Forgotten Identity. A short story
The young man lying on bed number seven in the trauma ICU, for the last two months, could not identify himself, having undergone multiple surgeries, in succession to treat wounds that ran deep inside his brain. Only his closed eyes, nose, and sealed lips were up for display. A fallen mannequin.
Doctors examined him daily and gave a score on the Glasgow Coma Score, based on his eye, verbal and motor movements to check for his health pendulum that fluctuated between mortality and full recovery. During the initial days, the score was low, representative of his acute brain injury that had diffused in different pockets of the brain, a case of intracranial hematoma. His thoughts blurred more than his senses then: the world colourless, shapeless and without fragrance.
An iron rod from behind had made his head bloom like a fountain. He was quickly rushed to the hospital by men he could not identify, and he did not resist. Blood from open wounds, spread throughout his body, wetted doctors’ white gloves on the operation table. His blood pressure, oxygen and heart rate rose and fell like ocean waves during a storm. Doctors had no choice but to pump countless units of blood into him.
Blood supplies in the hospital were running low because the man was not alone, he was amongst hundreds of people scarred, while fighting an ethnic war for the last three months, which had crossed all lines of what it means to be human.
His parents and his two younger sisters resisted him to stay away from the conflict, but could not resist themselves from visiting hospitals, wards, and morgues for his whereabouts when the news first came in.
When doctors recall his recovery path today, they say it is nothing short of a miracle. Despite doctors’ best efforts, the man had forgotten his identity because the doctors did not document the religion, race, class, skin colour and other background information of every blood donor who saved the man’s life.
He had barely managed to survive but his origins, past, present, the cause he was fighting for and everything else had become irrelevant. His family had found him, but he had lost himself.
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Please spread around this story to deliver the message of peace in the world.
