver's seat. You sigh and nearly crawl back into bed.
The second time, you really do crawl back into bed.
You wonder idly if your backstory would make for a good song. You pull out the whiskey when you realize that all there would be is silence.
You know that there are people who remember you and you don't remember a thing about them. You know there are people you can't even think about that will remember you when you die. Your stomach flutters, but you decide that's the Jack. You down another shot.
Does amnesia count as denial? Or is denial a consequence of the amnesia? You ask yourself this as you stare at the slick road, hands clenched on the steering wheel as you speed away from yet another busted school. You remember another school just half a state away, but it could easily have been compromised and you simply forgot. You growl, then sigh, and figure that if the world hated you that much you would be dead already. Maybe.
You don't remember how old you are, or how long you've been doing this. You suppose this doesn't matter, that not much else matters but for your reputation and bank account. That's what you keep telling yourself. And if the years count on and you don't remember and you get a little closer to death with each one, well. You can truthfully say you never saw it coming.
Sometimes, you remember something. It's not usually anything specific, always vague. Sometimes bad, sometimes good. It's the scent of mint cigarettes in the wind with the memory of smiles, drinks, and the kind of wealth and exhilaration that comes from a good game of poker. It's the taste of vanilla pound cake that brings to mind a dirty house and a mother figure, a flowered apron and smile. The tang of metal in the air and the image of metal-walled halls.
Medical records, you decide as you hear that you were supposed to be on medication for the past five months, are a bitch. Not even your kind of bitch, the kick ass and take names kind, but the one that comes up to bite you in the balls on what was already a crap day to begin with. You sigh and are put on what they call remedial medication. You are quite happy to scuff their new dark tile floors with your white boots as you walk out.
You find that your medicine cabinet is overflowing. You check all the dates and throw half of it away. The other half you stare at, trying to remember.
Nothing comes to mind.
Sitting alone, in the cold, pouring rain, your fingers long past numb on the trigger of your rifle, you can't help a small smile beneath your mask. If only the younger you could see you now.
You know, by now, that memory is a thing you must deal with. Your brain will always feel like Swiss cheese. You'll never be whole again, or have a past that you can remember like any other person. You'll be able to remember what you had for breakfast the first day of first grade but not your mother's face. You know this, and you can't change it. Even if you could, you think, you wouldn't. Your memory is all you have now. You have an empire built off of it. So this is how you live. This is how you go on. You cope, if not thrive, and you are alive. That will have to do.