A Horse With No Name Pt 01

I want to start by thanking BlackRandi for giving me the opportunity to participate in the Magical Mystery Tour event and for editing my story for me. I just hope that this story is worthy of the work Randi put into correcting my many mistakes.

This story has connections to three previous stories of mine. Two of them are pretty obvious, but the third not so much. I am curious to see if anyone can identify that third story.

Part 1

There are aspects of what happened that will never be clear to me. I only know that I am lucky to be here today. It wouldn't convey the impact this has had on my life if I were just to tell you what happened, therefore I will narrate this story the way I lived it. I have written my story as accurately as I possibly can, trying to recount conversations to the best of my memory. The dialog may not be word for word, but I think I was reasonably accurate in at least paraphrasing those conversations.

Chapter 1 - The Chill

I felt a stinging burning sensation all over my body that didn't, at first, make any sense to me. When I opened my eyes it was dark, but somehow it took me only a few seconds to realize that I was lying face down in a blanket of snow. I tried to stand up, but a sudden screaming pain in my head brought me back down to my knees.

It took a moment for the pain to subside enough for me to get to my feet, where I found myself standing in a foot or more of snow in what appeared to be an irrigation ditch in the middle of a field, and I had no idea how I got there. It was snowing hard, with a stiff wind making the flakes sting as they hit me. As if all of that that wasn't problematic enough, I was also completely naked.

I was confused and trying to make sense out of what was happening when I saw a car's taillights moving away from me. For some reason, the image of a Toyota Camry popped into my head. The thought didn't stay with me long, as my survival instinct kicked in. Without consciously thinking about it, I knew that I was in grave danger if I didn't get help soon.

In spite of the pain in my head, I started walking toward the spot where I had seen the car taillights. I guessed the distance to be about 150 yards. If you have never tried walking naked through a foot of snow, I wouldn't recommend it. I could still feel the burning sensation from the contact of the snow against my skin as my legs were not yet numb. As I walked, I began to have problems getting my left leg to move as it should and the farther I walked the more unstable it became. Several times my leg collapsed under me causing me to fall and making my journey all the more difficult. Luckily, I was able to follow the tracks in the snow back to the road. Tracks? Were they mine? I guessed they had to be, otherwise, how did I get out into that field in the first place? I noticed that there were more tracks than I could have made myself, but there was nobody else there with me. Why would someone leave me naked in the middle of a field during a snowstorm? Nothing made sense to me.

By the time I made it to the road my feet were completely numb, and my legs were beginning to lose their feeling, too. I was having difficulty thinking and assumed that the cold was affecting my brain. The only thought in my aching head was that I had to get help, or very soon I would die. I looked in both directions along the road but could see nothing but blowing snow. I could no longer make myself walk, and even if I could, I had no idea which direction to go to find help. I was sure that I was going to die and was just about to lie down on the road and wait for the end, when I spotted lights off in the distance. I wasn't sure for a few seconds if it was a car, but soon I could see the headlights. I raised my arms over my head, well actually only managed to get my right arm over my head. My left decided to go on vacation as my left leg had. It just didn't want to cooperate.

I was wondering if the driver of the car would see me when suddenly red and blue lights and a bright strobe light began flashing on the roof. The last thing I remembered clearly was someone jumping out of the car and shouting, "What the hell are you doing out here with no clothes on?"

After that, I only remember flashes of things. Finding myself in the back of a police car with a blanket wrapped around me. A police officer was asking me questions that I didn't understand. I heard the other officer say, "We can't wait for the ambulance; we have to get him to the hospital as quickly as possible. He's probably suffering from hypothermia right now. Tell dispatch we'll be coming in on River Road and have the ambulance meet us on the way into town."

Chapter 2 - The Hospital

My next conscious moment was when I awoke in a hospital bed. A nurse was standing with her back to me, and I tried to get her attention, but I couldn't make myself speak. Eventually, the nurse turned and saw that I was awake and she smiled at me. I think she said something to me, but I have no idea what she said as I seemed to have fallen back to sleep, or blacked out.

