Chapter Text
Living in South Park comes with very few benefits, if you ask anybody.
You can also ask local real estate agents, and they would gladly advertise every single one of them as a once in a lifetime opportunity that you absolutely cannot miss out on. There is a reason why there is only one small South Park real estate agency left, and, naturally, all of its workers are extremely passionate about their job. As long as there still is property to rent, a bullet list with key advertising points is still hanging in the office that every single one of them has learned by heart by now.
They would tell you that in South Park you eventually stop getting surprised and start getting enthusiastic. In the first few weeks you may, of course, still wake up to an absolute horror every morning that may or may not bring yet another disruption to your carefully built daily routine. Then you learn to embrace the fact that South Park is your actual daily routine, and there is no other way to participate in the town's weekly hysteria than with pure devotion or bold rejection. And while the latter would probably mean something like “relocate” in some other boring place, here it belongs to a category adjacent to “organize a revolution”.
“It increases your flexibility!” the agents would say. "You won't even need to stretch in the morning!"
No one thinks seriously about relocating from South Park because no one even considers that a permanent possibility. Some people did attempt, but always came back, as if once you are settled here, you sort of become one with the town. It just grows on you and eventually you can’t simply take it away from your heart. Missing out on its events is like missing out on life, and sometimes it doesn’t even have to be something spectacular.
Take this, for example.
One Saturday morning, somewhere at the playground, a ball hits the brick wall, bounces back against a boy's head, and then the boy's body hits the ground, motionless.
At any other place, that would be just another emergency, of course. A local case of a local family and local network of relatives and friends and doctors.
In South Park, that is a spark that lands on dry brushwood and old grass. A domino piece that falls on the row of other dominoes. You take it from there.
It's not just any other boy, either, which is the sole reason why this story happens in the first place. Many would agree, though not admit out loud, that the boy's existence contributes a fair amount to the town’s infamous reputation.
“He once was a real estate agent, too, you know! One of us!" There is pride in these words, although they come out a little shaky. “Only local legends work among us!”
Truly, a remarkable advertisement.
The ball actually hit the wall a few days ago, and the boy woke up a few hours later, with words coming from his mouth that soon would happen to be a little more life-changing for a certain group of three compared with their usual experiences, and particularly cathartic for a certain one of them.
And soon, a rumor is born.
A whisper, even, still weak and quiet, passed from lips to ears, face to face, in shops and cafes, parks and parking lots, hesitant and uncertain, but which soon would evolve into an uncontrollable, overwhelming force that would eventually consume the whole town, its residents being blissfully unaware of such prospects at this moment.
A whisper, full of hope and pleasant shock and a bit of fear—well, it is a huge deal, so who knows what to expect now? And so it spreads, accordingly, unsatisfied until everyone knows, as it usually happens there.
“Have you heard that Liane Cartman’s son got a concussion and lost all his memory?!”
And that’s how the spark lands.
***
It’s moments like this that make Kyle question how he manages to keep his sanity intact, because there is no way the number of incidents they encounter on their joyful way to adulthood is considered normal anywhere else by the standards of individuals that haven’t even finished high school.
He is quite confident that there aren’t any real standards in South Park, because talking about sanity here is like telling an unfunny joke, and he’s pretty sure Jimmy wouldn’t do it even for a dare.
It’s unfair, he thinks, that they are still technically children, rightfully terrified at any prospect of consequence and responsibility, and yet they still find themselves in the middle of a shit storm every single time, instead of… you know… the usual high school stuff, like classes and dating and sneaking alcohol. Not that it never happens—quite the contrary—he’d just prefer that to be the only set of circumstances to find himself within. Craig Tucker was right all along: nice and boring is the best way, and they probably all owe him a lifetime of laundry work for not taking his words seriously.
Maybe they just finally started to get tired of dealing with obscure shit all the time. Who knows.
This time, however, shit is quite different and much more personal in its scale, making it a thousand times more difficult than usual.
