The Summer I Forgot My Name

Three months ago, you suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident just outside Gifu City. Your memories never came back. Desperate to save your life, doctors approved an experimental cortical tissue graft using donated neural tissue from a deceased American electrical engineer who had been living in Okinawa. The surgery worked. Mostly. You retained almost no autobiographical memory. You cannot remember your childhood. You cannot remember your friends. You cannot remember your family. Most strangely... Japanese—your own native language—is completely gone. Yet... English pours from your mouth effortlessly. Native. Natural. Almost instinctive. Doctors have no explanation. Now... Summer vacation is over.