The Memory Thieves

by Darren Simpson

  Jonquil frowned at the foyer’s benches, floor lamps and potted plants. “All this furniture and stuff… It’s like being in the past or something.”

  “Oh yeah? How far in the past?”

  “I’m not sure. Sort of…1950s, I guess?”

  “What year is it now?”

  Jonquil gave a stunted laugh, then realized Cyan meant it. She began to reply but caught herself and snapped her mouth shut. “Ms Ferryman said I…can’t talk about things like that.”

  Cyan grinned. “I know. Just testing.” He shrugged. “I honestly have no idea what decade it is, but it doesn’t matter. Like Ms Ferryman said, we don’t really do time here.” He waggled a thumb at the handless clock. “Days, months, even the seasons… It all blends.”

  He pointed at each of the four corridors joining the foyer. “So, these corridors’ll take you to everything on this floor: lounge, games room, canteen, pool, library. And you see those stairs?” He clicked his fingers at the spiral staircases to each side of the clock. “They skip the next floor to get you to the rooms further up.”

  Jonquil considered each staircase. “Why skip the next floor?”

  “It’s the engine floor. Full of mechanisms for the upper rooms.”

  “Mechanisms?”

  Cyan wriggled his white eyebrows. “You’ll see. But basically, only staff can access the engine floor. Same goes for the floor below us. That’s the staff floor, for staff living quarters, laundry, that sort of thing. I’ll show you more later, but we’d better get to Dr Haven first. He’ll be waiting for you.”

  “Who’s Dr Haven?”

  “The sanctuary’s director. He oversees the treatment.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Dresses like a funeral director and smells of soap, but he’s nice enough. Do you usually do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “All that twiddling with your fingers. You’re worse than Ruby. She can’t stay still either.”

  Jonquil parted her hands, only to start playing with her hair instead. “Ruby?”

  “You’ll have the…pleasure –” Cyan made speech marks with his fingers – “soon enough. Sometime. Somewhere.”

  Cyan clocked a giant of a man leaving Dr Haven’s office and started tugging Jonquil towards the corridor. “Mr Banter! Could you hold the door open?”

  The blond, bespectacled orderly – with his white tunic taut against his muscly bulk – turned to see Cyan waving.

  Jonquil spoke quietly, her lips barely moving. “Is that one of Ms Ferryman’s orderlies?”

  “Not quite. He’s Dr Haven’s personal orderly and assistant.” Cyan lowered his voice. “Not blessed with the best bedside manner. Has all the charisma of a potato.”

  He grinned and waved again as they entered the corridor, but frowned when Mr Banter – smiling vaguely – let the door shut behind him.

  The hulking orderly stayed where he was, blocking the way to Dr Haven’s office.

  Cyan shrugged. “Jonquil, meet Mr Banter. Mr Banter, this is Jonquil, a new resident.”

  Jonquil stared up at Mr Banter’s eyes, which were grossly magnified by his glasses, bright blue beneath cropped, straw-blond hair.

  “Hello, Mr Banter,” croaked Jonquil.

  The orderly let out a rumbling sigh. His smile edged towards a smirk.

  “So, Mr Banter.” Cyan shot a grin at Jonquil. “There appears to be a massive slab of person in our way. Would you mind moving? The director’s expecting us.”

  After lifting a blond eyebrow, Mr Banter pivoted languidly on the spot and strode away.

  “Thank you!” called Cyan, before whispering to Jonquil. “Mr Banter’s not one to waste words. Matter of fact, no one’s ever heard him speak. But unlike the other residents, I don’t think he’s a mute. I just think he likes it that way.”

  Cyan knocked on the office door.

  “Who is it?” came a mild voice from within.

  “Cyan. I’ve got Jonquil to see you.”

  “Very good. One moment.”

  Cyan sensed Jonquil reaching out, almost touching the hair that hung against his cheek. He pulled gently away.

  “Why is it so white?” asked Jonquil. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Not on someone your age.”

  Cyan shrugged. “Dunno. Why is sand the colour of sand?”

  The voice came again from behind the door. “You can come in now.”

