by Alan Spencer
“Who doesn’t?”
“Do you wish you could’ve done things differently? We make a lot of choices in our lives. I’m sure you’d like to relive some of those choices and change things—even if it’s just in your mind. And let me say, I’ve done it before.”
“Done what before? I’m confused.”
“Never mind.” The doctor placed his fingertips together. “What I’ve begun to say, we’ll address later. I think I’ll head straight into my next step of treatment.” He raised his head to meet Craig's eyes. “It’s the most effective.”
“Why not jump right into it if it’s the most effective?”
“My line of questioning serves to open up that brain of yours. It stirs memories to the surface. Good ones. The ones I can use.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He didn’t expect the visit to be so out of the normal. He’d been on the verge of tears, thinking about Alice, and now he was genuinely concerned as to the effectiveness of Dr. Krone’s program. “Use my memories for what? Can you give me a little bit of information here? Layman’s terms.”
Dr. Krone’s eyes went small, and then they went soft again. “First, would you talk a little about your wife’s death?”
Craig was unable to curb his outburst. “I’m done! And fuck you! I want to see Dr. Herbert. You’re a crackpot. I’m here for twenty minutes, and you’re already asking me about Katie. Aren’t you supposed to build up to that? Yes, you are. This is ninth-inning shit, not first pitch.”
The doctor was pleased, speaking above a whisper. “This is how you’re supposed to react.”
“Oh, here’s more psychobabble talk. Do you have a self-help book for me to buy? Will it explain to me how to fuck my own brain? And let me guess, you’d like to watch?”
The doctor clapped his hands together once. “Oh, this is splendid.”
“I won’t go to jail.” Craig bolted from his chair and hovered at the door. “I’ll tell them about you. I’ll visit Dr. Herbert. According to my documents, I’m supposed to see him anyway. I’m sure it’ll hold up in court.”
“Absolutely, but you won’t be leaving anytime soon to do those things.”
Craig’s blood was stewing in his veins. “And why the hell not?”
“Go ahead and leave,” the doctor suggested, waving his handkerchief in dismissal. “I’m done with twenty questions. Do as you wish. I’ve got you worked up. You’re ready for the machine.”
Craig refused to play into the doctor’s game. He prayed every psychiatrist wasn’t this unprofessional, or else he was prison bound.
He stormed out of the door and slammed it closed, hearing from the other side a set of plaques collapse from the wall.
There goes Dr. Krone’s well-established career all over the floor.
Craig rushed to what he guessed was the exit, taking wide, fast steps, the escape being fifteen paces north of him. Rachael wasn’t in sight, though he didn’t bother to glance at the main desk to say goodbye.
Then a cold drop startled him. It stained his eyebrow. Blood. Touching it, he found the bandage was sodden through. Why hadn’t Dr. Krone said anything? Was it bloody during the interview?
This is one of those places that will inevitably be closed down. I’ll hear about it on one of those investigative news programs.
He decided he could better inspect the bandage in his car. Closing in on the exit, he reached out for the doorknob.
The knob was the only part of the door that was real.
Staggering back a step, he muttered, “You’re kidding me.”
He jangled the doorknob, and it ripped from the wall, plaster pieces crumbling to his feet. It’d been glued in place. The door frame was painted brown. A faded purple drape shielded a fake glass pane. How hadn’t he noticed it before? Obvious was too light of a word.
And then something sharp nipped him in the back. “Ahhh!”
Rachel’s soft smiling face turned maniacal. She wheezed from a cracked-open mouth that issued the tang of cinnamon hard candy.
She was laughing, enjoying his shock as he faltered to the floor. “This’ll be a simple visit. A summer’s breeze, Mr. Horsy!”
The room twirled. He was spinning slowly on a merry-go-round. His vision turned into ripples of water, and he reached out to touch the ripples, but he came up empty and feeling foolish. She shoved him down the rest of the way to the ground with a kick to the back of his knees. He landed face-first against the carpeted floor, the ground smelling of rubber and sterile cleaner. She straddled his back, and another cold prick to the neck later, he plunged under those ripples of water into unconsciousness.
