Susan (flash fiction)

He found a photograph of a woman he didn’t know tucked inside a book he didn’t remember buying.

“Who is this?” he asked the nurse when she returned with his juice and medicine.

The nurse put the cups on his tray and added a small bottle of clear liquid to his IV. “That’s Susan, your wife, and she will be visiting you again this afternoon.”

My wife? He didn’t have a wife. He had never been married and didn’t know anyone named Susan. But his mind began to fog so he wasn’t completely sure.

“Please take your vitamins, Charlie,” she said. “They’ll help you recover faster. I’m sure you would like to go home as soon as possible.”

Home? He had no memory of a home, just motel rooms in various cities that all blurred together. As he picked up the cup of pills and tossed them in his mouth, the image of a shattered door and men in masks floated at the edge of his consciousness. He thought he shouldn’t mention this to the nurse and instead drank the juice to wash down the pills.

She smiled. “Good job! Enjoy your poetry book. Susan says it’s one of your favorites.”

He leafed through the pages, reading a few lines here and there. Nothing seemed familiar. Every so often, he spied a faint pencil mark under a word. Film. Vienna. Danger. If he rearranged the marked words they might form a sentence, but he was too drowsy to do that right now. 

Later, he decided. Later, he would try to make sense of this. As he drifted off to sleep, it occurred to him that his name was not Charlie.

~*~

Written for Fandango’s Story Starter #224.