The next time I woke, there was a nurse in the room again, but I had no idea if it was the same nurse as before. I had no idea if it was even the same day. There was a big guy, dressed in a brown suit and carrying an overcoat over his arm, standing by the door. He was well over six feet tall and built like a brick building. When he noticed that I was awake, he came over to the bed.

"Good. You're finally awake." I'm Lieutenant Richard Hanratty of the Brodricksburg Police Department, and I'd like to ask you a few questions if you feel up to it," the big man said.

I thought about how I felt, and I didn't feel much of anything. I felt no pain or discomfort at that moment. I opened my mouth to tell him I would answer his questions but no words came out. In fact, I am not even sure my mouth opened. I tried to speak a couple more times but still could not seem to generate even the slightest sound. Finally, I just gave up and shook my head.

"Okay, we'll try again later," Lieutenant Hanratty said, and then he turned and left the room.

When he was gone, the nurse came over to the bed and told me that the doctor would be in to see me shortly.

After that, I don't know how much time went by. I would occasionally wake up or regain consciousness or whatever it was that I was doing, and would try to speak to whoever was in the room with no results and then I would go off to sleep again. Several times when I woke up, I saw Lieutenant Hanratty in the room. I wondered if each time I saw him was a different day or was it all one long day.

Finally one morning, and I know it was morning because the nurse in my room said, "Good morning," to me when she saw that I was awake, I felt like something had changed. I didn't drift off again. A nurse brought me a breakfast tray and rolled the tray table over to the bed.

I managed to feed myself in spite of the fact that my left hand didn't seem to work as it should. Although I didn't know what was wrong with me, I felt that I must be getting better because I ate everything on my tray even, though it didn't taste good. If you have ever eaten hospital food, you understand.

I tried to speak to the nurse, but I still couldn't make the words come out, but this time I was able to make a little noise.

While I was eating the nurse had turned on the television, and I soon found myself watching the morning talk shows. I tried for a few minutes to remember what happened to me and how I ended up naked in the middle of a farm field during a snowstorm, but when no memories of the event came to me, I gave up and watched television instead.

Late that morning, maybe around eleven o'clock, Lieutenant Hanratty appeared. I think he was surprised to see me sitting up in bed watching television. He approached the bed and asked, "Are you ready to answer some questions?"

I tried to speak but again was only able to make a squeaking noise. Lieutenant Hanratty looked annoyed. I raised my right hand and made a writing motion with it. Lieutenant Hanratty handed me his notepad and pen.

I was surprised at how difficult it was to write, but I did manage to scribble, "I can't talk. I'll try to write the answers to your questions."

"Okay, we'll try it that way," Lieutenant Hanratty said. "What's your name and where are you from?"

I had the pen in my hand and was ready to write, but I had no idea what the answers to his questions were. I concentrated as hard as I could, but nothing would come to me. Finally, I had to write, "I don't know."

I think I saw disbelief in his eyes when he read my answer.

"You don't know who you are or where you come from?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"What do you remember?"

It was at that point that I realized that I couldn't remember anything before finding myself in the snow, so that is what I wrote.

Lieutenant Hanratty didn't look pleased. He said, "We'll continue this conversation later," and then he left, leaving me alone in the room.

For a moment, I thought it was amusing that I had drawn a blank when the lieutenant asked me my name, but when I still wasn't able to remember it after he had left, I began to get scared. Why hadn't I realized that I didn't know who I was earlier? I reviewed everything that I could remember looking for any clues as to what had happened to me. That's when I realized how little I did remember. I could remember nothing before finding myself naked in the snow. I didn't know my name. I didn't know how old I was and I could not see my own face in my mind's eye.

I managed to press the call button on the bed but was unable to answer the nurse when she responded over the intercom. Five minutes later, a nurse came to see what I wanted. With a great deal of effort and using only my right hand, I managed to communicate to the nurse what I wanted. When she returned ten minutes later with pen and paper, I wrote, "Who am I?" on the paper and handed it to her.

"I don't know," she said. "You had no ID on you when they brought you in. Don't you know who you are?"

I shook my head. "Where am I?" I wrote.

"You're in Brodricksburg Memorial Hospital," the nurse responded.

I had no recollection of the name Brodricksburg. Was I from this city or was I just visiting? I wrote, "Where is Brodricksburg?"

