lost digits

I woke up knowing two things that day. The first being my name, remarkably enough, and the second being the horrific dread that consumed my body. Something was wrong. Very wrong. I stirred in a dramatic panic, or at least I attempted to; instead, I only groaned in pain as my bones ached. I felt like playdough being tugged, pulled, as my head split with pain.

The ceiling above me is white in a way that feels temporary, like it isn’t meant to be looked at for long. When I try to think past it, my thoughts slide away, almost smooth and empty.

The next noteworthy thing that happened was that a woman in scrubs entered the hollow room. She tells me I was in an accident.

A car. Rain. A red light I don’t remember seeing. I don’t remember living.

She asks if I know what year it is. I guess. She nods, pleased, and writes it down like I’ve done something brave. Then she asks if I remember anything. She tells me that my phone was recovered in the accident, but they hadn’t been able to connect me to anyone. Most numbers had just been services, and any individual they did call wasn’t an intimate relation.

I laugh mentally at that. I may not be able to remember where I was going or that I even had a license, but I know for a fact I’m alone, and I always have been.

There’s no one sitting beside my bed. No flowers. No cards. I consider for a moment whether I should be upset over this fact. All my nurses seemed to be. eyes full of pity. I heard them whisper.

“That poor girl, “maybe they are across seas, maybe it’s not her phone!” What was stupidity at its finest, and even if whoever they are referring to was overseas, that wouldn’t erase their existence. Although it wasn’t entirely belittling, one of the older women who worked on my ward snuck me in her ‘homemade stew’, arguing that I deserved at least one family meal after this ordeal.

It’s been 2 weeks, and so far, all the things I can recall are about as interesting as first meeting chit chats. My name is Millie Samuel. I live in the city, and I work for a book editing company. I’m 24. My parents passed away years ago. I have no pets, and I definitely hate myself because of the inspection of my phone gallery. I’m an extremely boring person.

When they discharge me, and they discharge me quicker than I imagined, they hand me a bag with my clothes and a pamphlet about “adjustment.” They told me it would take time, that I needed to interact with things, with people, to remind myself.

Outside, the world was loud. Cars hissed past on wet streets. People spoke into their phones with the confidence of knowing who’s on the other end. A man was standing before me, with rose gold hair, and a twitch in my stomach told me I’m into brunettes. I stood there longer than I should, mostly because no one was waiting for me. I liked the idea of pretending there could have been.

I ask myself if I have people, if I did, surely they’d have come to see me, or maybe I was a shitty friend and they didn’t like that idea. Maybe they were glad I almost died. Maybe they planned it! But I don’t remember anyone.

I remember my job.

That’s the strange part. I remember the office layout, my login password, and the way the coffee machine rattles before it works. honestly it’s another 3 weeks before I’m working 9-5. Muscle memory guides me through emails and spreadsheets, through smiling politely when coworkers say things like “Take it easy,” or “We’re glad you’re okay.”

Someone says my name with familiarity, like we’ve laughed together before.

I laugh back. My body knows how.

people pat my back, bring me coffee with no sugar because apparently I like it like that.

They mention Christmas Santa 2019, where I was gifted socks from some fast food joint because I got it every lunch.

They try to help, they smile, and they share. But nobody comes home with me. Nobody knows me i quickly understand.

Then again i can’t judge them too harshly as it appears I don’t even know myself. There’s nothing individual about my apartment. There’s not a thing highlighting personality. It’s like walking into a display home. There are no pictures. There are no notes, there are no magnets. The only thing that I single out is a rack of 80s DVDs placed across my TV stand. They are used heavily. I wonder my reason for this, as I appear to have every streaming platform under the sun.

I sit on the edge of the bed and feel it again. That pull. That ache. Like leaving a stove on in another room.

I know I’m missing someone.

I felt it first when I poured two cups of tea.

Not a memory, those are still blurry. just bits and pieces that keep me living.

This is different. This is a feeling, the only significant one I keep experiencing. A weight in my chest that grows louder when everything else gets quiet.

I start checking my phone.

There are old messages I don’t remember sending. And the names I do remember are work-related, knowing by now it’s not an important relationship. Threads that stop abruptly. I have checked every night. I’ve even messaged ones I'm not sure about, only to understand it must have been a one-night stand with the replies I got in return. It felt useless. Maybe I wasn’t missing anyone. Maybe I was just lonely before the accident, and I was returning to her.

It’s another week of isolation. And I start to feel myself drift before I do something crazy.

technically i’m just following doctors orders

At night, I start dialling numbers.

Random ones at first. A digit wrong here, another there. It’s easier to pretend I don’t know what I’m doing.

Most people don’t answer. Some do, annoyed, sleepy or confused.

“Sorry,” I whisper, hanging up before they can ask who I am.