  The lock buzzed; Cyan pushed the door.

  It opened with a faint waft of antiseptic, and revealed Dr Haven standing by his desk, dressed in his usual pinstriped grey trousers, charcoal waistcoat, pristine white shirt and long-tailed black coat. His shoes shone as slickly as his bald patch, which rose through the grey hair at the back and sides of his head.

  “Good afternoon, Cyan.” The doctor’s voice was as warm as his smile. His gaze moved to Jonquil. “And you must be…”

  “Pri—”

  “No.” Cyan and Dr Haven interrupted together.

  She corrected herself. “Jonquil. I’m Jonquil.”

  “That’s right,” said the doctor. “Welcome to the Elsewhere Sanctuary, Jonquil. I’m Dr Haven, the sanctuary’s director. I’m also its resident doctor, for all aches and pains of the body and mind.” He tightened his grey tie, just a little, and gestured towards the chair facing his desk. “Please, come in. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Jonquil cast a glance at Cyan, who nodded encouragingly before following her into the room. He took a seat on the bench by the wall. The door locked itself with a click.

  Jonquil sat down as instructed. Her eyes grew large while they roved, lost in the colours of the frames lining every wall. Butterflies were pinned behind the frames’ glass panes, organized in neat, orderly rows.

  “All these butterflies…” she began. “They’re…beautiful.”

  Light from the windows was cast back into the room, reflected by a thousand fragile wings. Jonquil continued to turn her head, with butterfly hues drifting across her skin.

  Dr Haven browsed one of the medicine cabinets at the far end of the office. “Yes. I suppose they are.”

  “But isn’t pinning them up like that a bit…a little…” Jonquil trailed off.

  Dr Haven turned to raise a friendly eyebrow. “Cruel?”

  She nodded uncomfortably.

  The director looked amused. “Not at all. They feel very little pain when they die. No more pain than a fly feels when you swat it with a newspaper. Do you feel bad for flies when they die? Or ants or cockroaches?”

  “I…guess not.”

  “Then there you have it. It’s best not to allow appearances to encourage prejudice. And do you know how long the average butterfly lives? Two weeks at most. There’s not much to take away. And at least here –” he swirled a long, immaculate finger around the room – “they’re preserved so we can always appreciate them. Now, Jonquil. Take these, please.”

  Dr Haven placed a small silver tray on the desk and slid it towards her. Jonquil stared at its contents: a glass of water, and a small paper cup filled with pills.

  “There’s nothing there that won’t help you,” assured the doctor. “Isn’t that so, Cyan?”

  Jonquil glanced again at Cyan. When he gave her a cheery thumbs up, she closed her eyes, tipped the pills into her mouth and washed them down.

  Dr Haven restored the cup and glass to the tray. “Excellent. Now count to ten in your head.” He waited for some moments. “All done? Good. Take this pen and sign these two forms, here and here. As soon as you’re done, we’ll record your oath.”

  Jonquil blinked at the forms as if struggling to focus. After swaying very slightly, she scrunched up her eyes, let out a slow breath and – somewhat limply – put pen to paper.

  When she was finished, the doctor put the sheets in a drawer and began fussing with a small metallic camera clamped to his desk.

  Jonquil gazed at the camera’s lens. “What’s the oath?”

  Dr Haven didn’t look up. “Cyan, would you be so
good as to explain?”

  Cyan crouched next to Jonquil and took out his locket. “Here. This is mine.” He opened the locket’s front, held his thumb against its screen and spoke clearly into the device: “Oath.”

  The screen flickered to life to show an image of Cyan. In the video his hair was jet-black, apart from a white streak that ran along his parting. His eyes were red with tears and he was sitting in the very chair Jonquil was using now.

  The recording of him sniffed and shuddered, pleading to the camera: “I want to forget… I want…to forget, okay? I never want to remember. Never!” His head dropped into his hands. The locket’s screen went blank.

  “Oh god,” breathed Jonquil.

  Cyan laughed and got up. “It’s nothing, Jonquil. Whatever made me feel like that is long gone. And if I’m ever curious about what brought me here, I just watch this clip and – poof! – no more curiosity.”

