Casehistory: Laura

A short story of a 17-year-old girl Laura who has lost all her memory after a severe car accident.

The story is based on the poem Casehistory: Alison

written by UA Fanthorpe

(She looks at her photograph)

I would like to have known

My husband's wife, my mother's only daughter.

A bright girl she was.

Enmeshed in comforting

Fat, I wonder at her delicate angles.

Her autocratic knee

Like a Degas dancer's

Adjusts to the observer with airy poise,

That now lugs me upstairs

Hardly. Her face, broken

By nothing sharper than smiles, holds in its smiles

What I have forgotten.

She knows my father's dead,

And grieves for it, and smiles. She has digested

Mourning. Her smile shows it.

I, who need reminding

Every morning, shall never get over

whatI do not remember.

Consistency matters.

I should like to keep faith with her lack of faith,

But forget her reasons.

Proud of this younger self,

I assert her achievements, her A levels,

Her job with a future.

Poor clever girl! I know,

For all my damaged brain, something she doesn’t:

I am her future.

A bright girl she was.

One

It was a gloomy raining day when I recovered my conscience in the town’s hospital. The moment when I opened my eyelid, I thought the world has never been so pure and empty before. Indeed, the wall, windows and the floor in the room all had a natural colour of blankness, which made me feel as if I have been reborned again.

‘ Oh, dear, finally, you are awake! Are you alright, Laura?’ A fragile woman with a curly blonde hair spoke gently next to me. Although she had a face of a kind stranger, I could clearly recall the familiarity of her mild voice and her almost motherly formality.

While the gentle woman waited patiently for my response. I waited with both confusion and fear as if a lost child in the midst of nowhere.

Where is this place? Who is this kind woman? Who am I?

Have I really been re-borned again, or simply been abandoned by the previous world of where I once lived?

Two

                                     

‘My name is Laura White, I am seventeen and studying music in the town’s Sixth Form College. I love Beethoven's classical music, and hope to be a pianist myself one day. My parents told me that I lost my memory because of a severe car accident, while I was driving to college one morning’. I was memorizing my own profile in the Living room when my mum called my unfamiliar name.

Casting the old memory behind, I walked upstairs quickly.

Mum was in my bedroom cleaning my piano carefully when I walked in. She lifted her head up promptly, and looked startled in a second. ‘Would you grab the fabric covering in the garden? your piano is getting dusting.’ her voice sounded tired.

‘But I can’t play it if we cover it with a heavy cloth everyday.’ My voice was as weak as a whisper. Even after a week, I was afraid to say that I still regarded my own mother as a most familiar stranger.

She stopped wiping the keys, and gently looked into my eyes. ‘You would enjoy learning volin more, my dear.’

***

The garden was impressively big, yet I had a feeling that it missed something each time I walked into this place. Maybe my old memories were disturbing me again. However, instead of burying them again in the deep side of my heart as I have previously done many times,this time, I decide to let my own ‘imagination’ run wild

Under the summer afternoon light, I visualized dozen types of flowers were growing next to the lawn-lilies, roses, tulips and many more. The way in which their natural glamour combined with the peaceful sunlight, have made the garden an oasis of life and hope.

‘What takes you so long?’ Mum’s curious voice broke my confused fantasy. I picked up the cloth from the ‘dried garden’ and handed it to her.

‘How about setting out some benches in the garden? It’s summer time.’

‘ No.’ I smiled. ‘ Let’s plant some flowers, mum.’

Three

So, my piano had been covered by the thick fabric covering for almost two months, since I have been gently advised by my mother that it would only do me good.

‘I have consulted your doctor about how to improve your health.’ My mother’s gentle voice appeared in my head again. ‘ The doctors said your constant headaches are due to your remained memories. Laura, I missed the ‘old you,’ the forever adorable girl playing piano heartily on the stage. Yet I am afraid we have to help you to cast your old memories away for the sake of your own health.’

This apologetic confession made me accept my own fate, yet the temptation to lay my hand once again on the smooth keyboard; to hear the beautiful melody of the instrument were too great to resist.

I know, the ‘old me’ are just lurking beneath my dusted old memory.

I know, there are alternatives.   

***

I tried to fasten my footsteps each time I walked along the music corridor. I tried to do it today as usual, until I spotted that ‘familiar’ elegant piano inside one of the music practise room again.

I did not know why I just turned on the door handle as if the figure of the piano was some kind of irresistible magnet that is physically attracting me to its side. The feeling was so compelling that I eventually gave in, and  walked into the room as if I was acting in a watched movie.

I lightly touched one of the key, another and another, but the melody was scattered, as if a broken glass. I frowned; my head aches a little, but not too much. I started again, and pressed several keys at once. They sounded as awful as the thunder. I renewed my confidence; my old memories seemed to give me some inspiration, this inspiration did not provide me with the instant skill to play as a pianist, yet it stabilized my determination and dream to re-learn piano again.

Nevertheless, I was a pianist. Indeed, I was still the ‘old me.’

Four

Dear the Old Laura:

‘I have dominated your mind and conscience, yet I share your once glamorous dream, and great perseverance. I will determine your future, but your past have changed me. I hope one day, two of my minds will emerge into one, so that I will no longer have to pretend I am the ‘new soul’’ derived from the ‘old one.’

Reviews

[Norman 223]

This is a remarkably moving story that effectively illustrates the fragmented memories that can appear as flashbacks. I have seen it it cases of Alzheimers Disease, where these episodes can take on an amazing clarity and then vanish.
Your final section, however is one of hope and acceptance of a renewed, but possible revised life style.

Impressively astute writing. Jessie

Norman