The nurse walks me to a blue examination room, attaches a clip to my index finger and starts asking questions: do you know where you are? what year is it? what month? what day of the week is today? when did the accident happen?
He's kind and sweet. Almost sympathetic. I hold back my tears, embarrassed, and answer them all correctly, I think, although the year comes to me after a long pause & Wednesday is a wild guess. I hardly ever know what the days between Monday & Friday are. Half the time I think Friday is Thursday & for some curious reason 1985 seems to be the year we are in. I say 2021.
"I'll show you three pictures and we'll check again in an hour & hopefully you will remember them all. OK?" He holds out 3 black and white illustrations: a cup -the white ones they put out at hotel breakfasts that hold 2 sips of tea, 2 keys on a ring and a bird. I walk back into the waiting room and join the angry sleepy woman with the sling, the messy builder that's popped something, the old Asian couple with the finger and the girl with the rash. A cup, keys and a bird. A cooking show is on: fish stew. I never like the idea of fish floating in juice. It must stink. But if it's the one meal she's making to win, it must be good, not stinky. But then everyone loves a pav on Christmas Day & in 8 years I haven't gotten over the stink of egg white that hits under your nose the second you bring the first spoon to your mouth. & no one else seems to notice. I never understand these people. What am I doing? Keys, cup, a bird. There's a bird art on the wall, that's got to remind me. & I always start the day with a cup of coffee so that should be easy to remember, & I always forget my keys at home... shit! But is it really a test if I use an image on the wall? How else would you remember things for god's sake? It's a random cup, keys & I hate birds.
I try to remember whatever I was doing 1 hour ago to test myself, what I said to the architect about the glazed wall on the phone, what I heard at lunch, all clear in my head. I haven't forgotten my jobs, I know how to assess this room. But then how would you know something's missing if it never made it to your memory or simply slipped out in whole. A cup, keys & a bird. A nurse removes the IV needle from the rash girl's hand. She just wraps it in the latex gloves she takes off & crumples it up in her fist as she tells her how to put ice on the rash in slow English. It's a needle, right? What if it goes right in. The fish stew fails all 5 judges. Well, she did finish 10 minutes earlier than the other guy. Who likes cold fish in lukewarm water? How do they make these cooking competition shows anyway. The judges must get heaps of cold, reheated crap between so many retakes. A cup, a bird & a key.
This is the second time in a month I realise how much of life is hanging by a flimsy thread. What would I do for a living if I damaged my brain? How I'd wish to go back to the horrible jobs I whine about everyday. To be able to work 12 hours a day again. To be harassed for meetings. To pay a mortgage. To not be a vegetable in the society. The people on benefit, they may have showed up to work one day & gotten hit in the head. A cup, keys & a bird. I swear I will never get angry again.
A different nurse walks me into the same blue room. I study all the machines that come out of the walls. I understand the words. I assess the ceiling. It must mean I'm fine. She's talking. She say's she's taking over her colleague. "What year is it?" I want to say 1985 but it's 2021. She opens the folder with my last tests. It opens on the pictures the last nurse showed me. I look away; please don't mess with my memory test! "Do you know what happened to you?". I got struck in the head with a lousy ball in a game I shouldn't have played. She finally holds up a new sheet with 9 pictures & asks me if I remember the ones I saw 1 hour ago. I repeat "A cup, keys & a bird". It doesn't feel like a victory.
I walk out of the E&A 3 hours later. I look at the windows to my right. A thin bent old man covered in tattoos drinking out of a cup on a hospital bed. Upstairs, an old woman with messy hair disappears behind the curtains with a walker. I breathe in the chilly evening air & get in the taxi. I look at the empty vomit cup I've been carrying all afternoon. The logo of a new client I bid for & won recently. The job manager is micro-managing me right now so I'm not as inspired. I wonder about keeping the cup for the pens on my desk. A cup, a key & a bird. How do I get it out of my head now?
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