I've Made My Mind

I re-read the letter I had written to myself before the surgery. It was a summary of my life: family history, names of close friends, former professions, ex-lovers, current lovers, likes, dislikes, allergies, addresses, phone numbers, computer passwords. But at the end I had written a strange sentence: At least now, everything will be for certain.

I thought it a strange thing to write to myself, and I told the doctor to include that thought into my new Thought-Bank. "At least now, everything will be for certain" is a strange thing to write to one's future self. He included everything from the letter, of course. But, per protocol, did not record anything of the first five hours after I woke up from the surgery.

Therefore, my memory now begins with reading the last line of a letter I had written to myself the day before. While reading the letter I was eating a sesame-seed bagel with strawberry cream cheese, sitting in the cafeteria of a hospital that smelled unquestionably sanitary. The woman to my right had grey hair that shot off her head at alarming angles.

My second memory is of the doctors teaching me how to use a toilet.

This is, I supposed, what any second beginning is like. A doctor explained to me the concepts "apartment building" and "supermarket." They sounded terrifying, and I asked if we could return to colors, or possibly adjectives.

"It's your mind," she said, "we can put into it whatever you like. Now, do you recall 'repulsive' ?"