Читать книгу Becoming Amy - Julia Solovieva - Страница 4

I wake up. I am lying on the bed in my windowless room, heavy from the drug-induced sleep. The light is on. I look at my watch – it is 11 a.m. As I sit up, feeling weird and trying to figure out if my dialogue with Amy was real, the door opens slightly and the cafeteria woman peeks in.

Good, you are awake, – she smiles, as she enters with the food tray. – I figured you must be hungry, after all, you missed lunch and dinner yesterday.

I do not really feel hungry, but as she is putting the tray on the table I smile back and thank her politely. She throws one final look at me – do I see pity in her eyes? – and leaves the room.

I am not hungry, but it seems to me that some food might help fight the heaviness and weirdness in my body, so I bring the tray to my bed and start eating. It does help me feel a little better, at least physically. Mentally, emotionally I am a mess. I do not know what to think or feel, I do not know who I am supposed to be and I have absolutely no idea what is right and what is wrong. I wish there was some king of sign, something to indicate the direction I am supposed to go in, something to – I realize that this is the one I want most – to take all the responsibility off me. And just as I am thinking that, Doctor Jones enters the room. She is not smiling, she looks quite serious and even a little bit sad. But when she speaks, her voice is still pleasant, even though I hear some cold notes in it, which were never present before, no matter how I behaved.

Good morning, Amy.

Good morning, – I do not even feel the urge to say that it is not my name anymore. Maybe, I am just tired, or, maybe, I am getting used to it.

How are you feeling?

Fine, considering…

You gave us quite a scare yesterday, – she says accusingly and, of course, I immediately feel guilty.

I am sorry, – I say, and I do feel sorry, or at least I am feeling it now.

It is not your fault… – she makes a pause and adds, – I hope. I came here to talk to you, and I want you to be completely honest with me. I will also be honest with you, but if you do not tell me what is bothering you I will not be able to give you answers, you understand?

I nod.

Good. So, are you ready to talk, Amy?

Yes, Doctor.

She takes the chair from the table and puts it next to my bed. As she sits down I notice a note pad and a pen in her hands. She follows my look.

I will be taking some notes, if you don’t mind.

I am not sure if I do not, but then it seems rather innocent. Maybe, after all, Doctor Jones is my “sign”, someone who will guide me in the right direction and take at least some of the burden off me. I am officially done fighting now. So, I say:

No, I don’t.

All right. Well, Amy, tell me please, what was yesterday all about?

I knew that was coming, but still I am not quite prepared. Nevertheless I decided to tell the truth, so that is what I will do. And I spill all my guts to Doctor Jones, there and then. I tell her about the picture of the girl in the street, how it felt much more familiar than all the other pictures, how it felt like me, and other pictures did not, and how I was scared that they were trying to persuade me that I am someone else, not who I really am. Doctor Jones looks attentively at me as I am spilling all the crazy on her. She does not make any notes, she just holds the note pad and nods occasionally. When I finally stop to take a breath before I start spilling another portion of crazy on her, she says:

Has it occurred to you that you might have imagined this picture? – her voice is very calm, her face betrays no emotions, and it seems that she is not that impressed but what I have just told her. – I chose the pictures for that test myself, I have looked through them several times. There is no such picture there, and it could not appear there by accident, because I double- and triple-checked everything. I am a little bit of a control freak, – she smiles with the corners of her lips. She seems to be relaxing now, already dismissing my nightmare for some kind of amnesia-induced stress.

It has. But it is not just the photo…

I tell her about the dream, about the girl in the crowd on the street and how the picture seemed the continuation and confirmation of the dream. She nods again and still looks unimpressed. I am beginning to feel somewhat offended – I went through all this emotional turmoil, through all the fear and doubt, and she looks as if I am telling her what I had for breakfast this morning.

Why would I see this dream, and then, ok, let’s say, imagine the same picture during the test?

There can be various reasons. You could have seen such a girl… Anywhere, really. Maybe shortly before your accident. And for some reason this is a memory that resurfaced first. It may also be, so to speak, a projection of your own emotional state. You feel lost, don’t you? You are struggling to find out who you are, and are afraid never to find out? The woman in the dream called you a nobody, didn’t she? Isn’t that what you are afraid of?

It kind of is, and I admit it to her. It all seems so easy and so not scary when Doctor Jones spells it out for me. Finally, I decide to tell her about Amy number two. This at last seems to pique her interest a little bit. When I finish, before she breaks it down into simple facts again, I immediately ask:

So, is she a projection, too?

Well, even if you choose not to believe me when I say that we have no other thin blond girls apart from you in this facility… Didn’t you say that you heard no footsteps, or no door opening or closing?

I did, but I was also deep in my thoughts at the moment, I could have totally missed it.

You could… But there are still a lot of questions left. Why would the girl leave in the middle of your conversation?