Forced Memories

I hate daytime television; but when you're stuck in the fracture clinic at 10 o'clock in the morning, resting your brightly coloured cast on the tops of worn out chairs, you don't have much of a choice. The elderly grand-people that unfortunately make up the majority of the patients seem to enjoy antics of the over-excitable host. Whilst the younger patients seemed to be merely enjoying their day off school; their annoyed parents sat next to them, restlessly looking up from their aged travel magazine to the mobile phone by their side.

I looked around the sparsely decorated and populated room. The walls were painted medical white, and scattered with various educational posters; everything from the levels of alcohol to guidelines for pregnant women. I'd memorised all of them, I'd been in here so long. Sometimes I sat in different places to mix it up a bit, and pretend I've never seen them before. Anything not to remember what had happened; something hard in these monotonously permanent rooms.

I stopped myself from running my hand along the rough wall behind me through boredom. I wanted to check my messages on my mobile phone, or listen to some music, something to pass the time, but memories of her still clung to them; no matter how hard we tried. Memories of her that came without reason or remorse. Ones I didn't want to revisit.

First kiss outside the cinema, even after we both hated the film.

After killing a few minutes by browsing through an ancient gardening. magazine, I wondered what my arm would look like after escaping from its plastic prison. Knowledgeable family members retold old horror stories of blackened, swollen limbs; whilst the younger what size scar I would have. My guess was that my arm would look exactly the same, just with three tiny marks where the metallic pins used to be. That's what the nurse who screwed the pins up and out of my wrist said so, so I'm inclined to believe her. She did say it wouldn't hurt though, but I guess white lies don't really count. Thankfully, the body can't remember the dull scrapping of metal on bone, but the mental pictures told more than enough words; most of them adjectives.

She broke her arm once; falling from her horse to the cold, hard ground.

‘'Daniel Winters?'', the male nurse called from the next room. I ignored the irritated looks from both middle-aged and old, and followed the sound of his voice. I had seen this nurse before, but had never spoken to him. His deep voice and accent sometimes made his words hard to understand, but I already knew all the questions: home address, date of birth, local doctor. You get asked these every-time you go for an x-ray, or an operation, or to get a cast put on, to get a cast removed or anything else. Throughout these inconvenient weeks I always got full marks on these questions.

She told me to skip classes, but I never could, no matter how much I wanted to.

''I take it you've seen one of these before?'', the nurse said, brandishing a cast cutting saw. I nodded, and he assured me that he wouldn't chop my hand off, and that I should think about something else. With the events of the last few weeks though; getting my hand chopped off may have been preferable than returning to the memories of them. These last few weeks have made me think deeper than I've ever wanted to.

She told me that I think about myself too much.

Lately, I’ve been feeling like a sprinter. Training endlessly for the big day, the rest of my life put on hold, all for these moments that could change me and everything around me, focusing on them, gearing my life to them, ignoring everything else, until: finished. The end. Time to go home; back to your normal life.

Walking home under dim streetlights.

The over achievers will prophesize second place as the worst position to finish. The first loser. The best of the rest. Those who were not as blessed, and doomed to finish in the last positions, will say their position worst. Their dreams crushed and efforts laughed at. But what about the ‘achievers’? What about the fourth places? The B minus grades? The seven out of ten’s ? The winner's go home happy with themselves, and the last go home telling themselves that it never really mattered in the first place. But it mattered to me.

She said I was brave when I told her how much she mattered to me.

Whilst the friction of the saw heated up my wrist, and the nurse got on with his job, memories flowed past. Memories of ordinary grades for extraordinary times. The crushing of an unrealistic dream, only unachievable in hindsight. Results day tears and confusion. Rushed second, but respectable, options. Sacrificed wrists for a team that no one really cared about, or for. Amateur ice and insensitive prodding. A Midnight hospital visit. Changed plans. That girl. That conversation.

It's funny how life gives you one chance to get it right, but forever to think about what you should have said. How you should have said it. What you should have done when things don’t go the way you planned. Plan A never fails, and Plan B never even existed. It's only in endlessly repeating hindsight we fail.

Walking away from me, trailing one hand along barred fences, and putting her pink headphones in with the other. Never looking back.

The nurse had finished, the doctor came in to inspect my left arm, looking slightly skinnier, and with three, tiny marks where the metallic pins used to be. I think the doctor told me he was happy with the recovery of my wrist. He wrote something down on my physiotherapy sheet, exercises to do and dates for check-ups. I wasn't listening. 

I was still thinking about that conversation. And that girl.