Dr. Krone stepped into the waiting room and looked down at Craig’s body. “Another patient for the machine, and this one shows serious promise.”
Rachael knelt down and stroked Craig’s hair, stretching out the individual curls and letting them bounce back into their natural position.
Then she smiled up at the doctor. “He does show promise.”
The Machine
An ammonia tablet was broken under Craig’s nose, rudely waking him. The room buzzed with rusted gears grinding against each other, dueling with the chug of a roaring diesel motor. A white screen on the wall directly in front of him glowed bright with artificial white light. He imagined the gates of heaven opening, it was so blinding. The remainder of the room was cast in pitch-darkness.
Ca-clink. It sounded like metal catching metal.
He attempted to speak, but his lips were numb. Craig couldn’t shift his tongue. Trying harder to feel his body, he vaguely sensed his arms pressed against two wooden panels. Leather restraints strapped his extremities firmly into place. He couldn’t move.
A metal object touched down around the circumference of his head. It felt like a crown. The metal was ice cold against his skin. The ticking of the machine increased, and something swung down fast in front of his face. His skull was pricked by dozens of needles. He stiffened involuntarily. He twitched. His arms began to spasm. His back tightened, vertebra by vertebra. His head radiated warmth. His ears buzzed with mechanical locusts. A copper tang filled his mouth. His eyes leaked hot tears. He’d describe the overall feeling as being plugged in and hooked up to electricity.
The machine grinded faster, humming, churning, working. A mucous-laden startle escaped his throat after a pair of red binoculars was lowered in front of his eyes.
Wuuuuuuuuuum. The machine revved itself.
The binoculars exuded golden light. Pain flooded into his eyes. The gates of heaven were opening once again.
A voice echoed in the room, emanating from the walls, rising up from the floor, and reverberating inside of him. “It’s going to get uncomfortable, Mr. Horsy.”
You’re too late if you were trying to warn me, you bastard.
“Calling me a bastard won’t solve anything,” Dr. Krone laughed. “I can hear your thoughts. They come out of that speaker in the corner. I’m hooked up into your mind.”
Jesus Christ.
“Yes, Jesus would be impressed.” He’d done this many times before, Craig could tell. “Now calm down. I need you to relax.”
The doctor peered into the magnifying lenses over his face and twiddled a circular knob. The change lowered the brightness of the light, but only by a slight degree. Everything was bathed in electric white, the concentration of dozens of computer screens. The headache worsened by the second. His brain was heating up.
“I should let you know that when you signed the court order, you consented to this treatment. It’s a brand new therapy. I’ll have you a changed man in less than four hours, I promise you.”
I didn’t consent to torture. This is illegal. I’ll sue. I’ll burn this fucking place to the ground!
He stopped thinking. Was he hearing his mental voice in his head repeated through a speaker? Each word sounded harmonized.
Dr. Krone guffawed. “You’re hearing yourself think out loud, you fool. Do you really plan on burning my practice to the ground? Y
ou’ll be thanking me by the end of the day. You’ll shake my hand, or maybe you’ll buy me a beer. I love any ale on tap.”
I’m not buying you shit.
“You should read the fine print. This is for your own good. You’ll see.”
What about the fake door? Why is this place set up like a trap? Did I really take a fall outside and hit my head?
The doctor stood behind him, punching what sounded to be computer keys. “This is an overwhelming procedure, but it’s also overwhelmingly effective. There are no fake doors on my premises. The door swings both ways, like anybody else’s. You’re talking nonsense, Mr. Horsy. Let’s reel you back into reality. Do you remember breaking that stool over your friend’s body?”
