A Visit to a Canadian Hospital (cont.)

Richard Loses His Memory And Gets It Back

The next thing he remembers is being flat on his back looking up at a circle of faces all looking worriedly down at him. He could feel the cold concrete beneath his back and head. One of the men, dressed in a fireman's lemon green suit with the broad horizontal sparkling stripes of reflective tape, asked, "What is your name, sir?" at which point Richard realized that he didn't know his name. He did know enough to say back, "I don't know." One of the faces then said, "Do you know where you are?" and Richard answered, "No."

It was an interesting condition, this lack of history. Richard didn't know his name, didn't know where he was; Richard was basically a uniformly gray Etch-a-sketch, newly shaken up. He didn't feel troubled or worried, if anything he felt a bit cheerful. His head hurt but otherwise, he felt the best he had felt all evening.

The faces conferred and then Richard was hoisted onto a board and shoved into the back of an ambulance. Still feeling cheerful and with no sense of history, Richard lay in the back of the ambulance as a man dressed in fireman's uniform climbed in with him and the doors were shut. On the ride to the hospital, the attendant asked Richard his name at which question Richard again replied that he didn't know. After a minute the attendant asked again. Then Richard remembered his name, feeling proud of the accomplishment. The man then asked Richard where he was, a more difficult question that Richard was unable to answer at first. And then Richard's history started oozing back and he remembered where he was, Ottawa. And then he remembered how he got there. As each of the memories came back, Richard triumphantly told the attendant where he was and how he had gotten there, and why he was in town.