All the King's Horses

“Stop me if I haven't quite understood things.”

The man on the other side of the low coffee table sat in a wooden chair whilst I laid neatly on a leather-bound couch. His pale, oval face pointed toward the notepad in his hands, the one he had been furiously jotting down information on for the last half hour or so while I spoke, but his eyes were fixed upon me like knives flung at a bullseye. My gaze followed the lazy spirals winding across the ceiling, but I knew the look all too well. It was the same look they all gave me after an 'event', the look that made them appear more like a disapproving teacher than a highly trained psychotherapist.

I shrugged in response to his statement. I couldn't really blame him. I couldn't blame any of them. If I were in his shoes listening to someone like me telling me what I was telling him, I would have a hard time understanding it too.

Perhaps 'understanding' is the wrong word. Maybe 'believing' is better.

“You have a rare mental condition, Mr Banks, that prevents your short-term memory from transferring knowledge your long-term memory.”

I winced at this; the way he said 'rare mental condition' made it sound like it was a natural occurrence. There was nothing natural about it at all.

“And you have difficulty remembering things.” I nodded, mutely. “This all started when . . .” The doctor flipped back a couple of pages, hastily trying to find the answer to his unasked query.

My head tilted and twisted so I could see the man I spoke to. “After the accident.”

Doctor Bennett's lips twitched as he found the written words he sought. This time it was his turn to nod.

“Yes, the accident.”

The nail in my head hadn't killed me, but it had killed my memory. At least, my ability to make memories. I knew who I was, where I lived, basic stuff like that. I remembered my favourite food and that I was engaged to Nicolas, that he was a lovely chap. Everything that had happened before the accident was right there in my brain where it should be, with all the neurons firing exactly as they should as my long-term memory told me everything it already knew. It was only the stuff that had happened after the accident that was missing, just like the engagement ring I no longer wore.

I couldn't remember why I had taken it off, but I figured our break-up must have been a result of the accident. Perhaps not the accident itself; I was pretty sure my months in hospital while they rebuilt my damaged brain wouldn't have been spent alone. No, it was more likely the effects that came about afterwards that caused our problems. Not that I could remember any of that, either. There was one good thing about this aspect of my life: I only remembered the good times, none of the bad, none of the arguments. None of the heartache. I didn't know the wrenching agony of lost love like so many others that went through such separations did. I accepted that I must have felt it at the time, as certain as I was that I had been crushed by it, but I just didn't remember it. That kind of made it seem like it hadn't happened, or that I didn't care as much for Nicolas as I remembered caring about him.

“And this, this emptying of the brain happens every time you wake up?”

I turned back to look at the ceiling, hoping I would fall asleep right here on the couch and forget this whole meeting. 'Emptying of the brain' was too strong a description, but I went along with it for the sake of simplicity. “Yes. Every time.”

“Forgive me, Mr Banks, I just want to be clear. You go through your day as normal and everything you do makes sense at the time. At the end of the day, you go to bed like normal, but when you wake up you have no recollection of anything you did prior to falling asleep. Is that right?”

I breathed. It was easy to stay calm. What was the point in getting frustrated by things that didn't exist after a few hours' sleep? “Yes,” I said again. “That pretty much sums it up.”

“So how do you-?”

I cut the good doctor off, expecting the question. I knew I couldn't remember stuff. I hadn't been remembering stuff for years. That didn't make me an idiot. I could still plan. “I had a phone before the accident and know how to use the calendar. I pay for everything in cash upfront at the time it happens. Relax, doctor, I don't have to remember to pay for this session.”

The doctor gave me the smile of infinite patience. “I was going to say, 'How do you feel about this incompleteness?'”

I left the question hanging a while. It was not an easy one to answer. I guess I was sad that I wasn't normal, and I wasn't sure if what I had instead made me lucky or not. “I haven't decided yet.” The doctor's pen finished off another page.

“Let's move on. Let's talk about these 'events' you describe. Tell me about the latest one again.”

