Remember

by Karthikeyan, Girish

  Claire faces me. I don't see her, so she puts her hand on my chest. “Are you ready?”

  The background noise forces a yell. “YES.”

  Claire taps in front of her ear. “See you on the other side.” She spins around and crosses during a 4 sec gap in the traffic.

  I move close to the trans-corridor. A warning message comes up. I wait. More keep appearing on my eyes. They fully cover my left. I walk backwards. It’s too late. I can’t see anything. The warnings blind me. I search for the railing with my hands, but I can’t find it. I wander around, not seeing, not caring where the corridor is. No matter where I go, the whooshing sound from the corridor gets louder. I run into the vine. I grab on. I can wait for my vision to return. Someone grabs my arm. I can tell from the delicate, slender, yet strong fingers it is Claire.

  “I knew you would lose it. You can just come with me.” She grabs my wrist tighter and leads my forward, I think.

  The sounds become louder and quiet down. Claire keeps leading me. A few meters later, we stop. She turns me around and pushes me back. I feel pressure on the underside of my knees and fall into a bench.

  “What happened?”

  “I can’t see anything. The warning messages are too much.”

  Claire cups my head and turns it to her. "Open your eyes, please."

  They stay scrunched shut, although this doesn't remove the messages. With her thumb and forefinger, she pushes apart the area around one of my eyes. I decide to open them.

  "Wow." Claire releases me. "Just accept the next message you see.”

  I see something new on my eyes. ‘Do you want to allow Katarina Genovese access to your personal tech?’ I say yes.

  “Give me your hand. I need to see the screen.”

  She holds my arm over her legs with the wrist. Claire enters a series of commands on the tech screen over my forearm that we can both now see, if I could see anything. Whatever it is, it gets rid of the messages. I can start to see some of the world. All the messages go away. My vision clears. I see Claire looking at me concerned then intently working on my tech.

  “That’s everything. Those messages shouldn’t be bothering you again.”

  I take a deep breath. “What happened?”

  “The tech didn’t clear any of the old messages. They just kept gathering, blocking your vision. I’ve changed the setup to just show you one message at a time, the newest one.” Claire releases my hand and wipes hers on a pant leg.

  I massage my sore jaw muscle after unconscious clenching. “It won’t happen again?”

  “No, you’re safe. It shouldn’t be happening in place, but anyway.”

  We continue jogging — the corridor a far memory. The buildings provide some shelter, and then the woods surround us. A cozy, more comfortable feeling comes over me in these woods from that open grassland. Not a real shelter, with no protection from the rain or cold, the wind just a little impeded, but it just makes me comfortable, surrounded by this living, breathing, transforming, creature that is these woods. I start talking to Claire, after that near fatal mistake.

  As casually as can be expected in an adrenaline fueled jog. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Actually, Ian, Corrine, and I are going to Legend of the Mixist. We want to do some research on a possible business model.” Claire continues checking on me every few secs.

  What constitutes an innovation in bar tending? “What’s different about this place?”

  “Yes, it is a sim bar like Zensation. The sim patches somehow beam the process to make each drink into your head. Then you do it in partial sim. They claim you experience everything about making and consuming the drink. You can come along, if you want.” Claire resolutely minds her feet while I say something.

  “Why that?” Why not a new cocktail, dance mix, psychedelic light show, sim bar staff, or even a privacy consideration?

  Claire thinks for a sec. “I’m not sure about the business case. Ian takes care of most of that. It's just an interesting idea. They want me to find a way to do something like that in Zensation.”

  I smile a little. “What about the supplies to make it yourself at home?”

  Claire moves closer to the trees and watches something pass by. “Yes, but it is too expensive for the majority of visitors. It's just for appearances.”

  “Marketing the sim, maybe.” I shrug.

  “That could work. It actually does work to sell it. The space can be scanned to correctly fit the sim. That is it." Claire almost purrs hmm in agreement.

  Could make for a nice distraction. “I’d like to come.”

  Claire pulls up her sleeve for something on her tech. “Here's the loc.”

  I see something on my tech. These are the details: Legend of the Mixist, Forest Lane and One Street.

  Claire smiles more. ”We are meeting at 8.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  A cheerful addition. “It’ll be fun.”

  Unnecessary Distractions from Real Life

  Wed 8/30/17 5:45 p.m.

  We turn left at Oak Park, something like Lake Park — a wide thoroughfare right through the middle of the city. We covered anything about the last few days. Claire likes having discussions about various stuff. I search for something good. I read something yesterday about the causes of dreaming — an alternate pathway ideology for dream creation.

  “What do you think is the process behind dream creation? You have two choices. Are dreams an attempt of the brain to decode random electrical signals from the brain stem? Or do you accept that it is the unconscious trying to communicate?” The memory just came back without a fuss.

  Claire keeps jogging until figuring out the salient choice. “I think it's the unconscious trying to communicate.”

  “A manifestation of random signals.” Not trying to disagree, that's just how I feel.

