What Happened?

I have to start in the middle of the story. I can’t start at the beginning because 1. I can’t remember it; 2. you wouldn’t like me; or 3. I am under a top-secret oath not to tell you. Unfortunately, this is now my life. If you ask me a question, three immediate answers pop into my slightly damaged brain. Maybe I have always been this way or maybe this is new. I really can’t remember farther than about a month ago. That’s when I woke up, in a hospital, with amnesia. Or at least, that’s what they tell me. Here’s what I know or what I think I know.

I woke up in a hospital bed attached to some tubes and in a lot of pain. It hurt to move my head; it hurt to move my legs; and it especially hurt to move my arms. Something started beeping and a nurse came in. She started asking me questions that I could not seem to answer. You know, this weren’t hard questions, like what is your name. When she asked me, I had three answers. My name is 1. Henry Jones or 2. John Doe or 3. Unicorn McFlappy. My head was fuzzy and at the time all three answers seemed possible. I guess I didn’t answer her out loud. I really couldn’t figure out which answer was true. Then she asked me if I knew where I was. I came up with either 1. in a hospital or 2. at home or 3. on the moon. Again, I thought I answered her but I guess I didn’t say anything out loud. She summoned the doctor who came in and asked me more questions. For some reason, I kept coming up with three answers and I really could not tell which was right but because they were different answers, I knew only one of them could be right. So, while I was deciding which answer was true, they were deciding that I was nonverbal. That’s when the doctor started talking slower to me, as if I were a child. He said, they do not know what happened to me. Someone called for an ambulance but didn’t escort me to the hospital. I didn’t have any identification on me and they have not been able to figure out who I was. Which, at the time, seemed like a relief to me because I didn’t know who I was either. I might still not, but I have a better guess now than when I first woke up. He continued that I had been in a coma for a couple of days and they will keep me for some more observation. But he was glad that I woke up. Hey, I was glad I woke up to. He also told me that everything that I came to the hospital with was in the backpack beside the bed. He was going to run some more tests on me, now that I was awake and hopefully, he can have some answers for me. I wonder if he would have answers in triplicate for me because I somehow have answers in triplicate.

After they left the room, I grabbed the backpack and looked inside. There wasn’t a wallet or anything else that could help me identify myself. There was a couple of small bags of chips, some candy bar wrappers, a half full water bottle and a little black notebook. I opened the notebook and there were all kinds of hand written notes in various angles across the pages. If I wrote this, I apparently did not know how to write on the lines. Some notes were parallel and some were perpendicular to each other. It made no sense. I must be a crazy person. Looking at the caddy wampus writing was making me feel slightly dizzy. I put the notebook down and tried to take a sip of water. I say “tried” because at this point, I didn’t know if I was right-handed or left-handed. Neither felt comfortable when I reached for the cup. I tried both hands and I missed getting the straw to my mouth with both. What is wrong with me? I tucked the notebook under my pillow and went to sleep.

The next time I woke up, things started making more sense. Another nurse walked by, saw I was awake and came in my room. She asked me if I remembered who I was and three answers popped into my head. No, yes and gorilla. For some reasons, these answers were in my head, but my mouth was refusing to say them. I think this was a good thing. Who answers a yes/no question with gorilla? Apparently, I do. She turned the tv on and handed me the remote. I wasn’t really interested in the show but since my head didn’t hurt as bad, I flipped the stations until I found a movie. I grabbed the notebook from under my pillow and tried to make sense of it again. In and amongst the writing was a section that caught my attention. It said “answer 2 is usually right, answer 3 is never right, and answer 1 is only right on Tuesdays”. Ah-ha. I left this notebook for myself. I was the crazy person writing in it. A commercial came on the tv announcing that it was Taco Tuesday and the taco truck was having a sale on tacos. Mmmmm, I like tacos. Oh, wait, did they just say it was Tuesday? Today, answer 1 is right. That is good to know.

That was how Taco Tuesday started to clue me in to who I was. Until they discharged me from the hospital, I could not answer any of their questions. I always had no less than three answers to every question. And that third answer would sometimes crack me up. So, while they ask me serious questions, sometimes I would giggle. When my head didn’t hurt, I would decipher my writings to myself in the little black notebook. I started to break my own code and found out that I won $20,000 at an underground card game. Apparently, I am a card shark. Good to know. The host of the game thought I was cheating and put a hit out on me. When I started noticing that I was being followed, I started leaving myself clues. Clues to what happened; clues to where I hid the money; and clues to help me rediscover who I was. Someone had made the remark during that card game, that the last winner couldn’t remember how to play after he was found. That sentence stuck with me and now I’m glad I left myself these clues.

It took me awhile to decipher all of the codes and there are still some that I still haven’t figured out yet. These clues lead into the next clue. The first one, in the hospital, was to figure out which answer was true. Before I left the hospital, I was able to figure out where I lived, where I hid the extra key and how to get to my apartment without being followed. I knew I would be watched leaving the hospital and I left myself easy clues how to blend into a crowd and take the back way home.

When I got into my apartment memories starting coming back to me. I was then able to identify who was following me. Things started falling into place. It took me a week after I left the hospital to start getting back into my routine. Also, I am left-handed. It’s weird how these discoveries came about. But I still haven’t figured out why I answer questions in triplicate. Although, my favorite is answer 3. The lady asked me how my day was at the grocery store today and I answered 1. unbelievable or 2. pretty good or 3. upside down pineapple cake. We looked at each other and I just shrugged my shoulders. Hey, I don’t know either.

But it was a week ago that I finally deciphered where I hid the money. I left myself some coordinates in the form of a math riddle. The coordinates were for a gym. Because the riddle contained more numbers than the coordinates, I think the rest of the numbers are for a locker number and a lock combination. It has taken me this figure it out and today I’m going to see if I’m right. I walked into the gym and went into the locker room. There was a locker number matching what I thought it would be. This is a good sign. I opened the lock with the combination I had deciphered. This is getting exciting! There was a plain black full looking gym bag. I unzipped it. Inside were dirty gym clothes. I riffled through it. Where is the money? This can’t be right! At the bottom of the gym bag was a flyer with my name on it. The flyer said that I was sponsoring a short story writing contest and the grand prize was $20,000. Wait, what? Why would I do that? I am going to have to go back to the notebook because I missed something. What happened?