All I have left is a name

What is the normal reaction to this situation? What would normal people do?

Would they cry? Would they fall on their knees, regretting their decision, and hysterically beg to get their memories back?

Would they breathe a sigh of relief? Would they relish the feeling of a fresh start, without any baggage weighing them down?

How am I supposed to act?

All I can hear is the voice echoing in my head.

"Don't be so hung up on the past. You have a new identity now. You are John Smith. It's up to you to create your new life."

Am I supposed to accept this as my reality now? Just because a man with my face on a projector screen told me so?

It all seems so fake. Heck, even the name "John Smith" seems fake.

Does it make sense for me to be given the most common name in America, along with all the other 44,935 people who are named "John Smith?"

This can't be my real name, can it?

But what does it matter? Even if it wasn't my real name, how would I know? I don't have any friends, or relatives. I don't have anyone who'll come looking for me.

Despair? Disappointment? Resentment? Rage? How can I describe these feelings welling up inside of me?

Is there a word to describe the feeling of having everything stripped away from you? No family, no friends, no material possessions, no memories, not even an identity.

All I have left is a name.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Are you okay?" Entrapped in a fog of emptiness, Dr. Marden's voice pulls me out of the shroud.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I say halfheartedly.

"Are you sure?" his eyebrows droop with concern, as he approaches me with those sickening, sympathetic eyes.

"I said I'm fine!" I'm not even aware that I raised my voice. But the way Dr. Marden flinches, and the fear reflected in his eyes says it all.

I'm pissed. From the very first moment I opened my eyes in this hospital, Dr. Marden had always been treating me like some kind of venomous snake. He always approached me with caution, as if I would strike at any time.

I can't help but remember the voice in the video. "Maybe I did become a monster," said my reflection on the projector screen.

A monster, huh? Was that my identity? That was the whole reason why you had to strip me of my memories? So you could bury that monster, huh, John?

What if your plan didn't work, John? What if you couldn't bury that monster?

With a clash, the coffee table in front of me collided with the ground, smashing one of the legs into splinters of wood. Oops, did I do that?

The gravity must be particularly strong today, because the lamppost seems to want to hug the floor too. Papers are strewn in the air like confetti. Must be a joyous event.

*Crash* *Clang* *Boom* Sounds like a whole party here. The projector is precariously hanging from the ceiling by a single wire. The remote is smashed, somewhere underneath the doctor's desk. Shards of porcelain decorate the floor.

The whole place looks like a zoo, and Dr. Marden is the poor monkey crouched in the corner.

"J-JJJJohn, please stop! J-John, p-please!" The babbling baboon is muttering incoherent words.

John? Who's John? I don't know anyone named John. In fact, I don't know anyone at all.

But the decorations are incomplete. The walls aren't dyed in red.

Red?

Why am I so obsessed with the color red?

Pain.

Excruciating, tormenting pain. Pain that pulses and comes in waves. Pain that tries to drown you, forcing its way into your lungs, until you can't breathe and every gasp for air is torture.

Damn, it's happening again. I don't even know what "it" is, but I need to get out of here.

Before someone gets hurt.

Before I hurt someone.

"Wait! John, come back! Where are you going?" Voices fade into stillness.

All I hear is the pitter-patter of my feet running away from something unknown.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You lost kid?" I look up to see a gruffy old man in a filthy black t-shirt call out to me.

My eyes analyze him.

Somewhere in his 60s, an African American male, around 5 feet 10 inches, estimated to be 178 pounds, brown eyes, white hair wrapped in a bandana, with a salt and pepper beard towers over me. He's carrying all his weight on his left leg, indicating a previous injury on his right leg. He squints when he looks at me; must have poor vision. His arms have a sizable amount of muscle, but with his age and his limp, he wouldn't last long in a fight. Threat level: zero.

"Yeah, I guess I am lost." I say, mostly referring to my loss of identity. But he doesn't know that.

"I figured you didn't belong here," he chuckles, "Do you want me to take you back to the hospital?"

I look down at my attire: pale seasick green hospital gown, stained with dirt and filth from squatting on the city streets.

I get off from the ground, dusting off my gown. I don't know how long I've been here.

"This way kid," he says in a friendly voice. "They must be looking all over for you."

"I don't have anyone to look for me," I say in a dejected voice, "I don't have anything."

"Don't have nobody, huh? I might as well be in the same boat as you, kid. Falsely accused, they took 40 years of my life away from me. Lost my job, family, and friends. Finally got out of prison just to find out that my wife's married to another man, and my kids don't even know I exist," the friendly stranger peers at me. "What's your name kid?" he asks.

"John Smith."

"Well, John Smith, at least you got a name," his eyes are far in a state of reflection, "At one point, they even took that away from me. 08708-028, that's what they called me for 40 years. Just a number."

The man's footsteps slow down, and he stops in front of me. I stare at his broad shoulders which seemingly carries the weight of the world on his back.

"You know what, John? There's a lot of people who got the same story as me. I ain't unique."

The sun glistens on beads of sweat across his brow as he turns around to look at me.

"You wanna know something else, too? They can take away my home. Take away my friends, my family. Take away my money, my reputation. They can even take away my dignity as a human being." With crooked teeth, and lopsided smile, he flashes his white, toothy grin at me, "But you wanna know what they can't take away?"

With an all-knowing look, he taps his long finger against his head. "Here, son. This is the one thing they can never take away from you." He taps his head again.

"The true measure of your wealth is how much you're worth after they've stripped you of everything you have."

He let out a big hearty guffaw, deep and abounding.

"I'm old, kid. I gots to start over, and I'm old." He pokes my chest with his lanky finger. My body flinches, surprised at how he was able to get my guard down and approach me. "You, well, you're young, kid. Starting over will be nothing for you."

He turns around and points off in the distance. "You say there's no one looking for you, kid?"

Sure enough, off in the distance, a man in a lab coat with a halo of messy white hair was frantically stopping people on the street, begging for someone to have seen his missing patient.

I turned around to thank the stranger, only to find that there was no one beside me. He was gone, blended with the crowded, like a shade of color in a painting, lost in the sea of blues.

"John Smith!" I hear my name called.