  “Let’s start with the unconscious communicating. Why don’t you go first?” Claire stops in a few feet.

  I stop next to her, bent over and panting. “If dreams are the brain talking with the same brain, why the difficulty understanding?”

  Claire crouches down and unties one shoe. She stands up, slips out her shoe, reaches inside and removes a stone stuck in a side vent. She hobbies over, supports herself with my shoulder, and remounts the shoe. “One of the clear differences is the unconscious mind's ability to freely associate. The unconscious mind makes different associations than the conscious mind. So that means the unconscious speaks a different language.”

  I brace my back on a tree. “That's a good point. Associations are the main organizing principle in the brain. Is there any evidence to back you up?” I watch her lips move deftly from each word to the next and pretend lip reading as one of my skills.

  “The pathways activated by the two brain systems have a small number of cross-connections. Cross connections: the locs at which similar associations occur. That should be enough.” Claire paces across the trail when finished.

  Confident much? “How do you explain the results of removing the brain stem on dreams? The subjects stopped dreaming after the removal.”

  Claire runs by me, pulls me along by the arm, and leads me through the forest with my hand on the smallest part of her back, talking all the while. “You are trying to trick me. I just happen to know that research. Dreaming didn’t actually stop. It nearly stopped. The tests show the brain stem mainly contributes to dreaming intensity.”

  A rapid clicking of bicycle chains fills my ears. “That also matches a loss of random signals from the brain stem. Just the autonomic functions were outsourced into a neural implant.”

  Claire turns around and points at something on the trail. “This leads nowhere in the initial question. We agree on the physical origin, but not the purpose.”

  My gaze follows her finger to a caravan of bicycles zooming by at over 50 kph. “If it is just a communication device, why does the body go into paralysis?”

  Claire follows me near the forest edge. “Dreams are intrinsicall
y without consequences. The paralysis is an extension of that. The brain can test out future possibilities and responses to those events in the mind.”

  We re-enter the trail, and a lone peddler swerves around us, almost side swiping me. “I don’t have anything more to add.” We stand across from each other in the middle of the trail.

  She shakes her head back and forth. “I don’t either.”

  I widen my stance. “Let’s move on to the meaningless signals sent by the brain stem as the origination of dreams.”

  Claire does too. “You suggest dreams are just meaningless signals. Then why is the brain more open to suggestion during dreaming?”

  Easy one. “The signals of dreaming are wimpy compared to the background signaling. The brain needs to be in a suggestible state to pick up these signals and understand them.”

  An empathetic nod. “Why even try to interpret these signals?”

  Got me on that one. “There must be some reason.”

  “Huh-huh. And you don’t know that reason.”

  I shuffle in one foot that slips on a stray fallen leaf. “If dreams mean something, why are they forgotten?”

  Claire crosses her arms and clutches her chin with one hand. "Think about it like this. You are talking to someone. You aren’t going to remember what they said unless you can understand it. The same thing with dreams, you have to understand what the unconscious says. It needs to make some sense. Until that happens, there is no point in saving it.”

  I inch closer and face the direction we were going. “That almost answers my question.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “We aren’t going to reach an agreement anytime soon. We should talk about this later. We can both come up with more to say.”

  “That sounds good.”

  Claire nearly won with that question about why the conscious mind interprets dreams. If it was just nonsensical signaling, the conscious mind should just ignore it. Other than that every statement either of us made was dismissed.

  We jogged for some time before reaching Pike Street, which we stayed on. The street goes up to this old relic of a building. It is one of the tall buildings in Mountain Overlook with ten or so near duplicates dispersed around the city. Its stone base extends about 5 stories high. The building takes on a tripod shape here. Each of the three square towers gently slope towards the axis and meet. The magnificent sun gleams back from the mirror-like surface of the building. Towering trees and low slung buildings almost work to obscure the sight of it from anywhere outside its circular go-around. From the upper levels of the Institute, it just looks like a lonely tower. The most obvious thing is it just towers above almost everything else in the city. We look down the straight street and see the stony plinth it stands on from a few blocks away.

  Something bothered me up until now. What was Claire doing sitting with that cup in her office? “What were you doing in your office today?”

  Claire keeps jogging without changing pace from the start. “Do you mean when you asked me about jogging today?”

  I nod even though the com shouldn't translate it. “Yes.”

  “I was testing you and me. I wanted to see how much patience you have, and I was trying to resist temptations.” She said it like it was normal.

  I just go along with it. “Did either one of us pass?”

  A wider smile, a palatable grin. “We both did. There is always room for improvement.”

  Reality reasserts itself. “What’s with the tests?”

  “I was just having fun with you by keeping you waiting. I like to find my limits. Not just my preconceived or estimated limits, but my end all limit. I do this by pushing each limit as far as possible.” Straight faced for maybe the first time today.

  Tough. “All I can say is why, meekly. Whhyy?”

  “I just like doing it. I had the most delicious drink in my hands. It can somehow know exactly what I want at any moment. When I take a sip, well it's some tech thing that I don't read too much into. That was the temptation today.” The smile returns as well.