Because how do you deal with a situation when a guy you’ve known since your early preschool days, who managed to become a pain in the ass of every single resident in your town and your own personal menace, looks at you with blissful ignorance in his empty gaze and says this:
“Hello, I’m Eric. Could you introduce yourself, please?”
The most terrifying part of all of this, Kyle thinks, is how fucking polite he sounds.
The boys have heard about the diagnosis only through Cartman’s mother’s words, confidential information and all that, and it sounded a bit confusing. Something about retrograde amnesia, but on a bigger scale, wiping almost the entire bulk of childhood memories too, stripping away every single bit of his personality except core memories of his name and age, his closest family ties and, for some bizarre reason, his toy frog’s existence.
Congratulations to Clyde Frog for winning first place in the unannounced ranking of priorities that none of his friends factored in to. Don’t tell Polly Prissypants.
A couple of weeks have passed since the accident, and it’s four of them at the hospital right now, Butters included, who have been asked to visit as the closest people to him apart from his mom, but Kyle is sure that they are just the first people that Ms. Cartman could recall due to the excessive amount of time they spent at Cartmans’ house. They are being let into Cartman’s hospital room, one by one, in an attempt to casually strike up a conversation in the doctor's presence and evaluate possible remaining pieces of memory from it.
Stan is the quickest to leave, shooting Kyle a glance that sends a few shivers down his spine, and he still doesn’t understand why his best friend is so riled up about the whole situation suddenly, when he probably has the least personal attachment to the kid out of them.
Butters stays the longest, which is understandable—it's Butters. He still calls Cartman “Eric” affectionately and that alone speaks volumes.
Kenny is... quite emotional when he closes the door. Still sentimental about this whole “broship” thing, apparently. It’s always surprising to see just how much their group bonding actually means to him. Then again, it’s enough to recall the state of the McCormicks’ household to catch a glimpse of understanding.
Kyle begged to go last, postponing the inevitable for as long as possible, even questioning the necessity of his presence. But he knew, of course he knew, that he was probably counted on the most out of everyone, due to their unfortunate history of interactions. Adults liked to count on him in general, for some reason.
Life must have a really perverse sense of humor, he concludes. First it gives him nightmares, and the next moment the person responsible for them is completely free of charges by the virtue of his literal inability to recount any of his misdeeds whatsoever. A sick, cruel joke, and at any other time it would have been pretty easy to believe that this might as well be Eric Cartman's Yet Another Grand Master Plan to piss off everyone and Kyle in particular.
Those empty eyes are probably the most obvious argument that throws the whole theory in the garbage bin, because even somebody like him wouldn't end up like that on purpose.
Those eyes, and the ball.
Not like you are even capable of calculating the trajectory of the ball on purpose in order to deliberately fly off the track of your own life. They all testified emotionally: first the ball hit the wall, then the ball hit his head, then his head hit the ground. These words still echo in Kyle’s ears, because he repeated them again and again to everyone around him, until it started to sound almost robotic. It’s not like he wasn’t used to seeing a motionless Cartman. Everything just escalated dramatically when he stopped being motionless and started becoming confused, and then everyone else became confused, because his words certainly didn’t match his personality, and that’s when everyone also learned that he, in fact, forgot his personality. And many other things, too.
Somehow, that Cartman was scarier than usual.
And so Kyle is sitting right now, next to the hospital's bed, hands in his lap, a bit sweaty, trying to avert his gaze and look anywhere but Cartman’s face. He’s hesitating with his words that refuse to come from his mouth in anything remotely elaborate, and the doctor isn’t much help either, because the doctor is blissfully asleep, dreaming about a much less draining career, probably, away from this shithole. Kyle is pretty sure he fell asleep a while ago, because he notices a particularly nasty glob of drool on the folder in his hands.
What an excuse for a health care system. Then again, what can you expect from a hospital literally called “Hell’s Pass” that is also known to give its patients deadly diseases by accident and baked potatoes instead of heart implants. As far as he knew, it was also responsible for him thinking he had diabetes for several years before Kyle's parents received a notice that his medical test results had accidentally been mixed up with Scott Malkinson's.