"In Pennsylvania," she said.

I knew that name. Was that important? "Philadelphia?" I wrote.

"About fifty miles southwest of us, the nurse said.

I was able to visualize a map, and I knew where Pennsylvania was, but then I knew all of the states on the east coast. The more I thought about it, the more I remembered. I remembered the largest cities and the capitals of each state. I was starting to get excited until I realized I couldn't remember if I had ever been in any of those places and I still didn't know who I was.

The nurse, seeing that I was upset said, "I am going to ask Dr. Colson to come talk to you." Then she left.

A few minutes after the nurse left a man came into the room. He was big like Lieutenant Hanratty, but it wasn't him. I wrote "Dr. Colson?" on my paper and showed it to the man.

"No. I am Captain Brian Hobbs, Brodricksburg Police Department," he said. "Still can't talk?"

I shook my head.

"Have you managed to remember your name?"

I shook my head again.

"Okay, tell me exactly what you do remember," Captain Hobbs said.

I wrote it all down as best I could for Captain Hobbs. I started from my first recollection of finding myself lying face down in the snow in the middle of a field, seeing a Toyota Camry driving away and then following the tracks in the snow back to the road and finally being rescued by the police.

Captain Hobbs was busy making notes as he read my story.

"How did you know the car you saw was a Toyota Camry?" Captain Hobbs asked.

"I don't know. At the time I was sure about that. I am not sure of anything anymore," I wrote.

Before Captain Hobbs could ask another question, the nurse returned with a man dressed in blue scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck. I held up my sheet of paper again.

"Yes, I am Dr. Colson," he said. Then he looked over at Captain Hobbs and said, "How are you, Brian?"

"I'm good, Doc, how about you?"

"I'm fine. I saw Carrie this morning. She looks great," Dr. Colson said. "Looks like motherhood agrees with her."

"It does," Captain Hobbs said. "Brian junior is only six months old, and Carrie is talking about getting pregnant again."

"How do you feel about it?" The doctor asked.

"I am all for it," Captain Hobbs said. "Doc, our friend here seems to have forgotten his name. Can you help us out?"

The doctor looked a little embarrassed. "Brian, I'm sorry, but I can't discuss a patient's condition with you unless I have their permission to release that information to you."

I managed to get the doctors attention and then I wrote, "If you explain my condition to me I would be willing to let the Captain listen in."

"Would that work for you, Brian?" Dr. Colson asked Captain Hobbs.

"That works for me."

"Okay, then Mr. ... Oh, what shall we call you?"

"We usually refer to an unidentified person as John Doe," Captain Hobbs said.

I didn't like the idea of being called John Doe, and I guess it showed in my facial expression.

"Don't like John Doe?" Captain Hobbs asked. "You're probably right, under the circumstances we should think of a different name for you. Pick a name for yourself."

I wrote, "What do you mean by under the circumstances?"

"We need to keep you safe," Captain Hobbs said.

"Safe from what?" I asked.

"Safe from whoever attacked you," Captain Hobbs said.

"Safe from whoever attacked me?"

"We'll talk about that later," Captain Hobbs said. "So, pick a name."

"How about Ben Franklin for a name?" I wrote.

"Why Ben Franklin?" Captain Hobbs asked.

"Don't know. I guess I thought of Franklin because we're near Philadelphia," I wrote.

"You can remember Ben Franklin and Philadelphia, but you can't remember your own name?" Captain Hobbs asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"That's not surprising, given your injuries," Dr. Colson said.

I wrote, "My injuries?"

"Let me explain, Ah... Mr. Franklin," Dr. Colson said and then chuckled. "Sorry, but thinking of you as Ben Franklin struck me funny. Okay, back to your injuries. You were brought into the hospital on Sunday, January 25th, at 3:30 AM. When you were admitted, you were suffering from acute hypothermia and severe head trauma. Your injury was caused by blunt force trauma. In other words, you received a blow to the right side of your head which was of sufficient force that it fractured your skull and caused a piece of your skull about six square centimeters in size penetrated into the right temporal lobe of your brain.

