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Deleted Inventory

Prologue

It was really dark. I mean darker than any color or shade. It was like the other side of

the idea of darkness; at first I thought I was in a black hole which, to my surprise, I

remembered existed. I searched for the border, or a clue, or the limit of the darkness but it

made things worse. I thought I was moving my head to look around but I couldn't feel my

body. I tried to panic but there was just nothing in me that could panic, or scream, or cry. Ihad no voice, no body, nothing but my thoughts. I immediately tried to think of the last

thing I remembered. I started becoming aware that I could think but the fear scattered any

sense of self before it was assembled. I struggled to remember anything, anything, but instead

of remembering I started to feel something. It felt like a light had just hit me and there had

been music playing in my head the whole time. I waded in the stillness of my thoughts and

although it felt like I was dying, I stopped trying to live.

"Sir? Sir, don't move..." It was female.

"Just let him. Let him do what he needs to. He'll be sensitive to even our voices. It's a good

thing. Get up, young man. You're safe, warm. You're alive." The voice was old, late fifties.

There was gruffness, subtlety, and a something I couldn't identify. He was talking to me. Oh,

and I forgot I was dying.

"See? He's okay," He began to whisper to someone. I could hear his voice perfectly.

"Start the program, be ever so careful," Again with the subtlety.

"Doctor." I said. I could speak.

"You're a man. You're fifty, perhaps fifty nine? You have a clear set of strings in you, there.

Are your lips dry?" I asked. I wanted to focus on at least one thing. If I could bring myself

back from the edge of oblivion, or not, at least I could focus on someone who cares.

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"Yes, son, I'm a bit warm," Again with the damn subtlety. It was like he was avoiding saying

anything negative at all.

"I can hear you," I said, trying to sound desperately happy, optimistic.

"Say it that again, son? I'm not sure I caught that," So I repeated myself.

"I.. Can hear you," My voice fluctuated. I could barely feel where my throat should be. It

confused the hell out of me; not knowing if I was upside down, sideways or standing. I

started to panic.

"Stop! You're here!" He lost all of the subtlety and I tried to open my eyes. My head, or at

least what I thought was my head, hurt like hell. I tried harder to open my eyes and

suddenly, before I was even aware of it, I was looking at something.

"I can hear you. Thank you, Doc." It came out flat but I meant what I said.

"You can see me, too. Look at the person in front of you." Suddenly I got the sense that I was

doing something wrong. It felt like my body was moving without my command and it was

doing bad things. I calmed myselfdown this time, and looked right into the old man's eyes.

"You're... You're younger than I thought. You sound fucking ancient. Excuse me." I tried to

tap my head for swearing when everything I was looking at moved away from me.

"Whoa! It's okay! You can swear here." He said, uncomfortably. I could see him and the

female moving back to where they were.

"I need you to listen to me, okay young man?" He waited.

"Yes, of course, sir." I acknowledged.

"I want you-" He started to slow down his speech.

"To be very aware of your body." The finality of his sentence made me try even harder than I

would have. I stopped thinking and started feeling. Suddenly, like nothing else I've

experienced, my body came back to me. It was different, though. I tried once again to focus

on my neck and my vocal cords but they weren't there. I moved on to my abdomen and

although I could feel it, it was absolutely different than it should've been, or so I guessed.

Everything became natural very quickly, though, and I looked at the doctor. His face struck

something in me and I spoke.

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"Do I always forget?" But the words weren't mine. It came from me, I knew, but why would I

say it?

"I'm sorry?" He said, getting a bit closer.

"I... I don't know. Sorry." Was all I needed to say. The doctor stepped back and I could see he

was holding something and touching it frequently.

"You're going to slowly start feeling your body again. Just tell me when it's the most

comfortable for you," And so I waited. I could start to feel my skin but only lightly. I figured

a good jab to my hip would feel like a love tap. Finally the anaesthetic, or whatever it was,

alleviated enough for me to feel somewhat comfortable; I didn't want to push for anything

more in case I'd be in pain.

"There. That's fine." The doctor wasn't reading the handheld device any longer. He was juststaring at it blankly.

"What happened to me?" I asked, stretching my neck to the left and right to get a feel for my

bones. Oddly enough I didn't feel any limitations so I stopped. Too, I became aware that I

wasn't hungry, or full, or that I needed to go to the bathroom at all. In fact, it felt like

everything inside of me had been scooped out.

"Yes, your functions. Don't worry, you're fine. Young man, do you recall anything at all?" He

said, watching the device more thoroughly now.

"I... I uh... No. I know that... I know that I'm not a bad person," I said, optimistically. The

doctor smiled widely and I watched his crow's feet appear and disappear.

"No, you're not a bad person. Do you remember your name?" He looked up at me as he

spoke. I looked at him and tried my hardest to recall something, anything.

Nonsense started coming from my voice and instantly I could feel where memories were, but

not the contents of them. I noticed I could find language, though, and could see and feel the

English alphabet compose itself into words. Then I saw thousands upon thousands of wordsflick by. Within what felt like a minute I'd seen what I believed to be every word imaginable

in English. The idea of faces struck me as important as well, so I began to recall every type of

face I'd ever seen: cartoon characters, actors, people, animals, back to people and finally to

the woman who was standing next to the doctor. I recalled her name but not his.

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"What about eating? What about sex? Can I eat or sleep?!" I probed, trying to take things one

step at a time.

"You can sleep and there issomething close to eating and drinking that you can do. In fact

you'll need plenty of sleep to prevent a severe psychosis or dementia. Knowing you, though,

you'll be okay," He said, looking over his nose at me.

"Do you know me sir?" I asked. He began to loosen the steel rings around my arms.

"I know you well enough, yes. You can say we're family, technically." He smiled.

"You were extremely intelligent before the disease caught up with you. You were also kind

hearted and I can tell you are still that person," He finished loosening the rings and stepped

back. Theresa was ready to dash for the door. I stood up slowly, focusing very carefully and

calculating the distances I needed to move my limbs. Questions ran through my mind tooquickly for me to catch one and ask it.

"Take this glass," The doctor grabbed what looked like a whiskey cup and held it in front of

me. I couldn't question anything, I just did as I was told.

"Okay," I said. I grabbed it from in between his fingers and held it up to the light.

"I remember Vladimir. I remember exactly how this works now.