  Anathema. “It just sounds like you’re torturing yourself. I would never want to do something like that.”

  “If you just alter your perception, you will see something new."

  Get ready for more screwy logic.

  "All life is suffering. You are on an unquenchable, unending, grueling search for pleasure. That is a form of suffering in itself. When you find this momentary pleasure, you dread losing it. This search and short enjoyment period continue until the end of your life.” Claire up adjusts her glasses.

  Buddhism as my tech suggests with some key info. “You’re going to tell me the only escape is to lead a simple life without any possessions, aren’t you?”

  Claire laughs with subtlety. “That is but one choice. I would suggest just starting a journey to your own unique destination. My goal is to increase my definition of suffering to such a level that I can’t easily experience it.”

  Wow, again. “How are you going to do that?” But why, the oh so important why.

  Claire's eyes light up, not that I can see her eyes. “Well, meditation and yoga are my starting points. They are supposed to lead you to some conclusions. I believe at that point, I’ll know what to do next.”

  Disbelief, incredulity, and a little jealousy make their peace. “I don’t think it is going to work.”

  She shrugs or shakes off my affront to something deep, long-held, extremely close to her true self or possible true self. “I’ll give you an example. I used to wonder what finding your center means. My journey gave me my answers. You can find an emotional place where you feel how you want to. My place is just a little on the happy side of no emotion. That is my center.”

  Why is this so hard for me? Oh, yeah, I need to test, peer-review, accredit, and understand it first. “What you’re saying isn’t possible.”

  Claire puts on a gleeful and near mischievous smile. “The best way to find out is just trying the first step.”

  “I’m game.” I imagine Claire plotting and rubbing her hands together. Add an up-light for dramatic shadows and effect.

  Claire jogs a bit faster. “Good, we can find a place for you to try it.”

  Looking Within

  Wed 8/30/17 6:04 p.m.

  We near the tower of a structure, which gets even bigger as we approach and begin rounding it. The sun hides behind the leg we walk by. I must have just been immersed in our conversation that its approach didn't register much. The circular plinth shows row upon row of windows cuddling a collection of massive doors. Above that the glassy sides look the same up to the triangular apex of the tower. A paved ring marches around the whole thing. Long ago laid down, crumbled and eroded by the elements, perturbed with intrusions of growth trimmed down, and yellowed — still remaining to this day. The extremely wide path goes all the way to the next building, forcing us on it. Something feels familiar, but what I cannot say.

  What Claire says about suffering all the time defies truth in every way, simply impossible. And the thought that everyone suffers looking for pleasure. I admit I'm not happy all the time, but it's just boring to feel the same way constantly. Even if it is possible, I wouldn’t want to do it. When I’m happy, I don’t think about finding happiness again. It just happens or it doesn’t. I don’t search for it. I can try it. It can’t hurt, much.

  The temptation angle whirs my thinking gears. Something I should know eludes me. What causes addiction? As a neuroscientist, it enters my territory. I can just feel the info right in front of me — a unified theory of what causes addiction. What is it? I decade to ask Claire under the pretense of testing her knowledge. I don’t have a good chance to get any new info. Looking up something and understanding it are two completely different things. I can try it anyway. “Could you refresh my memory of something? The unified theory on chemical addition”

  Claire misses a step, but keeps going. “Yes.”

  Good. “What is it?”

  “Conor, are you feeling all right?” />
  I nod to that.

  “This is stuff you should know intimately. I’ll go along with your little game, for now. Physical dependence can be created by an external chemical that mimics the effects of any endogenous neurochemical.”

  Why is she going along? “Can you give me an example?”

  Claire purses her lips. “How about the consumption of nicotine?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Throat clearing. “Nicotine imitates the function of acetylcholine. It does this because nicotine binds with equal affinity to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. These receptors are located where neurons meet muscles. Additionally, identical receptors in the brain are affected even more. This can lead to the release of dopamine. A frequent consumer of nicotine associates the consumption with pleasure.”

  That sounds familiar, at least. “What causes the addiction in this case?”

  Claire takes a while, jogging out of habit. “The nicotinic acetylcholine receptors become desensitized to acetylcholine and nicotine. The presence of both is now required for activation of the receptors. The body becomes acclimated to this new level as normal for acetylcholine and dopamine. Anything below this level is now unacceptable for normal function. ”

  Do I really need more? I've come this far, why not. “What happens when the intake of nicotine is stopped?”

  Claire looks to the top of the tower. “The level of chemicals that can activate the said receptor drops below the new set level. It is now much harder to function. The primary symptoms result from a lower dopamine level and chemicals that can activate nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. The symptoms include a lower functioning state and dissatisfaction.”

  “What ends these symptoms?” I will the knowledge into existence, but get nothing.

  She makes a fist and releases it multiple times. “The body adjusts to the new set levels of dopamine and acetylcholine like chemicals. This can be less difficult with treatment and support.”

  I push through her growing impatience. “Could you give me another example?”