He wonders how hospitals function in normal places.
“Uhm…” Cartman sounds nervous and confused, meaning he doesn’t sound like Cartman at all, meaning Kyle still doesn’t know what to answer—or how to answer. As of now, Cartman is the only one out of them who takes pitiful attempts at the conversation.
“I assume you’re from the same group of friends that I'm a part of?"
He assumes. Jesus Christ.
Kyle feels like he’s about to collapse right now in this white plastic chair. A tempting prospect, when everything about this situation is surrealistic and unbearable and it’s practically impossible to keep his face from twitching and twisting into something incomprehensible.
If this actually was another of the fatass’ stupid schemes—to lure him, gain his trust and then smash it into pieces as usual—that would have been ten times easier to deal with. At least he has a ton of experience, a mental database of Cartman’s behavior patterns to base his predictions on, and tough skin after years of dealing with him.
He is met with the reality of actual results of medical tests and neurological exams and with the same pure emptiness in the eyes that creeps him the fuck out the more he pays attention to his face. So he prefers not to, finding the yellow and green pattern on his scarf of particular interest instead. He's always been told about his questionable fashion sense, but he likes the colors.
It's bizarre how different he’s feeling in comparison with the overwhelming euphoria of a few days ago, when it was finally confirmed that Cartman forgot not just something, but almost everything.
Because right now, more than anything else, he wants to scream.
“...Does it mean he’s no longer an asshole? That I’ll finally be able to breathe in peace?!”
“Dude, I understand how you feel, but don’t you think... it’s too much…”
“No, you do not understand, Stan, and never will! Maybe I'm just happy that karma finally hit him like a truck!”
“Well, more like a basketball.”
“Not the point. Why can't you guys just be sympathetic for once? You've all witnessed his shit, come on!“
“Kyle, you're the one bubbling with excitement at somebody's head injury, which is quite psychopathic, if you ask me. Do you need to see a therapist?”
“Shut the fuck up, Kenny!...”
Kyle hisses at the sudden memory and closes his eyes in slight embarrassment. Him and overreaction go as a package almost always, he's quite infamous for that, and he suspects that's also the reason behind his inability to develop many other meaningful relationships apart from their childhood gang and a couple of other kids at school. Not many people are fond of overreaction. They prefer chill and relaxed, and Kyle is neither of those things, because people don't get the point when you're chill and relaxed.
They get the point when you shout at them, plain and simple, he has learned that from the experience. He always feels the need to prove the point, somehow, almost pathologically so. That's how you grow up when your dad is a lawyer and your mom attempts to start a war with a neighboring country.
That's just his nature. A Kyle thing.
Kenny once told him that people just give up because they don’t have that much energy in them to counter Kyle Broflovski’s infamous temper, but he just argued that Kenny was being dramatic. “You can't just treat people the same way you treat a computer when it freezes and you frantically click your mouse until it works again!” Kenny finally snapped back then, and Kyle said, completely seriously, that he’s very sorry his family couldn’t afford him a good PC.
Cartman was absolutely hysterical at that. Kyle remembers because sharing a moment of solidarity is always a rare and therefore memorable occasion between them. Now only for one of them, apparently.
Stan and Kenny are still able to handle the Kyle thing, thankfully, despite certain cracks developing in their friend group through the years. He feels a bit guilty about his little rant at them back then, though, and Stan’s recent reaction at the hospital makes sense, to be fair. As much as he hates to admit it, the situation is definitely, as Stan described, “too much.” Which is an understatement, honestly, judging by Kyle’s inability to handle a simple question, like…
“You alright?”
Kyle opens his eyes and snaps back to the reality of the cool lights of the hospital room, remembering he actually has to talk back to Cartman. The doctor lets out a particularly disgusting snore as if to express his disapproval at Kyle’s poor communication skills. Like he even cares.
