Sophie (part II)

The fluorescent lighting hit her like a grey-green brick, shortly followed by the delightful smell of disinfectant mingled with a variety of exciting bodily fluids and medications. The gentle, distant beeping assured her that her first assumption had indeed been correct—such a complete assault on the senses could only be a product of the human health industry and no faction thereof had an attack more perfected than that of the small town hospital. The generalized grogginess seemed to indicate that she was a patient and not merely visiting a sick friend when she happened to fall asleep in the chair, as though anyone could sleep in those ergonomic travesties. The chairs provided the illusion that visitors were not only welcomed but appreciated. Half a moment in one of those chiropractic nightmares would banish any such belief.1

Sophie quietly cursed the narcotics which impaired her higher mental processes rather handily. She felt that even in her altered state she was in possession of enough of her baser intellect and tiptoeing along the borders of coherency. It seemed prudent to perform a rudimentary analysis of her battered person. The basic inventory consisted of a variety of simple movements—she curled her toes, pointed and flexed her feet, rolled her ankles and so on up in search of pain or some joint rendered immobile by a plaster of paris shell. The preliminary findings were both relieving and dissatisfying all at once. Sophie was not paralyzed nor did she seem to suffer from any perceivable ailment. This good news left a bad taste in her mouth, however, since she could not provide any sort of justification for her location and position. Then she remembered the car.2

A woman—presumably a nurse—wandered down the hallway adjacent to Sophie’s delightful room making her obligatory rounds. She caught sight of the restless Sophie and paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts as though they had been scattered through the air like a deck of playing cards. Once she had regained some semblance of composure she sauntered uneasily towards Sophie, planting herself in the doorway as she threw mental daggers down the hall in the direction of what Sophie assumed to be the nurse’s station. The poor woman looked as though she had been asked to treat a rabid dog.3

“I’m glad to see that you’re awake,” she said coolly as she gave a tight-lipped smile, “How long have you been up?”4

“Not too long, I think, though I don’t really have a firm grasp on time as of yet,” Sophie smiled back in a futile effort to ease the overwhelming tension permeating the room. She was pleasantly surprised that both the verbal and physical signals her medicated brain had sent arrived with nary a hitch. The words which she though and those she said were, indeed, identical.5

“How are you feeling?” she asked as two other scrub clad women joined her, both wearing ill-disguised looks of surprise mingled with discomfort. The three confused and agitated women shuffled into the room as though Sophie’s treatment was some form of punishment. They prodded the medical equipment in total silence with fruitlessness permeating the air.6

“Groggy,” Sophie made an attempt to leave the horizontal position but the nurse’s hand combined with disorientation and a heightened awareness to the force of gravity did not permit her to move more than a few degrees. She raised both arms to look for the catheter feeding the medication which presumably kept her afloat on this euphoric sea but found none, “Am I on anything right now?” she asked, turning her head towards the nurse currently in possession of the clipboard who appeared not to hear but answered regardless.7

“Just the side effects of minor trauma—you took a pretty good blow to the head,”8

“What’s wrong with me?” Sophie asked playfully in another misplaced effort to lighten up the room—a mausoleum would have been a far more cheerful place to wake up. If the nurses didn’t plan on demonstrating even a glimmer of happiness then she would need to be happy enough for he three of them as well as herself.9

“You were hit by a car,” the smallest blurted with a strong note of disbelief and annoyance, both of which were uncalled for.10

“Yes, well, I remember that part. I’m just a little muddled on the aftermath of all that nonsense—I’ve been in a coma of sorts between then and now, you see…”11

“The doctor will be in to see you in just a moment,” the last nurse nonchalantly dismissed Sophie’s desire for knowledge and positioned herself so that she could avoid eye contact, “He’ll have a few questions as you appear up to answering them and he has a better grasp on your…unique…condition, he’s far better prepared to discuss your status.”12

