The scenery gradually blurred through the window and all I could discern was the green and gray of trees and buildings that moved by the train, taking me away from the lab, my colleagues, and the life I had. As far as I was concerned, there was nobody who knew my destination.
To be honest, I wasn’t even very clear about it in my mind at that time. It was all very clear to me that what I wanted and required was space, time to come to terms with myself and attempt to sort out all those ideas and recollections that overwhelmed my mind.
I was plagued by Alessandro’s words and his voice would play incessantly in my mind like a record which couldn’t be turned off. “Make sure to remind yourself of who you really are”, the man had said. But who was I, in fact? The woman who had been once named Brianne or Lucy who was bullied at school and risen from diversity because of what life threw at her and has made her give her best to reveal the mystery of consciousness? Or was I something… other? A person who had fought countless lives across the multiverse, something that I could not even fathom?
I closed my eyes, resting my head against the window glass, for some reason feeling very chilly all over. The rhythmical knocking of the wheels of the train on the railing served as a sort of mental chant against which my thoughts raged like hurricanes.
Who am I?
Somehow, the question echoed in the depths of my being, triggering an array of responses related to memory as well as other emotions. It was a jiffy that was enough to allow me a glimpse of the possibilities of existence, the potential personality of the person that I am. Wielding a sword and dressed in armor, charging into an impossible battle. An academician, spending hours and hours engrossed in my search for some valuable piece of historical document. There was a mother, holding a baby and whose eyes I saw had seen many things in this world.
Plunged as these were into storytelling, were these real memories, fragments of lives I had lived in other lives? Or was it only the greed of a sick mind which created things that the decent human being could not imagine or in no way possible to understand?
I didn’t know. But what made that position truly terrifying was the very fact of that uncertainty.
One day, having been traveling on a train and as the train stopped at a particular unknown railway station, I decided. I picked up my unduly crammed bag and alighted onto the platform; the fresh smelling air of a place I had never been to before filled my lungs.
The population was limited, probably. There must probably have been no more than several hundred residents, and everyone in town probably was most likely gossiping about everyone else. Nice for erasing myself, for going off the radar. I went to the outskirts of the town and got a room in a bed and breakfast owned by a husband and a wife who did not question me when I paid cash for a week’s booking.
The room was rather Spartan but warm with the large windows opening to the landscape consisting of hills and mountains in the distance. I looked at the beautiful scenery outside for a while, while sitting on the bed, and I suddenly felt guilt within me. I wanted to surprise everyone, so I hadn’t informed anybody about my destination and hadn’t written a word to anyone either. What must they be thinking they are doing, and what must their reactions be to the news? Chase, Zoe, even Detective Morris… they’d all be anxious and sick by now waiting for me.
And my parents…
I felt like a physical punch struck me hard when I thought of my parents. I thought about Mom and Dad, who had always been there for me, who had never discouraged a child, even if the roads she chose were unknown to them. It must be terrible they are going through it right now and really could not translate into words.
I knew exactly what they were like. Mom, looking anxious and with furrowed brows while walking in the small living room of their relatively small house. Dad; a man in an effort to be strong and look for me, he made some calls to people who he hoped could tell him where I was.
Shaking, I took my phone out of my pocket. I had switched it off before boarding the train with a view to not being followed or found through the GPS. Now that I plugged it in and turned it on, a flood of messages came pouring in. Those unheard communications include missed calls, text messages and voicemail. Chase and Zoe had contributed most of those shampoos, but interspersed among them were a few from “Mom & Dad. ”
I had tears in my eyes and the first message I received was more than shocking or saddening. Mom’s voice, trembling with barely contained fear
“Hi, Brianne, dear, this is mom. The doctor called today. He said that you are missing, and he was so worried and so are we. Now, if you’re listening to this message, please, please call us to let us know that you are all right. We just need to hear from you because we love you.
Dad’s message was next, his usual jovial tone replaced by a gruffness that barely masked his concern.