Before Craig could protest, the screen ahead of him lit up with an image. It glowed around the edges with purple flashes of light. The screen crackled with sharp static, but then shortly after the crackling, a scene played out—
Half-Time pub’s television screens displayed the Giants versus the Patriots football game. The scene was what a pair of eyes would see—Craig’s eyes. Next, the bar’s varnished oak counter snuck into the picture. Hank slid a frosty mug of Pale Moon Ale at him. Hank had that special talent of delivering beer five stools down without disturbing the froth or spilling it.
This is a memory of mine. You can’t be doing this. It’s impossible!
“Keep watching.” The doctor put his hands on Craig’s shoulders. “You’ll see.”
The memory skipped a scene. It showed Willis pleading with him, cowering backwards from him in fear. “I’m so sorry. I know you’re mad, but Joey is family—you’re family too. My best friend. I’ll tell you when something else opens up. I’m sorry I can’t give you a job. I’ll give you a hundred bucks, and you don’t have to pay me back. Have another beer. Please, you can’t understand how disappointed I am that I can’t help you.”
“The hell with you!”
“Craig, you’re drunk. Take a deep breath. Hear what I’m saying. Go to the unemployment office. Use me as a reference. If you have to crash at my place, then fine. It might even be fun, huh?”
“I don’t need a place to stay,” Craig’s voice erupted, “I need a fucking job!”
The room tilted, mimicking Craig’s drunken experience.
The image jumped time again.
Shouts and screams clashed with the bar’s banter. Willis cried out, tears welling in his eyes. Genuine fear turned Willis into an unfamiliar person. He wasn’t real. He was a caricature of himself. The seat of the barstool slammed into his nose. The metal leg connected to his collarbone with an aluminum rattle.
Skipping ahead again. Willis was sprawled out on the floor and unconscious. His nose gushed red. Then Craig was tackled from behind by a bar patron and driven onto his stomach. Someone asked someone else to call the cops.
The typing of computer keys came from behind him, and the image became a blank screen.
Craig was stunned.
“Imagine how many of these horrible memories you have stored in that cerebral cortex of your mind, Mr. Horsy. I’m not suggesting you take them out. I want you to confront them. I can put you in that moment again, physically. You can change the way you reacted.”
But I still hurt Willis. What will reliving it prove?
“It’s a way of forgiving yourself.”
A female voice nearby added, “It’s like changing your past. Why not act out what we meant to do and not what we actually did?”
Dr. Krone snipped, “Quiet. He’ll learn what we’re doing in due time. I’m the one in charge, not you. Keep your mouth shut and watch.”
Is Rachael watching? What does she know about this? She hasn’t been hooked up to this torture device.
Rachel tried to correct him. “In fact I—”
The doctor angrily cut her off. “That’s not your concern, Mr. Horsy. You’re the patient. You’re the one with the ailment. You’re the one with the court order. I’m in charge.”
I want off this fucking machine!
The doctor stepped in front of the screen. That self-satisfied smile dominated his face. The doctor was slick with sweat, his face like melting wax. The entire room was stifling hot. The machine exuded warmth like a space heater from hell. The doctor was enjoying the beauty of his creation, as if experiencing an intellectual orgasm.
Craig feared what Dr. Krone could produce on the screen next. Is this your treatment? Showing me images on a screen?
The doctor’s face clenched. “This is a preliminary. My procedure is meant to drum up old memories. It’s to percolate memories and events from your personal history.”
The doctor stalked back to the machine, shortly after punching another series of computer keys. The screen flickered and then stayed bright, the golden rays piercing into Craig’s eyes and lighting up his skull.
Turn it off, my God, just turn it off!
“Hold on and watch, Mr. Horsy.”
Rachael added, “This is going to be better than your last memory.”
“This’ll take a minute.” Then the frantic typing of computer keys. “I’ll tell you something while we’re waiting. Haven’t you ever thought how cool it would be to see and hear what somebody else is thinking? Nobody can truly explain in words what’s transpiring in their heads. And human beings have a tendency to lie or stretch the truth. Nobody’s accurate in real life. This machine is one hundred percent accurate. I can analyze what’s injected the anger into your life, and I will coax it from your system.”