“Yes, well, it had better be serious. I feel like a harbinger of plague around you three,” Sophie’s jesting had an edge of truth. While she understood, at least in part, the nurses’ excessive distance, it would have been nice to be treated as a fellow human being. Her dark musings were interrupted when a tall, bean pole of a man turned the corner into her room, his lengthy lab coat swooping in behind, alerting the world that the doctor in all his magnificence had indeed arrived. Sophie was almost certain that she could smell the pride now looming over her bed like a thundercloud soon to rain down ego on the paltry serfs which made up the nursing staff. They were also acutely aware of the man who had entered the room moments earlier and scrambled to finish all the standard notes. The clipboard made a journey around the room, eventually landing in the doctor’s hands. He flipped through the chart as the nurses scuttled from the room like large, light fearing insects. It seemed that any human sound left with the three glum faces.13

“Miss Sophie,” the doctor broke the silence, “I do believe that you promised me that you would make an effort to avoid hitting your delicate little head after we found you in such a state last time.” Though the comment seemed jovial enough, Sophie detected a tone which echoed the nurses’ “unwelcome guest” reception.14

“Well it seems that I enjoy inflicting trauma on my poor, addled brain too much to keep out of your quaint little facility for any extended period of time,” she smiled sweetly, but the pleasant look was quickly wiped away when he glanced down and met her eyes with a cold grimace painted across his already harsh features.15

“Let’s deal with the obvious bits, shall we,” he sighed, “Do you know where you are?”16

“Intimately,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest.17

“Do you remember what happened, putting you back into our care?”18

“Quite clearly,”19

“And the year and a half between your first incident and your last encounter with the car?”20

“Intact,”21

“And prior to that?”22

“Still nothing, I’m afraid,” Sophie pursed her lips and tipped her head towards the window in a moment of brief but intense introspection.23

“Nothing at all—no flashes, no dreams, nothing?” he prodded her in quiet, gentle desperation, a look of disappointment taking hold of his persona. Sophie would have understood a reaction filled with frustration of any sort, but the annoyed sadness confused her. It did not seem to have anything to do with her condition.24

“No, sir, not even an inkling that I existed prior to waking up in your care,” she shook her head slowly, then looked up again, though avoiding the doctor’s heavy gaze, “Well, now that we’ve gotten the awkward bits out of the way, what is the damage from my dance with the American made automobile?”25

“Suspiciously minimal,” he sighed and knit his brow, “at least as best we can tell—you understand that the limitations posed by your unique physiology cripple the majority of our diagnostic techniques. All in all, it is a miracle that you survived at all, let alone virtually unscathed.”26

“Well, it appears that I have quite a knack for defying conventional medical understanding. It would probably make your job just a touch easier if I took up a different hobby,” Sophie began to doubt the presence of narcotics in her system as she became increasingly aware of her faculties. Drowsiness combined with a bump to the skull seemed more and more plausible. Sophie became acutely aware of the awkward silence which suddenly filled the room. It took a her a moment to understand. “We’re not finished with the awkward questions, yet, are we?”27

“No.”28

“It’s only awkward questions from here on out, isn’t it.”29

“Yes,” the doctor flicked his eyes from Sophie’s curious face to the chart and back again before he continued, “We were hoping that you might have even the slightest inkling as to who operated on you before we found you. You may have been contacted or discovered even the smallest clue.”30

“I do believe that the x-rays would probably be the best aide in locating your mystery surgeon.” Sophie made an attempt to sit upright, but failed and collapsed back onto her pillow after a few misguided inches, “I haven’t run into anything that screams ‘Sophie—I am your former operating surgeon.’”31

“That is most unfortunate,” he drummed his fingers across the clipboard.32

“For whom?” Sophie caught something in his tone which left her uneasy, but he did not even dignify her question with an answer. It was mostly rhetorical anyhow.“Has anything changed since the last time we met?”33

“I’m afraid no, and no one is taking credit for his little innovations,” the doctor huffed, wrinkling his nose in disgust at his unknown and unknowing colleague, “We don’t know how to treat you.”34

“I suppose that makes it rather fortunate that I am surprisingly hardy.”35

“Yes, I suppose it does,” a brief silence followed his assention signaling the reemergence of touchy subject matters, “I spoke with our resident psychiatrist about your case again. He asks about you often.”36

“What a coincidence—I hardly ever even think of that despicable man.” Sophie voiced her obvious distaste for the psychiatrist with a biting tone. Anger was not an emotion she readily embraced and therefore was not one she expressed with any regularity. When the beast reared its ugly head, which it did indeed do on occasion, her wrath was better practiced than any bellowing hothead. Few could compete with the cold fury behind her stony, grey eyes.37