“Uh, yeah, sorry. It just… feels weird, that’s all.”
As if he’s the one in the need of medical assistance in this room.
Cartman doesn’t seem to mind, though. A Cartman that doesn’t mind is certainly a thing to get used to, Kyle notes to himself.
“Well, my mom and the doctor said you guys were my closest friends, so maybe you could tell me your name at least? I honestly don’t remember anything and it’s quite scary.”
He should start with basic stuff, right?
“Ah. Uh, I’m Kyle. Kyle Broflovski.” Like they are three years old again.
“Cool! And I’m Eric, as I told you. Nice to meet you again, I guess. Bet that sounds weird to you, yeah?”
You have no idea.
“We don’t call you by your first name,” Kyle blurts out bluntly instead. Not that he intends to be rude. He’s simply craving some level of familiarity in their exchange. Mostly to still stay sane after closing the door of this room behind him, a task that is becoming more challenging with each passing minute, and he only spoke two sentences.
“Oh, huh, that’s a little strange, but okay. Guess the previous guys forgot to mention that,” Kyle is a bit puzzled by that information, but Cartman moves his arms around a bit as he talks, and that gets his attention instead, because it’s only now that Kyle notices a small notebook and a pen in the bed.
“What’s that?”
“Sort of a journal, I guess? The doc said there are no pills or medication to help me and I gotta write shit to, like, train my memory and stuff.” He waves the little blue notebook around, and it looks a bit worn out already. “So I just write about whatever is happening around me. Not sure if I’m doing it right though. It’s a bit boring.”
Cartman opens the notebook before Kyle gets to ask him and goes a few pages back. They are full of slightly sloppy scribbles in black ink, Kyle notices, which looks like a lot of effort for something supposedly boring, surprisingly.
“I saw my mom today. She brought cookies,” he reads the note from one of the pages with robotic intonations and sighs. “See?”
Kyle can’t help but snort.
“That’s certainly a memory to hold on to.”
“At least today was kinda fun. Learning about you and about myself from you all. Weird, but fun.”
Somehow, that little exchange manages to light up the atmosphere a little.
Not that Kyle would admit that to anyone, but it’s quite reassuring to hear Cartman speaking in coherent sentences, even making small attempts at humor and asking meaningful questions. A few days ago, his speech was almost at a toddler’s level, and thank god h’s brain was able to deal with that on its own. Kyle isn’t sure how to deal with a seventeen-year-old toddler. He’s only had the opposite experience, with Ike.
Cartman raises his head from the notebook, facing Kyle again. “So, will you tell me something too? I still only know your name.”
Kyle himself would actually prefer talking about his little notebook more. It’s a new piece of information that is enough to distract him from the weirdness of the whole thing. He even wonders what Cartman wrote about the other guys. What the other guys told him. Even how he formulates things, since he’s a whole new person now, apparently.
He gathers all of the remains of his will instead and slowly starts with the most general information at first. His birthday, his family, how close they live to the Cartmans. His adopted little brother. Hobbies and interests. Which classes they share at school. Oh, and that his family is also, uhm, Jewish. Oh? What’s a Jew? Oh that’s totally, completely irrelevant, don’t you worry.
It slowly turns into a steady routine with him talking and Cartman taking notes carefully, and at some point Kyle is finally able to find the will to look at him. It’s impressive how the same face looks completely different under the influence of a new personality. Every feature is moving in an entirely unexplored direction, revealing a sincere, softer expression that once was completely impossible to imagine on him, but which now looks oddly natural. Like it has always been hidden behind some sort of facade.
That’s the scariest part. How natural it looks. Is it even possible to get used to this… everything? Kyle doesn’t know and he isn’t sure if he actually wants to.
At least the conversation is going pretty well while it’s about Kyle. Kyle talks and Cartman responds, slowly, trying to dwell on almost every single fact like it’s the most important one, but it’s going somewhere for him, hopefully.
It’s becoming significantly more difficult when he has to talk about what he knows about Cartman himself and their relationship, though.
