Sin... The Confessional

Forgive me Doctor, for I have Sinned.

It's been a while since I last wrote anything. I wonder why that is. Why am I missing those days? Why is there a blur where there should be a memory?

Has a five year old come along and rubbed it out, but not been quite thorough enough so there's still the smudge of thoughts left behind on the notepad of my mind?

It should be Wednesday, but it's not. I don't know, exactly, what day it is, but it's at least Saturday. Cheap Thrill Phil, that orderly of note to whom any small chance to humiliate a patient is a moment of personal glory, is on duty. He only works weekends.

I think that's the days when he's let out of his cage at the zoo. After all, with knuckles that almost scrape the floor and a body odour that could kill an Ox at twenty paces, even the gorillas would want some peace from one of their own.

But it should be Wednesday today.

Me and Bender Benny always played cards on a Wednesday. Chinese Patience or Rummy. The pack was missing two twos and all of the aces (that was Willow - she thought aces were evil), but we didn't mind. What difference did it make? Benny often forgot the difference between sevens and nines anyway. We made up the rules as we went along, with no two games being the same. Today should have been card day.

But it wasn't.

It was... somewhen else.

Where has the time gone, Doctor? Where have my days disappeared to, to leave behind this grey stain in my head? Is it the shadow of a memory, or the skid mark from whatever excrement your drugs leave behind. Has your treatment just failed to wipe the arse of my brain?

Sometimes, when you've forgotten something, if you don't really think of it, or you turn your head fast enough to catch the tail end, you can grasp at the memory and pull it back. You can reel it in like a pike fighting the line, regretting it had taken the bait. But not in this case. It's a smoke screen that I just can't see through.

And what was the bait, Doctor? What did you use to steal the memory away from me?

I don't suppose you need one, do you. This pond is ripe for fishing, and you can dip in anytime, knowing you'll always catch a bite.

We're like lobsters in a tank. You can point to one of us and tell the waiter - or orderly in this case - "I want that one."

Waiter/orderly. Fish hook/syringe. It's all the same. You say tomayto, I say comatose.

Do I want to remember? What was it about your treatment that took days, Doctor? What did you do that deleted time from my mind like a file from a folder? Was it you or I that scrubbed them out?

I wonder.

Forgive me, Doctor, for I am Sin.

But you know that.

Don't you.