“He is just as concerned with your recovery as the more traditional staff are. He still believes therapy could really help you,” the doctor leapt clumsily to the defense of his friend’s honor.38

“I refer him to my previous response to his idle, money grubbing suggestions—no one can regress back to something that isn’t even there,” Sophie began to realize that she was being intellectually herded towards some physician’s predetermined end game.39

“He doesn’t need to speak with you,” the doctor let the last few words fly from his lips just a touch too quickly for Sophie’s tastes. A man of such fathomless pride would not lose his composure unless pressing an agenda of utmost importance onto an obviously unwilling victim. The fur was about to fly, though the reason for the ensuing and inevitable battle of wits remained a mystery to Sophie, albeit a mystery she would have preferred unsolved.40

“I’m so glad the feeling is mutual,” she glowered, no longer speaking but whispering. In any other case such a shift in volume would have seemed submissive, but the room’s temperature seemed to fall with Sophie’s voice. The doctor refused eye contact.41

“Regardless,” he murmured, posturing in an attempt to reclaim the exchange, “he did request that I inform you of a few studies kicking off in the next few months which would benefit from your participation, since cases like yours are few and far between.” There it was—the agenda. She feigned ignorance in an effort to quell the hurricane of profanity which played so lightly on her frazzled nerves.42

“Hit and run victims get studies, too?” Sophie turned her head gently and flashed a cow-eyed ambivalence before moving her focus to her hands which threatened to undo the weaving in the low thread count, army issue sheets and wiping the foolish look away.43

“No, dear, your amnesia,” the doctor didn’t brace himself as he had earlier. Her lie had worked but she was unsure as to what end. At the very least, the man before her returned to his typical, overbearing mannerisms. Sophie pulled her gaze away from her white knuckles and stared blankly yet intently at the stark wall. She took three slow, deep breathes.44

“I am perfectly content in my blissfully ignorant state,” she said in a steady, clear, and monotonous voice.45

“I don’t think that you are, Sophie,” he used her name for the second time since entering her little room. The first was a nonchalant greeting. The second was an attempt at cold manipulation, “You’re afraid—afraid to hope for any sort of recovery because you fear disappointment. Secretly, some part of you wants, yearns to know who you are.”46

“Why should my nonexistent past carry any weight in my decisions? I have forged a life here, I am gainfully employed, I have friends—people I love and cherish who reciprocate unconditionally, I have a little orange tabby cat who eats the food I leave on the porch for him. You believe that I lack an identity and therefore lack a home. I have a home and the defines who I am.” A fire lit in Sophie’s heart matched only by the lump in her throat.47

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself,” he stared down at her, fixing her grey eyes with a harsh gaze all his own, “You have a family somewhere on this land mass which misses you, they may spend every waking moment trying to find the baby girl they lost. You may have forgotten them but I can guarantee that they will never forget you.”48

Sophie couldn’t breathe. The lump in her throat obstructed her airway as she fought hyperventilation. She didn’t shy away from his glare as she had earlier. She bit her lip, dwelling on the rage pent up inside. It was the only thing which stood between her semi-collected demeanor and a river of tears accompanied by heaving sobs.49

“You couldn’t care less about my family,” she kept her voice low—though not for effect. She physically could not produce anything greater than a whisper, “You want to find the man who filleted me open and pass my care so that you never have to treat me again.”50

“I’m sure it’s no secret to you how the staff of this fine facility feels about your unique condition. While I would love to hear the reasoning behind your absurd medical past, I am also certain that whoever operated on you did so in your best interest and well within his Hippocratic Oath. He created your medical complexities and he is best suited to hand the repercussions of those changes,” each speech which left the doctors mouth ached of rehearsal.51

“At least I know where I am wanted,” Sophie growled, strengthening the grip on her lower lip until she felt as though any more pressure would break the skin—a last ditch effort to stave off hysteria52