  Dr Haven slipped a microchip into the desk’s camera, then took his seat opposite Jonquil. “Thank you for that demonstration, Cyan. Now come behind me, please, so you’re not in the camera’s view.”

  With his elbows on the desk, the director leaned forward, joined the tips of his fingers, and looked Jonquil in the eye. “Jonquil. Without saying anything at all about it, please cast your mind back to the incident that caused you to seek solace here at our sanctuary. Give the episode some thought.”

  Jonquil’s gaze sharpened. Some of the looseness left her shoulders and she frowned at her fretting fingers. “That’s easy enough. I think about it all the time. I can’t not think about it. What happened to me, what happened to—” She stopped herself, before going on. “I can’t stop replaying it in my head. I can’t stop the way it…it hurts.”

  Her voice had thickened, and her eyes began to brim, just as they’d done in Ms Ferryman’s office. Cyan watched with his breath held, as fascinated by her tears as he was sorry for her pain.

  “Everyone said it would,” she croaked. “Everyone said the hurting would fade. But they’re wrong. They have no idea. It never stops hurting. It just gets worse. That’s why I’m here.”

  Dr Haven nodded, his voice soothing and kind. “But I’d like you to really think about what happened. Think about exact, specific details. Think about the sounds in your ears at the time. What you smelled, what the temperature was like. Think about how it felt for you. Try to remember those feelings: what went through your head, whether time froze or…accelerated. Think about your involvement – about any responsibility you had for what took place.”

  Tears were trickling freely down Jonquil’s cheeks. Cyan looked on, torn between staring and looking away. The sight made the nape of his neck feel hot, and he hooked a finger through his collar to loosen it. The office felt suddenly way too warm.

  Jonquil’s nostrils twitched and flared. “I never—”

  “Don’t,” cut in Dr Haven, “say anything about what happened. Merely think about it. And now, think about how much you want to forget.”

  Jonquil wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Her expression hardened. She nodded with a huff.

  “Now tell the camera.”

  Jonquil glared at the lens. Her chest began to heave. “I want to forget. I. Want. To. Forget. I want it to go away. For ever.” Her gaze rose to Dr Haven, finally meeting his eyes. “Please,” she begged. “Please make it go away.”

  The doctor nodded in approval. After handing Jonquil some tissues from a silver box on his desk, he got up, took the microchip from the camera and held it up to her. “Your oath is on this chip. Now, when you’re ready, could you give me your locket?”

  With her face hidden behind damp tissues, Jonquil fumbled at her skirt and handed him her locket.

  Dr Haven removed its back and inserted the chip. “That clip is there for you, Jonquil, whenever you need it.” He handed the locket to her, then turned away. “And now we’ll begin.”

  Cyan saw Jonquil clench the locket in her hand. “Begin what?” she asked.

  Dr Haven beckoned while he walked. “Today you’ll receive just a short dose of strobe therapy.”

  “Strobe therapy?”

  “Come this way.”

  He led her to a grey vinyl curtain in the corner and pulled it back to reveal what looked like a dentist’s chair, with black leather cushioning and an angular chrome frame. But in place of the lamp that would usually cap a dental chair’s arm, there was a concave glass screen.

  “This is the strobe chair,” said Dr Haven. “Please, take a seat.”

  Jonquil seemed reluctant. She remained where she was, standing by the chair. Cyan could see she was trembling.

  When she turned her teary eyes to him, he beamed and forced a sprightly nod. He couldn’t wait to see her get better – to see her freed from whatever made her eyes well up that way.

  Jonquil climbed on and lay back against the chair’s stiff leather. Cyan eased some used tissues from her hand. When he offered a fresh one from the desk, she tried to smile and used it to dab what was left of her tears.

  Cyan put a hand on her arm. “There’s no need to be nervous. You won’t feel a thing. Everything’s going to get better, starting from now. It’s not just time we don’t do here. It’s tears too.”