But you said this therapy wasn’t just putting images on a screen.
“I did. And I wasn’t lying. You’ll see. That’s the next step of the process. Soon, you’ll be living the process.”
Craig was helpless to watch the memory unfold—
“It hurts, Craig—I’m bleeding! Why did we turn on this damn highway? Why did we take your piece-of-shit car? I don’t want to die, not like this.”
He watched his hand clutch his wife’s, both hands slathered in blood. He was positioned on his knees outside the Toyota Camry to catch the baby. Various shades of crimson soaked the car seat. Katie’s thighs were sodden in brown-red birth fluids. She clutched the back of the driver’s side to abate the pain, but her shouting and yelling didn’t stop.
“You can’t push so hard,” Craig pleaded. “Remember Lamaze class? Breathe in and out and push, but not so forcefully.”
“Fuck Lamaze, and fuck you, Craig!”
“Stay calm, Katie, I love you. We’ll get through this.”
“You’re not the one pregnant. And why did you take the highway?”
“It was only lightly snowing when we started driving. I couldn’t know the storm would get worse…”
“You should’ve checked the weather. This car has about had it. We should’ve taken a cab! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“None of this is happening as we planned.”
“Oh, no shit!”
Snow pelted his head. Sheets of white whipped across the highway and blinded the horizon. The below-zero winds pierced him unmercifully. Gusts of air were so fierce, it rocked the car and the shocks squealed.
The engine had quit. It was Saturday at three in the morning. He called a tow truck and an ambulance, but the weather was so bad, they were taking forever to arrive. Sirens wailed in the distance. No other cars had passed them the entire time they were stranded beside the concrete median.
“You waited too long to call for help,” Katie accused him. Softer now, demurring into a dying voice, she said, “It’s too late.”
So much blood had been lost, it dripped from the edge of the seat and spattered the road and colored the snow. The red soaked into his clothes, his skin, and somehow flicked onto his lips.
He did his best to keep her conscious. “Hey, stay with me.”
She passed out.
He shook her body. “Katie, stay with me!”
Sirens blared from nearby.
Help had arrived.
You sick s
on of a bitch!
That was the last he’d seen Katie alive, with blood staining both her cheeks in handprint shapes from when he touched her. She died three hours later at the hospital from an internal hemorrhage. Jenny was miscarried. Katie’s parents were the last to see her alive.
Dr. Krone and Rachael clapped in unison.
What the fuck are you so happy about? You enjoy watching my wife suffer?
“This is progress,” the doctor rejoiced. “Please understand. Your mind is accepting the machine’s impulses. This means my treatment can be effective. Not everybody’s mind allows my machine to enter their memories.”
Take me off of this machine right now!
The doctor moved into Craig’s line of vision again, Rachael standing beside him. They were side by side, the woman hugging the doctor with one arm. They were delighted.
Dr. Krone said, “Do yourself a favor and calm down. Like what you said to Katie, correct?”
Fuck you. You have no right to talk about Katie. You don’t know her. You don’t know me.
The doctor’s eyes lit up. “But I will know both of you very well in time.”
The doctor removed the binoculars from Craig’s face. The screen went blank. The golden rays vanished. Purple and white blotches corrupted his vision. He couldn’t see anything for five minutes.
The two were busy at work. The time to chat had concluded. The mechanical whir of a metal fan matched the grinding of gears. The device was warming up again. Burning hot now, Craig’s skin absorbed the heat, and he couldn’t do anything to abate the rising agony. Computer keys were tapped at ninety words per minute. What Dr. Krone was instructing the machine must have been intricate, as intricate as navigating the depths of his mind.
Rachael pushed a syringe into the back of Craig’s neck where his spine and brain stem connected. She was lost in her work. Her eyes didn’t meet his. The smile, the excited expression, almost childlike in its intensity, had vanished into firm determination.
