MICROMEGA - The infinitely small to the infinitely big - a Poetic-Scientific tale

 

Extract from an amnesiac’s diary

 

11th  November 20XX

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People are invisible to me. Once they’re out of sight, I forget about them. They, visibly know me. I don’t recognise them. Every day is like a clean slate. The night erases the memories from the previous day. That’s why I’ve decided to keep this diary. I don’t recognise my writing either but on the first page I’ve written: my journal. I hope that will do. I am in the room that has been assigned to me. Apparently it’s the best one. At least, that’s what the white coat told me when I was in the garden earlier: I’ll take you to your room, you know you have the best room? I nodded my head but, deep down, I would have liked to have said: No I don’t know, and for that matter I don’t know anything and that’s precisely the reason why I’m here! No? She wished me a good day and said I’ll see you tomorrow. Before she left the room, I asked her how long I had been here. She answered; it had been more than two months.

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29th November 20XX

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The days follow on, one after another and are all alike. After the procession of white coats in the morning, a walk in the garden, then a meal, back to my room, procession of white coats, meal, back to my room and sleep. Throughout the day at each moment, I try to remember who I am and what my life is outside the here and now. This is what my days consist of.

…

 

5th December 20XX

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I think I can recognise the white coats, but on seeing their grins I realise that I must be mistaken. To pass the time, I have set about indexing them in a yellow notebook under a number of physical criteria: sex, age, approximate weight and height, form and colour of hair, facial shape, eyes, nose, mouth, voice and gait.

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24th December 20XX

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This morning’s white coat is a rather pretty woman. In her forties, about 5 ft 9, 10 stone, auburn wavy hair, an elegant, faintly triangular face, fair-skinned, large golden eyes, a faintly roman nose, a sensible mouth, controlled voice, agile gait. Her name badge indicates Sandrine. I asked her who she was, for my diary. She had not yet been indexed. She answered that she is a doctor, a neuropsychologist and that she was here to find a solution to my problem. Straight away I liked her pragmatic approach to things: me, the problem, her, the solution. This made a change from the waltz of puppets who were there to “look after me” whilst I felt perfectly healthy! Just this bloody black hole. Then the interrogation changed direction and she asked me a whole array of questions which seemed to me each as idiotic as the previous one without me being able to respond to any of them. The first was without a doubt the most ludicrous: What is your name? She paused for a moment, then quickly followed on like you brush your teeth everyday, without thinking. The following questions seemed easier but my memory remained blank. Did you dream last night? What did you do yesterday? Do you know why you are here? How old are you? What do you do in life? Do you know who I am? I answer, yes, you are Sandrine and you work here: you’re a doctor, a neuropsychologist and you are here to find a solution to my problem. You see, I know more about you than I do about myself. She smiles. Making the most of this smile I feel the urge to ask her if I can go home for Christmas, before stopping myself, suddenly understanding the absurdity of this thought.

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24th March 20XX

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Sandrine has visited me every day for the last three months today. Before she arrived this morning, I reread my entries from the day before, like each day. They started with two phrases which reminded me each morning of my condition. Hello old chap, you are amnesiac and you have been here for exactly 215 days. To identify the white coats, look at the yellow notebook. There then followed some uninteresting facts about pretty much anything and everything. The last sentence shouted out to me: I like chocolate. Determinedly I asked whether this could be a clue to follow in order to re discover my life. Sandrine answered that it wasn’t any kind of clue, but that often, people who lost their memory no longer remember what they like or dislike, that often they even started loving things that they previously hated. She laughed. I wanted to cry. I nodded my head.

…

 

13th April 20XX

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This morning, Sandrine seems anxious. She is pale, her eyes are troubled, her forehead seems heavy in thought. She asked me the daily questions. No further response. She is accompanied by three other white coats, not yet indexed, who haven’t uttered a word. She looks into my eyes and says that perhaps they have the solution to help me to remember. Sandrine then asked me if I’d like to take part in an experiment. She told me that there was no risk and that I would not feel any pain. I nodded my head in agreement but deep down I was troubled. I could already see them opening up my skull, and dissecting my brain into tiny pieces to create an unsolvable puzzle. I wanted to tell them: Not really, I would prefer you to experiment it on someone else and then, if it works, come back to see me. But I was no doubt too weak and much too cowardly. Being unable to sign my name someone filmed my consent, as it was called. He gave me a piece of paper to read. I had the impression that instead, this was a contract which once fulfilled, would no longer allow me control over my own body. Already I’d lost my head, now they would take away my body.

…

 

8th May 20XX

 

Today, I remember. It’s something extraordinary. I remember. It’s a strange sensation, indescribable! How could all of these things I have in my head have happened to me? Did they really happen to me? To me, I mean, for real!?

 

I am amnesiac or rather I was amnesiac and just yesterday I didn’t remember a thing, but today everything changed. This morning several white coats came to see me. I recognised them. There was Sandrine. Some of them had put me into the cocoon, this completely dark, large room, a few days earlier. They asked me to follow them. Arriving in front of an office, they asked me to enter. There were fifteen or so white coats who looked at me, preoccupied. Sandrine asked me to sit down. A man with glasses, tall and thin, who I’d never seen before, put an envelope down in front of me, on which was written MICROMEGA-C. He indicated that I should open it. I opened it. He indicated then that I should look at the contents of the envelope. I took out its contents. There was a planet which I instantly recognised. One word left my mouth: Sweeny.

 

I remember. I remember her almond-shaped eyes of a luminous hazel. Her face. Her wavy hair, her bare throat, our encounter, the stairs, then the joy of seeing her each time. I remember everything. The joy of waking by her side. The blooming of her eyes like the miracle of the first day of life. I remember squirrels, La Paz, Queen Mary, Périol, Saint Nicolas, the General and 29. I remember my mutism. I remember the mute violence of her gaze. I remember her voice. I remember her weight. All of this floods my mind like a dam bursting into shards and fills it with animated images, sensations, feelings: our memories.

 

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Translation Rebecca Stoakes

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Droits d'auteur et crédit photos : © Benoit de Bengy - 2013