"When the x-rays showed the damage to your skull we realized that we would need a brain surgeon to assess that damage and remove the skull fragment. We contacted Dr. Raj Beeni at Philadelphia General. After he had looked at your x-rays he determined that you needed surgery as soon as possible, but he didn't think that you could handle the trip down to Philadelphia, so we had a MedEvac helicopter fly, Dr. Benni, up here. Your surgery lasted from 5:45 AM until 11:40 AM. That was three days ago.

"What I found most interesting about your case was that you were brought into the hospital very near death from hypothermia, but in the end, it was the hypothermia that helped save your life. Because your body temperature was so low, there was less swelling of your brain that would normally be expected with an injury such as yours. Had your brain swelled much more than it did, the damage it would have caused would most likely have been fatal."

I grabbed a clean sheet of paper and started writing as fast as I could. "How did I get a head injury? Did I fall or bump my head somehow? Did this blow to the head cause me to strip naked and run out into the middle of a snowstorm?"

Dr. Colson read my note and passed it over to Captain Hobbs. "Your head injury was not caused by a fall, and it was not an accident. Someone hit you in the head with a hard blunt object with a great deal of force. I would have to believe that whoever did this to you was trying to kill you," Dr. Colson said.

"Someone tried to kill me?" I wrote. "Why?"

"We don't know who and we don't know why, yet," Captain Hobbs said. "We are hoping that you can help us figure that out."

"I don't know who did this to me and I certainly don't know why," I wrote.

Captain Hobbs looked at Dr. Colson. "How soon do you think he'll be able to remember what happened?"

"That's the problem. I don't know," Dr. Colson said, and then he looked at me. "I am not an expert on traumatic brain injuries or TBI. Your TBI seems to have caused focal retrograde amnesia, which affects your long-term memory. It may be short-term, and you may begin to remember things in a few days but then there may be some things that you will never remember. We will have to run some test to see how severe your TBI is before we can make any guess as to your long-term recovery."

I had a great deal of difficulty writing my next question. "Will I ever remember who I am?"

"I'm sorry, son, I just don't know the answer to that," was all that the doctor said.

"These tests, the ones you said you need to run, when will you do them?" Captain Hobbs asked.

"Dr. Benni is coming up tomorrow morning to see how ah... Mr. Franklin is doing. He is bringing Dr. William Patterson with him. Dr. Patterson is an expert in cases involving TBI, and he will do the tests," Dr. Colson said.

"What kind of tests?" I wrote.

"Dr. Patterson will ask you to perform a series of physical activities to assess the damage to your motor skills, and then he will ask you several questions to determine the extent of your memory loss. From those tests we can prescribe the types of therapy you will need," Dr. Colson said.

When Dr. Colson left the room, I asked Captain Hobbs what he meant when he said that I should choose a name other than John Doe to keep me safe.

"We think that whoever did this to you thinks you are dead and we want to keep it that for now. If your attacker is still in the area, we don't want him to hear that we have a John Doe in the hospital," Captain Hobbs said.

Captain Hobbs stood silently for a moment and then said, "We will find out who you are and who did this to you and why." Then he left.

I spent the rest of the day puzzling over Captain Hobbs' last words to me. It might seem that what Captain Hobbs said was intended to reassure me but the look on his face and the tone of his voice made it sound more like a threat. Was that because he didn't believe that I had amnesia or had I completely misread him?

Chapter 3 - The Test

When I woke up the following morning, I tried again, with no success, to remember who I was. I was very frustrated and depressed. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to discover that you didn't know who you were as if you never existed before that day. I felt that there were other issues that I needed to deal with, but whatever they were they weren't foremost in my mind.

It was about ten o'clock that morning when Dr. Colson came into my room with two other men. One man was short, maybe five feet four inches tall with a dark complexion and the other was a rather tall black man. Dr. Colson led them over to my bed and introduced them to me.

"This is Dr. Raj Beeni. He performed the surgery that saved your life," Dr. Colson said, referring to the shorter man, "and this is Dr. William Patterson. As I told you, Dr. Patterson is an expert on TBI," Dr. Colson said. "Gentleman, this is Benjamin Franklin." Dr. Colson said this with a sheepish grin on his face.