2007-12-21T16:02:00.001-05:00

“Excuse me Miss. Could you tell me where I am?”

“Do not be afraid, Jacob,” she repeated as she reached out stiffly and put her hand on top of mine. “Do I have your permission to ease your anxiety?”

I flinched from the touch of her cold hands. “Your hands are as cold as ice. Are you okay?”

Her expression did not change and she continued, “I am nurse model 8 – 4 – 8 – B with several built in neural inhibitors. With the contact I have made, with your permission, I can release them into your body to calm your emotional state and negate all of your pain symptoms.”

I slowly withdrew my hand from her. “I think I’ll be okay, but thank you for the offer. Please Miss Afor…eh…bee could you explain to me where I am? Is this some sort of technologically advanced hospital?” I recalled my father being wealthy. Wealthy enough to send me to a place like this if something bad were ever to happen.

“Do not be afraid, Jacob. Master Elizabeth will be here shortly to explain your situation.”

She continued to stare at me with her sculptured face and vacant eyes. I resisted an immediate urge to turn away and I looked back upon her. As I studied her eyes, I began to sense a peculiarity about them. They were large and blue and wedged in between a splatter of long black thick lashes, beautiful yet unexplainably unnerving. They looked at me and looked and looked. I was waiting for her eyes to close, the thick lashes to lock together like the mouth of a Venus fly trap, but they never closed; she never blinked. The eyes remained opened and continuing to stare; her head, slightly askew, perfectly still, pointed in my direction. The realization of this caused an involuntary shudder as I turned away from her to avoid her unnatural gaze and the uncomfortable silence.

Entry One

2007-12-12T12:25:00.000-05:00

I just had the kind of sleep so strong that the trail end of my dream was still banging in my head; the close up of an old man’s face, a paralyzing fear, a woman screaming. Where was I and how did I get here? The room itself was disorienting. There were no windows, nor clocks or tables. Light came from a ceiling with no visible fixtures or bulbs. Besides myself, there was only my bed, a simple bed and white like the stucco ceiling and four walls, bed sheets and pillow case. The white made it difficult to see where one thing ended and another began and this homogeny stretched to the corners of the long empty room.

It was a large room and the bed was placed in the centre like an operating table. My thin garments slit and bow tied at the back added to this suspicion, as did the smell, or better, lack of any smell – the air was clean, heavily oxygenated, pure.

I looked to my wrist hoping to see a watch, but my arms were bare. As I sat up to collect myself, I heard foot steps, a quiet, military, click-clunk-click-clunk echoing down the corridor outside. My heartbeat quickened to the increasing volume of the footsteps. When the door thudded opened, there was a blonde woman with large breasts, all cleavage, and blood red lips like a ripe, slit watermelon walking towards me. She was dressed in a form-fitting all white uniform and her face was expressionless. She had to be a nurse. It would agree with the bed and my garments and the air. But she had a queer sense about her that made me think otherwise. Nurses normally exuded warmth and attentiveness, after years of caring after the sick an aura of empathy hung around them. This nurse hadn’t even acknowledged my presence. She did not call out my name in greeting or ask about my well being. In fact, she walked by me without as much as a nod before she sat down on a chair (that I swear wasn’t there before), turned in a direction that was vaguely my direction and said, “Do not be afraid, Jacob.”

So Jacob was my name. Yes, Jacob. My memory started to jog. I had a family: an elder brother named Ben and a younger sister named Julia. My father was a rich businessman working with alternative power solutions and my mother died when I was young. But what did she die of? Where is my family now? I was stumbling. I couldn’t remember. The memories began to slip from my thoughts. God, why can’t I remember? I kept thinking, My name is Jacob. My name is Jacob, over and over again, hoping to rekindle some answers. Nothing came to mind.

The List

Entry One