UnWholly

They sit facing each other with the food between them and the guards at the ready, should he need their help, or should he try to hurl himself off the balcony to the jagged rocks below. There are soldiers with dark, heavy weapons positioned strategically on those rocks—there for his protection, Roberta tells him. He imagines that should he hurl himself down to them, the guards on the rocks would also call him “sir.”

Roberta pours the white liquid from its crystalline pitcher into crystalline glasses that catch the light, refracting it and splintering it in random projections on the stonework of the balcony.

He takes a bite of cookie. Chocolate chip. Suddenly the intensity of the flavor drags more memories out of hibernation. He thinks of his mother. Then another mother. School lunch. Burning his lip on a freshly baked Toll House. I like them best chewy and hot. I like them best hard and almost burnt. I’m allergic to chocolate. Chocolate is my favorite.

He knows all these things are true. How could they all be true? If he’s allergic, how could he have so many wonderful chocolate memories?

“The marathon riddle continuing,” he says.

Roberta smiles. “That was almost a complete sentence. Here, have something to drink.”

She holds the glass of cold white liquid to him, and he takes it.

“Have you given any thought to your name?” Roberta asks, just as he takes a sip—and all at once, as the flavorful fluid dislodges a piece of soft cookie from the roof of his mouth, more thoughts fly in. The combination of tastes forces a hundred thoughts through a sieve, leaving behind diamonds.

The electric eye machine. He knows what it’s called! And the white stuff, it’s from a cow, isn’t it? Cow juice. Starts with an M. Electric eye. “Cam!” Cow juice. “Moo!”

Roberta looks at him strangely.

“Cam . . . Moo . . . ,” he says again.

Her eyes sparkle, and she says, “Camus?”

“Cam. Moo.”

“Camus! What a splendid name. You’ve outdone yourself.”

“Camera!” he finally says. “Milk!” But Roberta isn’t listening anymore. He has sent her to a more exotic place.

“Camus, the existential philosopher! ‘Live to the point of tears.’ Kudos to you, my friend! Kudos!”

He has no idea what she’s talking about, but if it makes her happy, then it makes him happy. It feels good to know that he’s impressed her.

“Your name shall be Camus Composite-Prime,” she says with a grin on her face as wide as the shimmering sea. “Won’t the committee just die!”

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From then on, each of his days begins and ends with therapy. Painful stretching followed by guided exercises and weight lifting that seem specifically designed to cause him the greatest amount of pain.

“The healing agents can only do so much,” says his physical therapist—a deep-voiced bodybuilder with the unlikely name of Ke

He is convinced this therapist enjoys watching him suffer.

Thanks to Roberta, those who don’t just call him “sir” now call him Camus, but when he thinks of the name, all that comes to mind is a big black-and-white whale.

“That’s Shamu,” Roberta tells him over lunch. “You’re Camus; it rhymes, but has a silent S.”

“Cam,” he tells her, not wanting to sound like a sea mammal. “Make it Cam.”

Roberta raises an eyebrow, considering it. “We can do that. We can most certainly do that. I’ll let everyone know. So how are your thoughts today, Cam? Feeling a bit more cohesive?”

Cam shrugs. “I have clouds in my head.”

Roberta sighs. “Maybe so, but I can see your progress, even if you can’t. Your thoughts are becoming a little clearer each day. You can string together longer strands of meaning, and you understand almost everything I say to you, don’t you?”

Cam nods.

“Comprehension is the first step toward clear communication, Cam.” Roberta hesitates for a second, then says, “Comprends-tu maintenant?”

“Oui, parfaitement,” says Cam, not knowing that something was different about it until the words came out of his mouth. He realizes that yet another door of mystery has opened inside his head.

“Well,” says Roberta, a mischievous smirk on her face, “for the time being, let’s go one language at a time, shall we?”

New activities are added into his day. His afternoon naps are pushed back to make room for hour-long sessions sitting at a table-size computer desktop filled with digital images: a red vehicle, a building, a black-and-white portrait—dozens of pictures.

“Drag to you the images you recognize,” says Roberta on the first day of this ritual, “and say the first word that each image brings to mind.”

Cam feels overwhelmed. “Scantron?”

“No,” Roberta tells him, “it’s not a test, it’s just a mental exercise to find out what you remember and what you still need to learn.”

“Right,” says Cam. “Scantron.” Because her answer is the very definition of a test, isn’t it?

He looks at the images and does as he’s told, pulling the objects he recognizes closer. The portrait: “Lincoln.” The building: “Eiffel.” The red vehicle: “Truck fire. No. Fire truck.” And on and on. As he pulls an image away, another sprouts to replace it. Some he has no problem identifying, others have no memories associated with them at all, and still others tug at the edge of his mind, but he can’t find a word to attach to them. Finally, when he’s done, he feels even more exhausted than he does after physical therapy.

“Basket,” he says. “Crumpled paper basket.”

Roberta smiles. “Wasted. You feel wasted.”

“Wasted,” Cam repeats, locking the word in his mind.

“I’m not surprised—none of this is easy, but you’ve done well, haven’t you? And you are to be commended!”

Cam nods, more than ready for a nap. “Gold star for me.”

•   •   •

Each day more and more is asked of him, both physically and mentally, but no explanation is given for any of it. “Your success is its own reward,” Roberta tells him, but how can he relish any success if he has no context with which to measure it?

“The kitchen sink!” he tells Roberta at di

She doesn’t even have to probe to figure out what he means. “In time you’ll know everything there is to know about yourself. Now is not that time.”

“Yes, it is!”

“Cam, this conversation is over.”

Cam feels the anger well in him and doesn’t know what to do with it, and he can’t put enough words together to take it away.

Instead it goes to his hands, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s hurling a plate across the room, then another, then another. Roberta has to duck, and now the whole world is flying dishes and silverware and glass. In an instant the guards are on him, pulling him back to his room, strapping him to the bed—something they haven’t done for over a week.

He rages for what feels like forever, but then, exhausted, he calms down. Roberta comes in. She’s bleeding. It’s just a small cut above her left eye, but it doesn’t matter how small it is. He did it. It was his fault.

Suddenly all his other emotions are overwhelmed by remorse, which he finds is even more powerful than anger.