But sometimes, rarely, someone says hello in a voice that makes my heart stutter, like it almost recognises the rhythm even if my mind doesn’t. like I’m actually speaking to someone. And I’m not tricking some poor soul to just hear make-believe human conversation. Those are the calls I hold onto a second too long before ending.

I tell myself I’m looking for something familiar.

I don’t admit that I’m hoping someone will recognise me instead.

One night, I call a number I don’t remember saving. My thumb hesitates over it. There’s nothing special about the digits. Just a feeling, sharper than the others.

It rings.

Once. Twice.

“Hello?” a voice answers.

I can’t breathe for a second. There’s a warmth, there's a steadiness,

“I-” My voice shakes. “I’m sorry. I think I have the wrong number.”

There’s a pause. Not the annoyed kind. Or at least I assume.

Who am I kidding? I scramble to hang up before a fatal.

“…Are you okay?” is asked.

I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t know how to explain that I function all day like a completed puzzle, and then fall apart at night because one piece is missing and I don’t know what it is.

I pause for a second, though that’s debunked as I let my eyes flicker to my screen and see 2 minutes have already passed by.

Are they still on the other line?

“Hello? Are you there?” Her voice is soft. but not tired despite the time, almost like she’s planning on being awake for many more hours.

naturally words blurt out. rapidly.

“I think I’m missing someone,” the words fall out of me more instantly than I want to admit.

I’ve said it so quick i’ll be impressed if they could make out my secret.

Another pause. Longer this time.

I wonder if this person thinks some creep is stalking them, or that some psycho got the wrong number.

I want to hang up.

But I can’t bring myself.

“Yeah..” she answered sombrely, “Me too.

“I was in an accident,” I tell them. trying to excuse my behaviour, explain it.

“I don’t remember… much.”

The silence stretches, there’s a sharp breath on the other line as if I’ve revealed I’m dying.

“Do you want to talk?” they ask finally. Not who are you, not why are you calling. Just that.

“Yes,” I say, breathless as if I’ve run a marathon. even though I don’t know what we’ll talk about. Even though I don’t know who they are.

“I just… I don’t know what to say,” I admitted shyly.

“That’s okay,” they reply. “You don’t have to know. We can just… exist for a minute.” Her voice is mesmerising. It’s the type where you rewatch a clip over and over again just to catch a second.

I let out a shaky breath. My second one of the evening. The word exists somewhere deep. Is that enough? Is that enough right now?

I find myself confessing things.

“I keep calling people,” I admit. Random numbers. I don’t know why. I think I’m hoping someone will sound… right.”

“And what does right sound like to you?” not a inch of judgment. no she’s Curious.

“I’m not sure yet. I expect it to feel different.” I mentally scold myself for quite literally insulting this poor stranger who’s sacrificing their time for someone they don’t know.

“oh am I part of the boring bunch category?” A tease lightly lifts this embarrassing moment.

“no no, nothing like that!” I find myself jumping to defend my voice raised.

I hear the person shift as if they are sitting upright.

“You are actually... the first person I’ve told that to.” I bring my knuckles to my lip, avoiding the physical reaction to anxiously bite.

“What else do you want to tell me?” she hums.

Now my safety instincts should have been in top performance, you’d think? After all, most strangers wouldn’t encourage this behaviour. But at least worse case scenario, they are also a crazy person. But something tells me it’s not that.

and for some insane reason. I talk. And I talk, and I keep talking until my chest feels light, and it’s the most peaceful sleep I’ve experienced in weeks.

I don’t exactly remember who hung up or when I did. Their number wasn’t saved in my contacts, just my recent calls, and there were no messages.

I would stare directly at it while at work, treating it like holy grail, terrified that it would disappear.

I didn’t know why I cared.

But I know that it took exactly one week for me to call that number again.

and again.

“okay so let me get this straight?” The voice is pitched and reaching a bubbly amount of laughter. She sounds ready to burst.

“You’d rather fight a lion-sized mouse? over 10 mouse-sized lions?” She’s in hysterics

“First off, I didn’t say fight i said ride, me and my little mouse companion! And second, lions would definitely go for your ankles and go for blood. They eat other cubs for goodness ' sake! I find myself extremely passionate about this topic.

“They are the size of a mouse! It will be a graze at most, plus if that mouse decides to take a nibble on its beloved rider, then goodbye shoulder!” That was logical.

and again.

“You’re in a band?!” I lay with my laptop staring at the Spotify screen as I’ve been demanded to listen to real music, the conversation led from one part to another.

“Yeah, you could say that. I mean, I write music here and there, but mostly I’m on acoustic,” she explains casually as if this is an average hobby.

