His foot tapped constantly against the beige carpet. Slightly off beat, it was muffled by the fibers.

There was a small stain near the toe of Erik’s right boot, a darker brown to the light colour of the thin carpet. Drawing his attention away from the stain, Erik gazed around the room. Her office was mostly tidy, small Knick Knacks like clay frogs and mushrooms filled the empty spaces on her book shelves. Fiddling with his fingers, Erik tilted his head to read the ends of Dr. Mah’s books.

The ends were mostly pristine, books about amnesia, therapy filled the empty spaces. All types of books that Erik didn’t understand in the slightest.

He didn’t know much about Dr. Mah, what he’d found online was mostly medical journals filled with jargon he didn’t understand a word of. That was when he’d decided to give up on his 5 minutes of research on her.

He saw the silver long handle turn before he heard Dr. Mah enter. Her voice was somewhat raspy, her hands full with a stack of papers, she closed the brown door with a light push behind her. “Sorry about that, the secretary just had a few questions for me.”

The secretary outside, in the hushed lobby had been a plump woman that had observed him with a strong gaze and grilled him with questions he didn’t know. Talvi hadn’t been able to come to the office with him so they’d filled up a scrap piece of paper with all the info he needed.

This was when Erik learned that he had no middle name.

And despite reading it over a million times before pushing open the heavy glass doors of the office, Erik had found himself stuttering and hand shaking as the first question popped out of her mouth.

Erik shifted on the couch, though awkwardly because he kept sinking back down as he tried to keep a straight back. “That’s all right.” His voice was low and with a creak akin to old stairs.

She had a small potted plant pin pinned to the left lapel of her jacket. Square shoulders and nimble feet, she only spared Erik a quick glance before putting down the stack of papers in her hand. Erik watched as she then took a seat in the oversized mauve chair across from him.

“Good afternoon Erik. I’m Dr. Mah. Dr. M, Dr. or M is also fine.” She looked down at a notepad, “so you’re amnesia is a result of a physical injury? Oumar told me that you have multiple head wounds and that you woke up on the roof of your apartment building.” Erik stared for a minute before bobbing his head slowly.

“Good, I specialize in CBT, do you know what that is?” The desk lamp to her right partially illuminated her hair.

“Uhh…vaguely?”

“So then why don’t I give you a quick explanation to fill in those blanks? If you have any questions please don’t be afraid to ask.” He nodded as he understood.

“CBT is just a short form for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. With regards to amnesia, my plan will be to help you address all those negative thoughts floating inside your head because of your amnesia and also addressing why you  have amnesia in the first place. Yes, head trauma is why you have amnesia but you didn’t get onto that roof and with those wounds by yourself. I want to figure out what happened before that.”

Erik listened quietly as she spoke, letting his teeth rip the first layer of skin from around his coral coloured lips.

She finished her explanation and changed topics. “I see you have a notebook next to you.” She pointed to his right with the ball of her pen, “Do you want to explain why you brought it?”

“Um…sure…yeah.” Grasping the notebook that he’d found a few days ago when Oumar had been over, Erik felt the scratched and indented leather beneath his fingertips.

“Sorry, my writing isn't too good.” Dr. Mah chuckled lightly as she took the book from his hands. His writing was more like strokes than circular or uniform letters. Only on second glance would you piece together the word, like an infuriatingly confusing puzzle.

“It can’t be worse than mine, in college my friends used to tease me and say that I wrote in a whole other language because my handwriting was so unreadable.”

Her words went silent as she pressed open the leather bound notebook. Erik’s creaky voice returned as he leaned forward and clarified, “I haven’t written much in it yet. It's mostly just random thoughts, nothing…nothing cohesive.”

She didn’t respond, eyes skimming up and down the few pages but jotting nothing down on her notepad. Once again, Erik found himself filling the silence, “To be honest, I don’t really know what to write. Like…” Shaking his head he restarted his broken sentence, “I’ve been trying to write down everything I learn but…”

Finally her gaze tore away from the chicken scratched pages, “But?”

Having dug himself into a hole, Erik’s nose scrunched as he thought of the proper words. “But it feels like there's too much. It feels like I’m trying to fill a bucket of water with holes in it. All of the information just pours out of the bottom…I don’t know if that makes sense.”

She indicated yes with a bobbing head. “Perfect sense, Erik. Perfect sense.”

She let the book slide off her lap, the edge of it began to be pressed between the chair arm and the cushion. “How have you found acclimatizing?”

“I feel a bit…aimless. Like I have no idea where to go from here? I mean…, where do you even go from here? I don’t know who I am, what I like…It feels like I'm just floating aimlessly as everyone else pulls me where they want me to go.”

He didn’t mention how he’d seen the warped Modarr standing across from him. How he’d seen him, even in the dark of night in such detail he still wasn’t sure if it was reality. Erik already felt lost, he didn’t need his therapist to think he was crazy too.

“Are you used to your bed yet?”

“I haven’t been sleeping on the bed.”

“So where have you been sleeping?”

“The couch.”

“The couch?”

He nodded, hesitation stunting his movement. Dr. Mah looked at him differently now; slight furrowing of her eyebrows, a focused scowl with slow and controlled breaths.

When she broke away she began with a question, moving along without hesitation, “And why is that?”

Suddenly the wall behind the Good Doctor was of great interest to Erik, he stared at the invisible paint as it dried, “Um…uh, I don’t know.”

“...Okay.” She scribbled something down on her notepad, Erik didn’t try to look or read it; unreadable was an understatement to how messy her handwriting truly was.

Kissing his teeth, Erik shifted on the couch as he questioned her. Why was she writing something down, his sleeping place was hardly the source of his amnesia. “What? I don’t know.”

She dragged her gaze up to him, shoulders squared once more. “And I said okay.” There was something in the way she looked at him, like she was seeing something he wasn’t. Like she was understanding something he wasn’t.

“Yeah but you don’t believe me.”

“You’re right, I don’t. But I'm your doctor Erik, not your mother.”

“Why don’t you believe me? A couch is a fine place to sleep.”

“...Okay.”

Huffing he laid back on the couch. He didn’t see her smirk but could feel it, “You really don’t know how to let things go, do you?” Her burnt sienna eyes almost looked cobalt in the light.

“Not when I don’t know what I’m not seeing.”

She smiled, which only made Erik’s annoyance sky rocket, “What now?”

“You know an irrefutable fact about yourself.”

“I saw in the notebook you had a page for parents with a little question mark next to it. There was nothing else on the page.”

“Talvi told me my parents died when I was 21. Part of me still doesn’t believe it…” The feeling of the wooden table replayed in the feelings on his fingertips. He ran the pad of his thumb over each one of his fingers. “Not that I think they’re lying or anything like that. It's just…parents and…I don’t know, everything feels so foreign and foggy. I just wish I could get a grasp on something. Anything.”

With determination in her eyes, Dr. Mah looked like she had the world figured out. Completely opposite to the tapping foot of Erik. “Then you’ve come to the right place. I might not be able to get all your memories back but I’ll help you figure out the fog. Does that sound like a good plan?”

He gulped, a short intake of breath before he spoke with a heavy tone, “Sounds pretty damn good.”

“Can I ask, what do you remember from before that morning? If anything at all.”

“Umm…” Dense, white fog obscured the underdeveloped images of his mind.”

Her voice was light, floating in and out like a warm light as Erik bent over and scrunched his eyes together.

“Fuck.” Erik groaned loudly. Bright scarlet veins  were left pronounced among the white when he opened his eyes, “Nothing.” Sighing, he wanted nothing more than to remember something. A feeling, a memory, an echo, an impression, anything.