The Great Wall of China17. The Doctors

The next time I woke up, I knew where I was right away. I knew I was in a hospital, at least. I still had no idea where the hospital was or its name. It only took a second of consciousness for the next headache to arrive. But instead of fire, it was a dull throbbing headache. I could live with that.

A doctor came in with a clipboard and a long list of questions. The questions started out easy enough. I knew my name and how old I was. Fortunately, he never asked me what day it was. There were flash cards with shapes and colors. Those were easy. I always had good grades in geometry class, but there was no trapezium on the cards. I don't know those in Chinese.

When Dr Huang asked me questions with both English and Chinese in the same sentence, I pointed out how that was kind of a clever trick to see if I noticed the difference, but asked him how he would know if I knew any Chinese. If I knew nothing in Chinese, that would only confuse me and tell him nothing. He stopped smiling and told me that the first time we did this test, I used Chinese almost as much as English. I then pointed out what was already obvious to him. I had no recollection of ever taking this test before.

When an older doctor came in, Dr Huang asked me why I was in the hospital. I described the accident as I remembered it and how I was brought into the hospital by ambulance along with Amy. When I asked them about Amy, they had no idea who I was talking about, which only made me fear the worst, but said they would look into it.

According to my story, I only had a few minor cuts from the accident. They were disinfected in the ER. Dr Chen asked me if I thought minor lacerations and abrasions would lead me to sleeping in a hospital bed with a towel on my head. It sounded kind of unlikely when he said it out loud. All of my limbs were intact and mobile. Nothing seemed to be broken. The only thing out of the ordinary was how I kept waking up without ever falling asleep and the steady drum beat in my head. Plus, my hair was wrapped up in a towel.


Edit: I just realized this is #17, posted on the 17th, 2017. That is purely coincidental. 17 has no particular meaning in Chinese, but Noah's flood started and ended on the 17th.