“I know it seems cruel—and, at least emotionally speaking, it probably is—but I need to inform you of our opinion. The hospital has come to a decision regarding your care,” he tucked the chart neatly beneath one arm and folded his hands. He waited for Sophie to attack again, but she simply sat in silence, “If you are injured again for any reason—be it another hit and run or a food allergy—this fascility and its affiliates are prepared to deny you care under the assumption that due to our limited knowledge of your complex medical history, we cannot adequately provide care. Though informed of this you refuse to take the necessary steps to recover lost memories. We’ve run it past the lawyers—until you begin to actively pursue your past we are well within our rights to deny you all forms of treatment.”53

“If I don’t enter a study from you precious list and break my back you will leave me to die on the streets?” Sophie mumbled in absolute disgust. Any anger had fled her person only to be instantaneously replaced by revoltion. She wanted to throw up, to scream, to bludgeon the creature which stood before her masquerading as a medical professional sworn to help. Instead she sat motionless, collecting her fragmented spirit.54

“The staff agrees that after fairing so well from your curb side encounter, you are in no real danger of suffering any extreme physical trauma. You suffered so little damage, and the vast majority of that was trivial at best. Even the nurses who like you—as a person, not as a patient—believe you are in no danger, immediate or otherwise. They have all justified our decision,” for the first time since his grand entrance, the doctor smiled. It was a smile of victory. Sophie stifled the ever increasing images of her hands wrapped around his throat in a vice-like grip. She wanted to kill him.55

“Tell me about the study, you glorified wretch of a human being,” Sophie couldn’t decide if the language was indeed uncalled for, but she was well aware that her better controlled verbal defenestration was all that kept her from actually launching the physician out the window.56

“Now, now, dear—this is all for you, your own good. Behind all the legalism and bad blood we truly do have your best interests at heart. I promise,” his smile broadened.57

“Has it ever occurred to you, sir, that I may have such extreme memory loss because I am suppressing something both highly unpleasant and scandalously detrimental to my already fragmented mental health?” Sophie let the words burst form her lips, disregarding the nagging voice in the back of her head which seemed to think she was screaming.58

“We’ve weighed the risks—“59

“—And either way you come out on top?”60

“The psychiatrist believes that a woman as strong as you should be capable of coping with the nuances of a fractured past far better than your current, identity free existence.”61

“I have an identity despite your attempts to keep me from it. I am Sophie—all I have ever known and all I have ever desired is Sophie,” she raised herself slightly, pivoting hard on her left arm too turn her torso in a more aggressive fashion as she gesticulated wildly with her right.62

“But Sophie is a lie. Sophie is a creation of your wounded subconscious in an attempt to fill the chasm left by the true you. We want you to know the truth and to root out Sophie. You can replace your anonymous, Jane Doe existence with a family. You can be whole again.” His words were absolutely condescending and his tone acrid yet sickeningly sweet. Sophie held her uncomfortable posturing as she delicately weighed the merits of saying yes to the pompous man’s blackmail. While the idea of submitting to the overbearing demands made her blood curdle in her veins, there was something oddly appealing in consenting to his wishes simply to avoid further unnecessary trials in the world of modern medicine. The likelihood of any such study succeeding was slim to none at best. She really lost only time—valuable as that was.63

“Just sign me up for the study and discharge me the moment you leave this room so that I may no longer burden your unimpeachable facility with my deceitful, loathsome presence,” Sophie changed her position once again, this time in a misplaced attempt to locate the clothing she must have worn into the wretched place she now planned to evacuate at the first available moment.64

“I’m glad you’ve decided to see things our way. I’ll send someone down with the paperwork to get you enrolled with our friends at the research camp as soon as is physically possible,” he turned to exit triumphantly, but stopped short and turned again, “Oh, and Sophie, dear, I hope that we shall not meet again for a very long time.”65

“Nothing would please me more, sir, at least nothing within the bounds of the law,” Sophie returned his sadistic grin with a malevolent flash of teeth, “I hope for your sake that me true identity is a good person. I wouldn’t count on a sociopath dealing with blackmail quite as well as I do.”66

He was gone. Sophie wished that she had some form of medical paraphernalia—be it catheter or sensors cemented to her scalp—which she could tear from her frame and throw. Instead, since the urge had to go unfortunately unfulfilled, Sophie busied her racing mind with a quest for her earthly possessions. She realized that such a task was useless when a nurse toddled in with a pile of neatly folded though well worn clothes in her arms.67

