Hadrian's Wall Read Free

vaguely thought about hospital bills. “I
have no money...” I protested weakly. My face fell against the
pillow as I succumbed to the sedative.
    “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.”
    I sighed. So full of authority, his voice
made me feel safe. I blacked out again.
    * * *
    My memories of weeks or months prior to my
admission to Caledonia General Hospital seemed lost in a deep, dark
pit. According to the nurses, I was in a town called Hadrian’s
Wall, somewhere in Maine.
    How did I get here?
    All I remember of my dull existence happened
in New Hampshire, more precisely a small town called Dailey’s
Crossing, located on the route between Berlin and Groveton. I felt
like I had fallen asleep in one place and awakened a day later in
another place. Although it seemed like it had been only 24 hours,
it could have been much more.
    This mysterious lapse in time began to
command the moods that struck me in those early days. I knew, of
course, that there was no point kicking myself for my failure to
remember or allow myself to panic. There was no one I could blame.
My mind would provide answers that I desperately needed, so I
stayed adrift.
    Adrian did not come back and nobody knew to
tell me about him. Rather, I was almost sure that they did not want
to let me know about him. There was a difference between “to know”
and “to want” and while I felt reluctance from some of the people,
I decided not to push it. But he’d said that he was taking care of
me, so to someone lost and confused like me, his disappearance
seemed like a broken promise—another disappointment. Whether big or
small, it was nonetheless one more for my “collection.”
    The residents took turns during the week;
however, the doctor in charge of my case was the head of the
Neurology Department—Dr. Talbot. He introduced himself in the
morning of the day after Adrian’s visit, which made me suspicious.
He didn’t seem worried about my amnesia. When I asked questions, he
always managed to find a way to evade them. He said my memory would
return naturally and that trying to stimulate it would not bring
back the information because it might create false memories from
information provided by other people. He told me that it wasn’t
good for me to try to satisfy my curiosity so fast.
    Despite his cold and impersonal manner, he
seemed to be a caring doctor, so I decided to heed his advice and
let it ride for now, but my anxiety was increasing. I slept poorly
as old nightmares, my sad childhood companions, began to afflict me
again.
    One night a nurse heard me screaming and
shook me awake. The flapping wings from the dark creature I’d seen
in my dream still echoed in my ears the next morning. Thereafter, a
succession of bad dreams made me wake up several times during the
night, leaving me with a feeling of imminent danger. I didn’t want
to talk about my nightmares with anyone. I preferred to keep them a
secret because they’d caused trouble for me during my childhood and
adolescence.
    Since that time, I learned not to trust
doctors. They always seemed so calm, so controlled, but behind that
façade of serenity, they define us like laser-cut stones and with
their verdicts they commit “social homicide” on those of us they
judge. I had allowed myself to trust one. I opened my mind to him,
yet he betrayed me. If he had not taken advantage of my childlike
innocence and branded me with a stereotype, I would not have
suffered as much as I did at the hands of those around me.
    Of course, because the frequency of my
nightmares was increasing, the nurse reported the situation to Dr.
Talbot. He decided that I should undergo a battery of tests, which
found no organic reason for what I was experiencing. That came as
no surprise to me because I’d been through it all when I was a
young child. I thought about explaining that to the neurologist,
but then abandoned the idea.
    Since my father’s death, I had been having
nightmares that for short periods of