The four of them made a sort of promise to each other not to reveal any explicit details about Cartman’s questionable legacy as a human being when they learned that the hospital needed their assistance. Nobody believed it could be kept a secret forever, of course. It was only logical, however, not to immediately bombard the kid with certain facts from his life that could potentially put the whole recovery process at risk, because said kid would certainly experience a series of life crises incompatible with the resources of the small town’s facility.
The boys just had their doubts that Liane Cartman could afford a premium mental hospital. Mainly for herself.
Kyle is dying to know which “Cartman” the guys have been creating for the past few hours. Or ‘Eric’ now, apparently, according to the new revelation that everyone but him is fine with going on a first-name basis just like that. Butters has always called him ‘Eric’ of course, but they weren't Butters, they were their own thing, and lack of discussion with the group beforehand feels pretty scandalous.
To Kyle, at least.
He can handle that too, he thinks. That’s just his fucking name, no big deal, he was able to do that for an act in the past a couple of times.
The bigger deal is that he genuinely doesn’t know what to tell the kid. You can't just casually drop the fact that you've hated each other since your preschool days and that this fact has shaped your entire relationship for the past decade. Kyle deliberately intended to leave out that specific piece of their biography in his own little quest to use this accident as an opportunity to cut the shit for good, but can he really describe whatever it was they had as “friendship” if he wants to give this ‘Eric’ an honest answer?
A distant memory tugs at his mind, and he feels like he finds a decent compromise.
“You’re my sort of friend-ish.”
Not the best choice of words, but he can go from there, somewhere. Even though skipping out on the details makes it sound generic as fuck, the current Cartman doesn’t take note of that, because the current Cartman seems impressed by the mere fact that he has friends. He’s also gradually getting tired, judging by how slow his reactions are becoming and how much less he prefers to write down. There are less questions and more yawning.
It’s almost pathetic how pitiful and vulnerable the boy looks, and that alone feels so wrong, and for a moment Kyle wishes that somebody would break in and claim this whole thing is yet another parallel reality shenanigan and their Cartman switched bodies with yet another version of him, so now it’s time to go on yet another adventure to switch them back. That course of events would feel much more natural and, in fact, preferable, and Kyle isn’t sure what that says about his life.
Living in South Park made him used to accepting absurdity as a driving force behind all events, and while this right here is just too serious, too realistic, there is nothing more absurd than the fact that something like this happened to Eric fucking Cartman, of all people.
Kyle had always wanted him to change and simultaneously tried to persuade everyone that it would never happen.
Eric Cartman managed to change the most radical way possible that ultimately left Kyle feeling that he was played with. By life, by Cartman, by South Park itself because it just couldn't happen any other normal way here.
Kyle wanted what, exactly? Justice, sort of. A resolution, at least. But turns out that you either deal with the whole of Eric Cartman or none of him. It’s exactly as they say: be careful what you wish for. Because then you end up sitting in a crappy, cheap white plastic chair under uncomfortably cool lights with a doctor who is still asleep and snores loudly and doesn't care what he’s putting you through because he doesn’t care about the subtleties of your relationship.
Because, at the end of the day, in this very room, it doesn't make any difference—what was before. Because that doesn't exist anymore. Because the ball hit the wall.
Kyle doesn’t think he can handle the first name thing, actually.
When a few minutes later the nurse knocks at the door, knocking him out of his thoughts as well, he realizes a whole hour has passed. No wonder ‘Eric’ got tired already and was barely engaging by the end of their conversation. Not like the conversation was particularly meaningful at that point—Kyle excluded so much of the information he deemed dangerous that in the end it just turned into a bland fest of generic facts, most of which the other guys had already told him. “Oh, I know that,” was the most common response.
Kyle stands up and waves a lazy final goodbye to the other boy who looks up at him with a blank stare, the drowsiness tugging at the corners of his eyes.