“We play gigs here and there. actually that’s why I didn’t pick up last Saturday,” she says that as if I never received a call at 20 past one i still answered.

and again.

“I’m sorry.” My teeth are pulled shut i’m afraid of saying the wrong thing, but there isn’t exactly a right thing to say either. I assume she’s grown immune to waiting for the perfect answer due to what she says next.

“It doesn’t bother me. sometimes bad things happen and you just.. move on?”

I imagine what she’d say if I told her something as unpleasant, and the fact that she’d likely not brush it off that simply.

“Do you ever want to go home?” I find myself intruding.

“I made myself a home here, here in the city, and I’m okay with that.”

“Do you ever get lonely?”

“I used to. Then I met someone,” she recalls this fondly.

my heart. It stings.

“What happened?” I’m bold in expecting it’s a breakup. I’m bold in hoping they its a break up.

“We havent spoke in years,” the answer is shift and cut. I want to ask why, but I recognise it isn’t my place.

Our nightly routine has been consistent for the last few weeks, and I push myself into wondering why we’ve never met up in person. I push myself into answering how foolish that was, considering we didn’t even know each other's names. but i dont push myself to ask.

My body is particularly sore today. And I feel weight pull me down i can’t wait to crash into bed, and I can’t wait to call my stranger. I forgot the whole reason I started this tradition in the first place. to feel less alone. I started sharing the things I remembered, childhood memories, my first time in the city, things were coming back, just not everything yet. explaining it to her is peaceful as she seems to be able to unravel my mind faster than I.

“It’s weird. My memory still isn’t fully mine, but I don’t feel lost as I did anymore.”

“Do things feel more familiar?” she asks the same question as my weekly phone call with my doctor sounds. I probably should have made a joke about that. instead

“You do,” I say immediately, then feel the heat rush to my face even though they can’t see me. “I mean your voice. It feels familiar. Not like remembering a face or a place. More like… muscle memory. Like my body knows you even if I don’t.”

There’s a faint sound on the other end, as they shift in bed.

“Yeah,” they say quietly. “That sounds like you.”

My heart stutters. “Like me? And what does that mean?” I ask too quickly for

Another pause. Longer. Careful.

“Like you, you know a hopeless romantic, a poetic mastermind. Ask the 100s of old fashioned dvds you own, the first to believe in the invisible string theory.”

My brows stiffen.

That was something i didnt agree with, I never believed any of thet thingsand even if u supoose its a compliment, there was one lingering problem.

“I never told you about the DVDs.”

“Sorry,” they say. “That was too much. I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” I interrupt, suddenly desperate. “Please don’t stop. I don’t mind. I just- can you tell me how you know me?”

They inhale slowly, like they’re choosing their words from something sharp.

“I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry, it isn’t my place.”

“Have we met before?”

pause..

“Tell me. if you’ve been fucking with me i swear to god-“

I feel guilty for snapping, regardless i am extremely freaked out.

They seem to gather im not joking.

“You used to call me when you couldn’t sleep,” they say. “You said the silence made your thoughts too loud.”

My fingers curl into the blanket. “That sounds… right.” I have been doing that.

“You’d talk about small things,” they continue. “Stuff you thought didn’t matter. What you saw on the bus. A song stuck in your head. passing conversation between people at the train station. You liked knowing someone was listening.”

I swallow. “Was it you? Are you the person I’m missing?”

“I don’t know if I get to answer that.”

My chest tightens. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to be someone you feel obligated to remember,” they say stiffly.

“I want to be someone you choose to remember.

I close my eyes. In the dark, there’s a flicker of something warm, hands, laughter, the echo of my name spoken with affection. It vanishes before I can grab it.

"i dont understand, why won't you tell me who you are?”

“Because, maybe it's a sign you don't remember me.”

“Please, tell me, please. These last few weeks I've felt so empty, so.. lost, and our calls are the only thing that grounds me. Who are you?”

“You’re not empty,” they say immediately. avoiding my integration while comforting me. “You’re just… quieter than you used to be.”

That makes my throat ache. “Did I change a lot?”

“Not really. only a little,” they admit. “But not the important parts. You still pause before answering questions. You still apologise when you don’t need to. You still care more than you pretend to.”

Tears slip down my face. I don’t wipe them away.

“Why do you sound like you miss me?” I ask.

They don’t answer right away.

When they do, their voice is lower. “Because I do.”

The silence between us feels heavy, but not uncomfortable. Like sitting side by side, knees almost touching. but being too afraid of that soft intimacy.

“I don’t remember loving you,” I say. “But I think… I did.”

A breath catches on the other end of the line. Just barely.

“You did,” they say. “Very much.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I'm sorry I forgot you.”

I press the phone closer to my ear, like proximity might help something click back into place.

nothing.

“Can I call you again tomorrow?”