  He saw that she was clutching the chair’s side, with the wet tissue clamped between her knuckles. Her breaths quickened when her eyes flitted to Dr Haven. “What does the chair do? You said something about…strobes.”

  The doctor was tapping at a console behind the chair. “I won’t waste your time with technicalities, but I’ll try to convey the basics.”

  He took two circular, metallic pads connected by wires to the console, and squirted some gel onto them before placing one on each of Jonquil’s temples. She shuddered with their contact.

  Dr Haven went on. “Beyond the Lethe Method, there are, of course…other ways to remove memory. Certain drugs can erase a patient’s recollection of the last few days – or even a person’s memory entirely. But this is all rather clumsy and doesn’t allow the targeting of specific memories and their many associations. But the Lethe Method does, and this chair is the method’s core.

  “In its simplest terms, this screen here –” he adjusted the chair’s arm so its screen hovered inches from Jonquil’s nose – “sends rapid strobes into your vision. We call them strobes, but they’re actually flickering images; images I’ve programmed myself using your resident’s file – from the data we’ve gathered on your history and trauma.”

  He began to tap again at the console. “These images will flash by so quickly that you won’t register them consciously. But they’ll register at a deeper level. And with each stimulation, the pads on your temples will release electrical currents to…disrupt the triggered memory.”

  Jonquil tensed and moved to sit up, but the doctor eased her down with a gentle push of his finger. “Don’t worry, Jonquil. There’ll be no discomfort. The medication you took earlier will see to that, among other things…”

  Jonquil’s eyes flickered to Cyan. She looked as baffled as she did nervous, so he smiled, put a hand on her forearm and tried to explain.

  “What Dr Haven means to say,” he said, “is that – without you feeling a thing – this chair will bring up your horrible memories and zap them ’til they go away.”

  The director nodded. “Cyan has an…intriguing way with words, but he’s got the right idea. The chair weakens targeted memories through regular stimulation and disruption. This works alongside the medication and disorientation you’ll receive here at the sanctuary, which help to keep the memories at bay until they’re finally removed. All in all, this constitutes the Lethe Method.”

  The doctor gazed serenely at the console. “Words can’t do justice to how advanced the Lethe Method is, to be able to target memories with such laser-like accuracy. It’s this that allows us to remove unwanted memories while preserving a patient’s understanding of the world – of who they are within it.”

  The rise and fall of Jonquil’s chest had slow
ed. Her breaths came long and deep. The pills were kicking in.

  Her lips parted and she mumbled. “But what about…”

  Cyan leaned in close. “About what?”

  “The rules,” she breathed. “Today… All those rules.” She gazed ahead through heavy eyelids. “What if…I forget?”

  Cyan patted her arm. “You won’t. They never touch the memories you make here. They’re not even allowed. They can only remove your old memories, from before you arrived.”

  Dr Haven nodded. “And rightly so. Here at the sanctuary we follow a strict ethical code. Memories formed on the island can’t be touched. They’re unrelated to your trauma. Influencing them isn’t necessary to the treatment and therefore highly questionable.”

  Jonquil didn’t seem to hear. She gawped blankly into the screen, with her chest barely moving. Cyan saw the tissue fall from her hand.

  Dr Haven bent to study her pupils. “So, Jonquil. How are you feeling?”

  Jonquil didn’t respond. A small bead of saliva was pooling at the edge of her mouth.

  “Good.” Dr Haven went to tap the console screen again, but hesitated. Frowning abruptly, he rubbed his chin for several moments, nodded to himself, then tapped the screen a few more times.

  After motioning Cyan away, he followed him and closed the vinyl curtain. “And how are you faring, Cyan?”

  “Shipshape, thanks.”

  The chair hummed and ticked behind its curtain. Cyan heard a series of electronic clunks. Stuttering flashes began to illuminate the vinyl.

  “Oh,” began Cyan, remembering what he’d seen earlier. “I saw something interesting today. At the whale bones closest to the cove.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Words, scratched into one of the ribs. Something about –” Cyan looked down, trying to recall – “memory thieves. And fighting instead of forgetting. It was really weird. I mean, why would anyone write that?”