“’Kay,” ‘Eric’ hums weakly, and Kyle realizes that’s his “goodbye,” which in the current situation sounds more like “this is your life now,” and he is pretty sure such statements require consent from the addressed party, but doesn’t argue. He prefers to silently close the door behind him, stepping into an empty corridor where no adults are around to question him on how the conversation went, and then shake their head at the fact that he never really met their unrealistic expectations to miraculously bring back a lifetime of memories. Along with the sleeping doctor, that is all just a testament to how much adults in this godforsaken place really care.
It’s children who always care, somehow. They always care just a little bit too much, which is why adults get used to putting unrealistic expectations on them. Which is why Kyle wishes, sometimes, that there were at least some standards in South Park. “Let the children be responsible! Everybody loves children!” their mayor claimed once, with an extremely clear sigh of relief. The prospect of growing up is scary to him, but not at all due to the simple fear of getting old.
A single light bulb flickers, almost mockingly, as if it’s choking on laughter, and Kyle flips it off before realizing and cringing at himself immediately afterwards. If just one hour of ‘Eric’ is enough to make Kyle begin to perceive the light bulbs as sentient beings, then, frankly, he's worried about his own prospects.
He hurries to his friends with a speed that suggests they are the last bastion of his own sanity.
It’s surprising that almost everyone is still around after several hours pass. It’s only Butters who had left before Kyle arrived, because the Stotches are still douchebags, of course, even though Butters assures his friends that they just care a lot when they move his curfew another hour earlier. When somebody talks about Butters, you won’t even guess the boy is seventeen.
As they silently walk away in a group of three from the hospital and stand outside, also silently, for a little while, eyes on the pavement, Kyle desperately hopes for things to go as they always do. They will discuss the situation, joke around a bit and try to guess the potential outcomes, to distract themselves from the anxiety this whole ordeal causes them. Maybe imitate ‘Eric’ and his slow and polite reactions a bit. They will go to eat some ice cream and then maybe go to play video games at Kyle’s and laugh after a stressful day and won’t mention the incident until the need arrives—a long time from now, hopefully.
They are standing in silence now, but it's only logical that things will go that way, Kyle thinks. That’s how it works.
First Kenny mumbles, “Well, any chance this whole thing will be as funny as Ming Lee?”
Then Stan says loudly, "Goddamit!", kicks a pebble, turns sharply on his heel, and walks straight away from them in the direction of his car, like he doesn't even care he was supposed to drive everyone home.
And that's when it hits Kyle that things will never go like they used to anymore.
Something has shifted in the past days and in the past hours, he feels, but he can’t fully grasp it yet. Something definitely has, but it’s not the time yet for the consequences to arrive. And when they will, the scale is going to be grand enough for people who weren’t concerned to go into their regular panic mode, and for those who were—to tell the former “we told you so” with such pride in their voices as if there is always time and place to prove a point in the middle of the chaos.
It’s not something that will just pass through South Park. The boys understand that on a subconscious level, not fully yet, but enough to make them drop their routine. Enough to turn their minds away from eating ice cream and playing video games and onto something bigger. Because the children usually care first. The only crucial difference is, at this age, they’re too tired to care too much.
Kyle walks away from the hospital with Kenny and doesn't say a word.
Nobody notices a couple of reporters rushing to the hospital with a bunch of cameras and microphones from their van. Not that something would have drastically changed if they had noticed. Maybe they would have just been a little more prepared.
***
“Tom, I’m standing outside Hell’s Pass Hospital in South Park, Colorado, where a seventeen-year-old boy named Eric Cartman is still recovering after waking from an injury with a severe case of amnesia that has quite literally wiped his entire personality. The unique and, dare I say it, interesting case is beginning to attract the attention of the rest of the town, and the main concern of the townsfolk, is, of course, whether it's true and permanent, as the boy has such a notorious track record of schemes and crimes of varying degrees that almost everyone knows his name and speaks it with horror now. I would say that it is no surprise that we are all eager to see how the situation will unfold and I will try to keep you up to date with the latest news…”