“There are a few holes from the accident, but nothing anywhere scandalous. You should be able to wear them out without too much trouble,” the nurse muttered timid look painted across her worried face.68

“Thank you,” Sophie mustered an exhausted smile, reminding herself that any anger towards the little woman would be sadly misdirected. The lady’s fears could not be assuaged so easily, “Why are you afraid of me?”69

“Oh, I, well,” the quiet woman took a few shallow, almost hyperventilating breathes, “I’m the new girl here and, well, I guess you could say that the senior staff is hazing me—I check in on anyone after the doctor gets in a screaming match. Most aren’t usually quite so composed or understanding.”70

“I take it that he verbally abuses quite a few of his patients?” Sophie sighed.71

“Well, I don’t know about that. People here generally aren’t in the best of moods, circumstances what they are. Most will pick a fight with the candy striper just as soon as the doctor. He’s a pretty easy target—stress fries your nerves, you know,” she rambled, doddering about the room pretending to be busy while words spewed forth, apparently unrestrained by general common sense.72

“Yes, I’m well aware of that little tidbit of information,” Sophie shook her head and let the woman scurry from the room without further questioning. Sophie was alone. The pleasant façade melted away in an instant as she pulled herself into a fetal position shaped pile, feet towards the pillow. Sobs tried to tear through her chest but were stifled by the remaining shreds of reason which lingered belly-up in a sea of emotions after the dreadful confrontation.73

She wasn’t sure why the situation disturbed her so intensely. Reason knew that there was really no true downside to doing the doctor’s bidding. No matter how misguided his motivations, he was on some superficial levels quite right. She should have leapt at the chance to figure out what in the name of everything good and holy happened to her. She had lied through her teeth when she said that Sophie was all she had ever wanted. For the first few months after she woke up in that dreadful hospital Sophie had yearned to know who she was and what had happened to leave her in such a state. She accepted her ignorance—it took time, but giving up always does—and Sophie became reality. She may as well have been reincarnated for all the difference it made. The x-rays, the medical nonsense, all of it ceased to matter. The ambiguity of non-existence had been replaced with the joy of fresh discovery. Everything had been new, wonderful. She didn’t care who she had been and didn’t want to know anymore.74

Now—with her carefully constructed reality shredded before her very eyes and subject to the staunchest of inquiries over its validity, Sophie could not cope with another new life. She couldn’t bring herself to start over again when the happiness she experienced had been as close to perfection as she assumed possible. Reason screamed that such sentiments were naïve, childish in their simplicity. Reason screamed a lot of things, very few of which were helpful. Rationally, she could prioritize her existence based on a cost to benefit scale. Emotionally, she could only see the costs. No singular person should be faced with constructing and then reconstructing an identity from shrapnel lodged in the back of her mind.75

Sophie’s heart wrenched itself in two for a quarter of an hour before her eyes ran dry and the wheezing noises escaping her lips faded to an inaudible sigh. Composure felt like a new day in the face of her past hysterics. Sophie pulled herself up slowly, abandoning the safety of her protective shell and reaching a seated position with some difficulty. She fumbled uselessly, attempting to clothe herself while her hands refused to comply. Her fine motor skills seemed to be those of an infant. Perhaps, she mused, the damage had not been quite so superficial as the doctor claimed.76

Sitting had proven to be a startlingly difficult undertaking. Sophie wobbled to and fro, fighting a variety of long established and well accepted laws of physics which seemed to want her stationary and horizontal. Such a state of affairs was, of course, absolutely unacceptable and she fought tooth and nail to maintain her upright posture in the face of such daunting odds. The circumstance was helped even less by the inexplicable weakness which permeated the muscles running along her spine. One by one the dormant pathways seemed to almost reboot, yanking her vertebrae in such a way that she was certain a visit to the chiropractor would be in order. The uneasy movement ceased and Sophie pulled her hands away from the bed. She sat motionless and quite proud of herself.77

