I was floating peacefully. The ground was a few meters below me, just as it should be. The air was warm, the sky was pink, the grass was blue. I was relaxed and happy. All was well.
"Hello?"
This wasn't right. Squeaky male voices didn't belong here. There were no people in my world, and I didn't want any.
"Come on, wake up, man! I don't have all day." The speaker sounded a bit annoyed.
Reluctantly, I opened my eyes very slightly and immediately regretted it. My surroundings looked suspiciously like a hospital and I wished I was still floating above beautiful blue grass. I tried to force myself back into the peaceful dream world, but as usual, it didn't work. Gravity was functioning again, and it pressed my back into an uncomfortable hospital bed.
"Ah, there you are. About time. You know your name?"
The person perpetrating the squeaky male voice looked vaguely like a doctor, but his facial expression was one of a fugitive on the run. His face was pudgy and sweaty, his voice was too high pitched and he seemed too young for the job.
"Name?"
I was honestly confused. I was lying in a bed. Someone behaving like a doctor was standing next to me. It seemed I was a patient. Why was my name important? Would my treatment be different if my name was Paul or Hieronymus? Why was I a patient, anyway? Something must have happened, but I couldn't remember what. Part of the reason was that I couldn't be bothered to even think about it. I still wanted my blue grass dream back. I realized how much I disliked gravity; floating was just so much better.
"Yes, name. You know what a name is, right? Come on, I don't have all day for this. I have hundreds of patients waiting."
He looked totally stressed out. Admittedly, hundreds sounded like a lot. He was probably lying, but I didn't really care.
"Ah, yeah, my name," I answered, mostly to keep the conversation going and not appear uncooperative.
"Okay, buddy. You have amnesia, but in most cases, it's only temporary. Don't worry now."
I realized that if a totally overworked doctor tells me not to worry 'now,' I should have been worried, but I wasn't. I felt great, except for wishing I could get back to that pink sky and blue grass again. I decided to take his advice and worry later.
"Ah, okay," I said, mostly to get rid of the guy and this conversation. I decided I didn't like either.
"Nurse Peters. Amnesia. Keep an eye on him."
He was suspiciously quick with his diagnosis, probably because his brain had already left the room and was on its way to the next patient.
I looked around, hoping for a pretty nurse to cheer me up, but saw instead what looked like a Bulgarian Olympic weight lifter. As soon as the female mountain of muscles moved out of the way, I noticed that my whole family had been hidden behind her all the time. They all watched me intently, but without undue concern. They had obviously listened to the rather brief conversation with the doctor and seemed deep in thought. Finally, my wife Dani snapped out of it and moved towards me, obviously intending to hug me. She seemed to reconsider, though, and stopped before she reached the bed.
"Me, Dani," she explained, while pointing at her chest. "You, Tom. Tom," she repeated while pointing at me. "We married. Married. Damn. How do I explain married?" she asked while looking at the rest of my family for help.
She obviously had at best a rather fuzzy understanding of amnesia. I just waited for what was next, trying not to laugh.
"You know, married? You and me?" She looked around helplessly again before finally making some sort of crude fucking gesture and pointing at me and herself again.
"Mom, he's got amnesia. He's not suddenly turned into a complete idiot or a baby," my daughter Emily pointed out while she moved to my wife's side.
"Oh, really? So you know what 'married' means?" she asked me.
I just nodded. I knew what being married meant. As my mind became clearer, I thought about the situation. Why was I in a hospital bed? Why did my family seem so damn unconcerned? Why was my nurse so damn ugly? It all made no sense. I decided to continue the amnesia game for a while, just to get some information.
"Your brakes failed, Dad. You should have repaired them yourself. I told you again and again not to go to Joe's," my son Max explained as he walked towards me.
I just nodded. This was interesting. Max had asked for money a few weeks ago, as he usually did whenever we met. I had jokingly told him to service my brakes and earn a few bucks. Of course, useless as he was in practical things, I wouldn't have let him touch my car in any case. As I expected, he just flipped me the bird, told me to take the car to Joe's Automotive Excellence and give him the damn money. I actually thought Joe was a good idea. I had heard good things about him and I wasn't completely happy with the much bigger Lebowski Total Auto Service place that I had used before. Why was he now lying about his advice to go to Joe? What if whatever happened was no accident? In that case, my own son was obviously involved. The thought depressed me.
"The most important thing is that you get well, dad," Emily joined the chorus of unconcerned family members. Their reaction made me think about my standing in the family. Did they all hold me in contempt? Had they just hidden it well, or had I managed to ignore it? Was I maybe just more perceptive after whatever had happened, apparently as a result of a brake malfunction? In any case, my family seemed disappointingly underwhelmed upon learning I might have almost died. I clearly needed to reevaluate my whole situation, and this fake amnesia might be just the tool I needed.
"Where is he?" someone boomed from behind my family, and I immediately knew that bass voice belonged to my business partner Mike. Almost two meters tall, wide as a city block, a brash personality and that voice that could make a drill instructor shut up in awe, it turned out he wasn't too bad as a salesman. I took care of the customers who disliked his style and preferred a calmer way. Generally, though, the decision to make him my co-CEO had been a reasonably good one. It wasn't perfect, but I hoped it would eventually give me a lot more free time. So far, that hadn't happened, but I was still optimistic. The fact that he had the potential to be good for my business and my work-life balance didn't mean I had to like him, though.
"How is my best buddy in the whole world?" he continued to boom, seemingly pushing my family out of the way just by the force of his sound waves. What he said was a clear lie, we both knew it but it would have been rude to disagree. Besides which, I had amnesia. Or something.
Instead, I nodded noncommittally and realized this was the way our conversations had been going recently. At some point, it had become too exhausting to reply to Mike. Even friendly conversations had felt like fights, just because of the level of volume and testosterone I had to compete with. In recent months, I had simply agreed with him on most things just to get it over with. I realized I had let myself be dominated by Mike, and I realized he was a bully. Something had to change, and this fake amnesia might be just the chance to do it. Nobody would question my changed behavior.
He looked like he wanted to hug me, which was usually an attempt to crush my rib cage. I held up my hand to stop him and miraculously, he considered my opinion and actually stopped. That this was worth noticing was another sign of how self-centered my business partner actually was.
"I understand, buddy. We need to talk business later, though. Some things need to be..."
"Mike," my wife interrupted him. "Tom is suffering from amnesia."