“Hello, sweetheart. It’s daddy. I don’t know what has happened, but whatever it is, we can face it together. Please just come home. I know you are angry but at least try and let us know you are safe. Your mother is worried sick. I am, too, Brianne. ”
Suddenly, I was a wave of guilt. I still couldn’t believe in myself. How could I be so self-centered? I lost myself in existential despair, that at some point I did not even think about the people who loved me and perhaps, they were also thinking about me with the worst scenario possible?
It became my desire to call them, to just let them know that all is well on my side. But was I? Okay, that is. I didn’t feel okay. I was struggling for an identity, for the reality I knew was blurred, and I was waging a battle between the two selves. How was I to educate them about events that took place which I myself had little clue about?
Thus, as the sun started setting, leaving behind beautiful colors which ranged from orange to pink, I came to a decision. I couldn’t call them, not yet. But I could write. Perhaps here, in the written word, I could at least get my head around it myself.
I found a notepad and pen in the drawer of the bedside table and began to write.
“Dear Mom and Dad,
I’m sorry. I know those words are not enough, it is not enough to make you worry all these hours. But they are the sources I know of to begin with. They remain to be searched and discovered.
This is what I would like you to understand; I am okay. I know that I’m not entirely sure where I am right now, and I guess that I can’t even tell you where I am. It isn’t about my location or… you know, a lot of things.
I think something has happened to me. I do not rightly know what it is. It is as if one wakes up one morning and discovers that he or she has Retro-Active amnesia and is a victim of Identity theft. Of many lives, actually. Just try to picture that you can doubt everything that seemed to be quite clear before, everything in this world, even your own existence.
Right now I am there, that’s the last thing I started to do. A compiling jagged cease of fragments, most often memories and potential possibilities, in an attempt to zero in on what I am in reality.
I am well aware that all this must sound a little crazy. Maybe it is. Maybe I am. However, I require you to believe me with the understanding that I’m doing as I should at the moment. All I require is time and space to think and space to act and, most importantly, to attempt to understand what is being done to me.
I feel confident in the future, so let me thank you both for your support by telling you that I love you both so much. The moments which I see in family movies, how you’ve always been there to support me those are real. These are true, no matter the existence of other freaky ideas in my head, at any given time.
I will try and return home as soon as I can. I will try my best to be back. Whenever I’ve determined… or at the very least, when I am in the process of determining… the essence of me.
Please don’t worry too much (or rather I would like to remind you that it is like asking the sun not to shine). I’m protected, and I’m sending you some thoughts.
All my love,
Brianne”
The latter brought me to tears; I wiped my eyes and read the letter again. It was not sufficient, far from sufficient to allay their fears, let alone to attempt explaining. . It was a start, yet, all the same, something which was accomplished. I would mail it in the morning, at least that might bring some sort of consolation to them.
That evening when I was in bed trying to sleep, I looked at the ceiling and didn’t recognize it. Who was I? Brianne grew up loving to be loved by her parents. Until they decide to force someone down my throat, I still love them regardless?
Alessandro, who had some information he wasn’t sharing, believed I was more than what met the eyes.
Am I one of them, or was I all of these things, and more?
It took me a while to open my eyes and I let the memories of my different and seemingly parallel lives fight for my attention. All the manifestations of that I, Brianne, could come up with was who has ever been or will ever be created. They were me and I was one of them.
And somewhere, in the gaps of these shattered fragments of identity, I was certain, I would reach for truth. The unique direction is the way to find out who I was, in fact, and what part is to be played by me in being the loyal member of the multiverse.
As I drifted off to sleep, one thought crystallized in my mind: However much I knew about myself or whatever fate was in store for me, I was going to meet it. And when I had, I would run out of that place to my home. For the parents who loved me, for the friends who cared in so many ways, for the life that was mine and always will be; in this life and in the next.
For now, however, I will daydream. And in those dreams, I might get the answers which I so badly needed all those times.