“Success,” she smirked, then swung her legs off the edge of the bed. Sitting had been a test of her wits and mental fortitude; standing would be a test of just how foolhardy and brave she happened to be at that precise moment. The answer came quickly. Sophie pressed away from the bed putting all her weight on her legs. She could have received similar results from a limp noodle. Sophie never made it to a technical, text book standing position. To an outside observer it would have seemed that she threw herself to the floor. A low moan escaped her lips as she smashed into the floor, striking her head on the tile. Her stomach churned at the hollow, melon like echo.78

“Ow,” she grumbled, a doll, low, and almost metallic ringing filled her ears. She made a feeble attempt to press herself back up to a seated position, an absolutely exhausting undertaking which left her fighting for air. Sophie threw a tiny, mostly mental fit of rage at her condition. She was not used to feeling helpless. She didn’t like it. Attempt number two on the standing front was far more successful than it’s earlier counterpart, and involved a slow, generous progression from sitting to kneeling on two knees, then on one. While the plan had worked, Sophie ached everywhere. The muscle groups in her legs came to life in the same highly uncomfortable way those of her back had earlier.79

Once standing, movement became easier. The pain in her limbs faded away quickly. She could not have been more pleased with the ease of clothing herself and striding out of her room an hour later than the nurses had anticipated. Sophie was slightly miffed that no one had come to see if she was handling herself alright or seizing on the floor during her motor skills ordeal. Upon further reflection, she realized that their absence did not surprise her in the least. She walked, with every ounce of grace and poise she could muster, towards the front desk and planted herself squarely in front of the physician’s assistant who had been sentenced to desk duty.80

“Am I all checked out and ready to go?” she smiled, making one last attempt at unabashed kindness towards an individual who obviously shared the hospital’s perspective. The PA looked up slowly, an unsure expression gave Sophie a morsel of hope. Perhaps she could win over one member of the hostile staff to her side.81

“Yes, you’re all set,” she gave a sideways, confused sort of smile.82

“Can you tell me,” Sophie pressed gently, “when does the study they coerced me into begin?” The young woman sifted through a stack of papers and cardstock, eventually retrieving a brochure. She scanned it quickly, then frowned slightly and turned to look at Sophie.83

“Three weeks from today on the nose. The doctor arranged for a car to pick you up at your apartment,” she pointed to some absolutely illegible scribbles in one corner of the brochure. At least the PA could understand the chicken scratch; Sophie couldn’t find a single letter in the mess of lines.84

“Well that was kind of him,” Sophie made a face. She had not expected such a courteous gesture from such a cold, diabolical, jerk of a man. She doubted her judgment of his character for a moment, but pushed the thought from her mind as quickly as it came and filled the vacuum with still fresh memories of is manipulations.85

“Thank you for taking all of this with such grace,” the woman said with a sympathetic smile.86

“You’re welcome. It was either good grace or utter hysteria and I was pretty sure that you wouldn’t appreciate a grown woman screaming like a toddler on your lobby floor,” Sophie joked. The PA smiled. Sophie turned to leave, a glow of satisfaction plastered across her face, when she was confronted by a woman with an empty wheelchair who should have known better.87

“Miss, it’s hospital policy that all discharged patients are taken by wheelchair to the front steps,” She looked patiently at Sophie, waiting for a ‘thank you’ followed by the dark haired slip of a girl sitting gingerly, though needlessly into the chair. Sophie did not react this way. Sophie laid into the nurse with whatever morsels of anger she could dredge from the increasingly blackened sections of her subconscious88

“Is it hospital policy to let a patient recently hit by a car to attempt to stand on her own and hope that she makes it out of her room before you scoot over with your pretentious little chair? If I were you, I’d help the people who can’t walk when they can’t walk so that they don’t spend half and hour throwing themselves needlessly at the ceramic tiling in an attempt to stand. And please don’t talk to me about hospital policy, miss. Hospital policy just declared that I might as well go die in the street before they’ll even take a glance at my mangled body. I’m discharged now. You aren’t supposed to speak to me. I’ve been shunned.” All this escaped Sophie’s lips in a low, concentrated snarl which could freeze blood and stop a heart. The woman didn’t move as Sophie strode past her swiftly, silent once again. With that, Sophie went home and counted down the hours of a purgatory which led to the wrong destination. It all didn’t seem quite fair.89