Flash Fiction / Philip, Clean and Whole (Analysis)

SENDER: Joseph
SUBJECT: Come back
Please come back, Philip. I don’t know where you’ve gone. I’m looking everywhere.

So my name is Philip, he thought. He didn’t know who Joseph was. He didn’t know much of anything else either. He pressed Delete.
He saw the city for the first time, unburdened by memories. Is this what being born is like? A hum began deep in his chest, a tune he had no words for. It swelled and burst into unashamed song. People all around stopped to listen. It was a beautiful day—his first day.

* * *

SENDER: Joseph
SUBJECT: Where are you?
I’m afraid I’ll never get you back. Please remember me and come home.

He poised his finger over the Reply button, but had no idea what to say, so he pressed Delete instead. Today was overcast, but a crowd was gathering in the square anyway. They were all he had, and they were waiting for him to sing. He put away the phone, and sang, and the coins pooled around his feet.

* * *

There was no email on his phone today. They had come with less frequency as the weeks passed. Joseph, whoever he was, was giving up the ghost.
That was fine with Philip. People came from all over the city to hear him sing. His agent took care of the money. Even the amnesia was fading. Not that he remembered anything; when asked about his past, he made something up.
At night, when he curled up in the tiny apartment, fending off the cold, when he thumped his arm to coax out a vein for the needle, he wished the lies were real.

* * *

He awoke. The twinge in his arm told him there was still a needle in it. It wasn’t the first time. He smelled alcohol. It was the kind they used in hospitals, not the kind you drank. A man in blue scrubs approached his bed.
“Good morning, Mr. Peters. Good to have you back with us.”
Peters? Was that his last name? He couldn’t remember ever using it. For the first time, he noticed the restraints tethering his arms, legs and forehead.
“How did I get here?”
“You came here yourself, three days ago. You’re past the worst of the detox.”
He didn’t remember any of this, and said so.
The blue man smiled. “You told us you might have some memory trouble. You left yourself a note.” He picked up a scrap of paper from the nightstand and held it out.

Welcome back, Philip.
-Joseph

He remembered everything.
I was so lonely, said Joseph in his head, and then Joseph was gone, leaving his memories behind, and there was only Philip, clean and whole.

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