Letter from Isabelle 4

This entry is for Sunday Scribblings: Competition.

Read part 1
Read part 2
Read Part 3

Date: December 9, 2007
Dear L,

It happened last week. All I remembered was standing near the edge of the train platform checking if a train was arriving. It was a cold day and I was at an outside train station where the cold winter winds blew so fast, I could barely see anything. The train was coming. I can see its read headlights growing bigger as it came near.

You know how sometimes you see things that are not there? I thought I saw your face sitting inside that train, driving the train. You winked at me with your big blue eyes. I blinked in disbelief. I was frozen in my spot. As you came closer, I felt someone pushing against me. My heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to pop right out of my chest.

Then I woke up and saw nothing but dark shapes all around me. I heard voices but couldn't make out who it was, just dark shapes changing. I couldn't speak or move. Then my view became completely black. I tried to stay awake but soon felt my eyelids closing on its own dissolving my view into farther darkness.

When I woke again, voices were asking me questions but all I could see was darkness. A doctor or doctors told me I had an serious head injury. They called me by my name but I couldn't decided if it was my name. They said my memory lost was temporary. So was my eye sight. Trauma such as mine caused the brain to temporary shut down certain functions. That was the explanation. I guess I chose to accepted it as my mind couldn't decide otherwise. I have no idea what the time or date was or who was paying for all my hospital care.

I'm didn't do much, just lots of sleeping and waking up to more confused memories than my mind can handle. They moved me out of intensive care yesterday and into my own room. My body may had healed but my mind was still a puzzle with all the pieces but none of them fit together.

My first regained memory was of you. It was when we were twelve, during Christmas. We have always competed who can get better gifts for Mom and Dad. You always win but that year, I won. I've got Dad a pocket watch and Mom, a porcelain jewel box. You've got Dad a cigar box but he didn't smoke and Mom a scarf that turned out to be fake silk. There were no prize for winning but I thought how great it was that I've won after all those years. But later that week, I found out you got those gifts on purpose so I would win. You were the compassionate one, the one who was always giving but I recognized your competitiveness. We competed who can get a after school job first, who can get all "A's", who can eat more lemons, who can even make a child cry, those contest were endless.

But after that year, things changed in such subtle ways that only you and I can detect. Mom and Dad reminded the same but you and I, we had changed. We've stopped competing with each other. I don't recall what it was that changed us or why we suddenly stopped doing certain things. In those days, we were always together - during school, after school, never away from each other. Though our closeness was still there, something had broken the bond we had. Or maybe I have changed and you reminded the same. I remembered it was I who started to making friends and stopped spending time with you. Though you didn't admitted but you knew things weren't the same.

Maybe some memories had to be lost before we can appreciate them. The doctor, Dr. R seem very confident that I would regain my full memory but my eyes - he wasn't so sure. Give it time, he said. Time seem to be all I have.

I can't write anymore, the nurse wants me to go to sleep now. I am dictating this to her while she writes it down in a notebook that she had found in my bag. She's a very kind nurse. Her name's Sara. My mind's too tire to remember more so I am going to sleep now.

Isabelle

Read Part 5 here.