Citrus | ONC 2024 ✔️

8: Unlike You

Light footsteps called for my demise. There was the opening of a door, a shut, and June appeared ahead of me, turned toward Mathew. She smiled a bit, and I sat up straighter, on the edge of my seat.

"Morgan is stable. He should be awake within an hour," June said. She turned to me. "How are you feeling, Oren?"

"Tired." I blinked sleep away. "And confused."

She left a deep pause like she was waiting for me to add something, the kind of dreary action my English teacher would perform while waiting for me to add specificity to an essay. The pause was draining, drying up all the moisture from the surrounding area. That might have been a good thing. I didn't feel like crying, and sugary sweet orange juice wasn't in sight. Life was as good as it could have been. Morgan would be up in a few. My brain was still intact.

Intact....

Sucking in a short breath, I readied the question. "How does that r-something amnesia work again?"

"You know what amnesia is?" I nodded, and June smiled a little. "Okay, so your brain is a big puzzle, right? Well, this type," she continued, "is like not being able to find a little puzzle piece in your brain. Your case appears to be temporary."

"Do you have an estimate?" I asked, adding, like I needed to clarify, "On how I'll be stuck like this."

"Dr. Ampelos would like to continue monitoring your progress to better determine if a further form of treatment is required," June explained, tone like soft rays of sunlight. "You are going to be just fine."

I furrowed my brows. Did she answer my question?

"You might even be gettin' some flashes of the accident." She took a step back. "Best be careful, though. Memory is very easy to mold."

Nodding, bits of my odd nickname drifted up, swirled, and dropped to the ground like autumn leaves. Memory was easily molded? Could my brain be trusted to fit the little puzzle piece back into place? The thing was worth mentioning regardless of the accuracy of whatever my brain decided to spit between the aftermath of the crash and the unsaid time I doubted would ever be clearly stated.

June spoke between the silence. "If you follow me, I can take you both to see him."

Mathew shot to his feet. Nothing rested in his arms except Morgan's bag and a bottle of water. If he had a mango smoothie between the tips of his fingers, his expression would have rested differently, more alive than anything I had ever experienced. Morgan could attest. Of course, he could, always.

Except, this hour had been an exception to always.

There would always be an exception to the rule.

Surrounding brown morphed into grayscale like a scene straight out of a horror movie save for the few nurses hustling, nearly running, about in the same blue as April. The color was as deep as the midnight sky but lighter than drowning in the same depth.

Would Morgan be the same tone of night? He was supposed to be the cusp between morning and afternoon. Imagining a dull sun was as impossible as a bad mango smoothie made by the right person with the right mangos. Morgan was all ripe.

Clicks reverberated in my eardrums.

The door swung open in a wide arc. Empty light scattered about the room, probably identical to the rooms beside it and beside those. That was how it was supposed to go with the hospital stretcher, IV drip, and various other medical devices also supposedly used for the sole purpose of smooth rolling hospital operation. An injured person always filed in the gaps, and Morgan was one of those injured people.