“I woke up on a train.”

“Do you know what awoke you?”

I squinted. Hadn't we just been talking about how this works, or doesn't work? “No. It wasn't something that happened, more like the absence of something that was supposed to happen.”

“Like when you notice the ticking of the clock has stopped because the battery has run out?”

“Yes, something like that.” More writing. “Anyway, my head was resting against the window. The city outside was a blur as it rushed by, but I knew the train was going into the station too quickly.”

“So even though you forget everything when you wake up, you remembered which train you were on and where it was going?”

I eyed the doctor with sly weariness. He was trying to catch me out. He wouldn't succeed. “I didn't say I remembered what train I was on. Hell, I didn't even have a ticket because it wasn't real, so none of that matters anyway. Fact is, I used to live in New York before the accident. I recognised some of the buildings going past, so I knew which line I was on, therefore I knew which train it was.”

“I see,” said the doctor quietly. “Do go on.”

“I ran through the cars, heading to the front of the train to see what was wrong. The brakes should have engaged by now, you see – not hearing them had probably been what woke me up - and it should have been going a lot slower. But I didn't get to the front in time, and the train crashed.”

“And that's when you woke up for real?”

“Yep.”

“You weren't on a train?”

“No, at home in bed. Different city. Different state. Different side of the country.”

“And what did you do?”

“I called emergency services on my mobile. Told them which train was going to crash, which line, which station, everything.”

“And they believed you?”

“Not at first. But they were going to lose a lot more if I was right than what were they going to lose if I was wrong.”

“So, they got to the train driver before he got on the train, before he had the heart attack which had been fatal in your vision.”

“That's right.”

“But isn't that contradicting your earlier claim that when you wake up, you forget everything you have done in the time before you went to sleep. How come you didn't forget your vision?”

“I forget everything I do in a day, yes. Everything I see, the sounds I hear, all wiped away the moment I go to sleep. But the visions, as you call them, are not part of the external world. They're not memories, so how can they be affected by something stopping me remembering them?”

“Hmm. And what made you so certain that your vision of the train crashing was representational of an actual train about to actually crash? How were you sure of the time scale? What if the train wasn't due to crash for another day, a week, or a year?”

“I started getting these predictive visions ever since I woke up after the accident. At first, I thought they were just dreams, but when that serial killer started butchering kids and the visions were of those kids, I knew something else was going on. I started taking notes, messages to myself about the visions I'd had because I knew I wouldn't remember them. Every time I had one, something always came through on the news within a matter of hours. I have a sign next to my bed reading: 'You have visions of the future. You just had one. Do something about it now.' So, I do. Besides, I always look at my watch when I wake up - always have, ever since I was a kid with my first watch. I did that in my vision, too, so I knew what time and date the crash was due to happen.”

The doctor was quiet a beat. Introspective. I let him mentally digest it all. “It's almost as if you have swapped knowledge of the past – and by that, I mean your memories – for knowledge of the future, however open to interpretation that may be.”

I don't know if any of the other doctors had ever said that. It sounded like something one of them would say. I didn't reply, though, no matter how accurate the statement was.

“It's a very interesting condition that affects you, Mr Banks, and I would like to refer you to my colleagues for further exploration.”

My eyes widened, pulse quickening. I felt the sudden urge to be away from the man, back out in the streets amongst the anonymity afforded by San Francisco's crowds. “I don't think that will be necessary,” I said, standing up and making my way out. My hand stretched out for the door handle as I ignored the doctor's reassurances that my needs would be taken care of, but I didn't want to know. I didn't want to be introduced to his 'colleagues', and I was quite capable of taking care of my own needs.

But then the door burst open from the other side, and it seemed an octopus in military fatigues was upon me. I couldn't move, burly arms pinning my own to my sides, stopping my legs from kicking out for escape as a sharp scratch pricked my left triceps. I struggled for as long as I could before everything went dark.