Memories
One wall displayed a beautiful mountain lake, while Clair de Lune played softly as the middle-aged man entered the waiting room at the Tranquility memory-deletion clinic. A gentle breeze blew ripples across the lake’s surface, and the yellow leaves of the aspens fluttered like a million butterfly wings.
“Good morning, Mr. Harding,” a disembodied woman’s voice said. “Please take a seat. The doctor will see you shortly.”
Sam Harding sat down on a comfortable couch in front of the display wall and tried to relax. Taking a deep breath, Sam willed the muscles in his neck and shoulders to loosen, but the decades-old tightness remained.
For most people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, their medical insurance pays for deleting their debilitating memories. Universal Healthcare would cover the cost if you didn’t have insurance and were a wounded soldier, an accident victim, or the victim of a physical assault. But as a felon convicted of violent crimes, Sam had to pay the entire amount himself, and it had taken twelve long years for him to save enough for just a single treatment.
Sam tapped his fingers nervously on the couch. What if the therapy didn’t work? What if he needed more than one treatment? What if his horrendous flashbacks and nightmares continued?
Then Sam wondered how many of his victims had needed Tranquility’s treatments to erase the devastating memories of what he had done. Addicted to the powerful street drug known as Craze, Sam had initially turned to burglary and armed robbery to pay for the increasingly frequent fixes he required to keep his inner demons at bay. But eventually, he lost control. He became a serial rapist who took his self-loathing out on the women he robbed while crazed on the highly addictive drug. Taking ever greater chances as his addiction sent him into a vicious spiral of highs and lows, the police inevitably identified and arrested him.
The judge sentenced Sam to twenty years without the possibility of parole. His first year — during which withdrawal often sent him to the prison hospital — seemed to last forever. Later, years of individual and group therapy forced him to face the terrible suffering he had brought on himself, his family, his friends, and, most of all, his many victims.
For the last twenty-nine years, Sam had been clean. And for each of those years, the memories of the pain he had caused ate at him. He had served his time and turned his life around. His parole board had decreed he was no longer a danger to himself or others. He had paid his debt to society, and today, the awful memories of what he did would finally be erased forever.
“Mr. Harding,” the disembodied voice said, “the doctor will see you now.”
A door silently swung open, and a nurse dressed in white said, “If you will follow me, please, I’ll take you back now.”
She led Sam to a room where a comfortable recliner sat waiting for him. To its left stood EKG and functional EEG displays to enable the doctor to monitor his heart and the functioning of various parts of his brain. To its right, an IV bottle hung from its metal stand.
“Please sit down. Once I hook you up and insert an IV line for the medications, I’ll get your doctor.”
The nurse began by attaching the EKG leads to Sam’s chest, arms, and legs. Then she placed a tight-fitting, sensor-laden cap over his scalp. A 3D image of Sam’s brain appeared on the second display, its lobes and internal components glowing like so many colorful ghosts in the machine of his mind. Twinkling clouds of tiny sparks showed the activity of his brain. The nurse finished by sliding the IV needle into the vein on the back of his hand with practiced ease.
“Now sit back and relax while I let your doctor know you’re ready.”
Once again, Sam tried to relax. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the soothing music that had followed him in from the waiting room.
A woman in her mid-forties briefly knocked on the door and entered. “Good afternoon, Mr. Harding,” she said as she glanced at the monitors and IV. “I see my assistant has you properly prepped for the procedure. How are you feeling today?”
“Okay, I guess. A bit nervous you might accidentally erase memories I don’t want to lose, but more worried that you won’t delete all my terrible memories.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Harding. Such concerns are only natural, but I assure you that you are in expert hands. Here at Tranquility, we’ve helped hundreds of patients delete their worst memories. Are you ready?”
“Doctor, I’m more than ready. I’ve been waiting and saving my money a very long time for this day.”
“Okay, then, let’s get started. Your memories are stored as engrams — neural circuits composed of neurons connected by synapses. The engrams are largely located in your brain’s hippocampus and neocortex. But those associated with powerful emotions, such as fear and anger, also run through your brain’s amygdalae.”
Sam ignored the medical jargon, hoping she would get to the point.
“So, the first thing we will do is identify and chemically mark the synapses associated with the specific engrams you wish to delete. Then, I’ll inject a second chemical that will permanently change those synapses, weakening the neural circuits that elicit those memories. When we’re done, it will be as if the memories had never existed.”
“That sounds wonderful, doctor. You have no idea how much that means to me.”
The doctor smiled. “Of course, I do, Mr. Harding. I assure you, the results will be truly life-altering.”
She picked up a needle and inserted it into the IV line, just a few inches from where it fed into Sam’s vein.
“Okay, Mr. Harding, close your eyes. I want you to concentrate on the memories you wish to forget. Picture them clearly in your mind. Remember everything you can about the experiences: where you were, who you were with, what was said and done, and how you felt. Try to remember everything about them. Then, when you’re ready, I want you to nod your head.”
Sam closed his eyes and nodded a few seconds later.
The doctor injected the contents of the needle into the IV. “Keep remembering. Concentrate on each experience and try to picture it as clearly as you can.”
Sam tried his best to remember each robbery, each assault, and each rape. He tried to recall his victims, their screams, and how they begged for mercy. But most of his memories were vague, distorted, and blurred by the countless doses of craze he had taken. The memories were like his terrible flashbacks and nightmares. Still, he kept at it, desperate to remember every single memory he wanted the doctor to erase.
“Okay, Mr. Harding. You may stop now and open your eyes.”
Sam sighed and looked up at the doctor, who smiled back at him.
“The drug we used to mark the memories to be deleted only lasts a few minutes. Your other memories are safe now that your liver has metabolized it.” She picked up a second needle and injected its contents into the IV line.
“So that’s the drug that erases the memories,” Sam guessed.
“Not quite, Mr. Harding.” She paused and stared intensely into his eyes. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Remember you?” Sam felt a strange sensation in his hands and feet that rapidly spread. “Hey, my arms, my legs… I can’t move my arms and legs! What’s going on?” Although wide awake, Sam couldn’t move, and his voice had become a faint whisper.
The doctor smiled. “That’s merely the effects of the powerful muscle relaxant I just gave you. I can’t have you getting up or calling for help now, can I?”
Confused and increasingly afraid, Sam stared at the doctor. “Why are you doing this?” he breathed.
“You may not remember me, Mr. Harding, but I most definitely remember you. When I noticed your name on the patient schedule, I had to read your intake file to be sure. And once I saw your photo, I knew it was really you. After that, ensuring they assigned your treatment to me as my last patient of the day was easy. Soon, you and I will be the only ones in the building.”
The doctor stared down at Sam. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“Help! Help!” Sam tried to shout, but his cries were barely audible.
“You still don’t remember me?” The doctor sighed. “How disappointing. We met nearly thirty years ago when I was a graduate student studying for my doctorate in neurobiology. I was asleep, all alone in my apartment, when a noise woke me. When you woke me, Mr. Harding! You tied me up, and after rifling through my purse, you ransacked my apartment. You took my money and credit cards, but that wasn’t enough for you. You beat me, and then you raped me! And once you’d finished, you beat me again! When I woke up three days later in the hospital, I had a concussion, two missing teeth, a broken nose, and three cracked ribs.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered.
“Sorry? Do you actually think I care whether you’re sorry, you sack of shit?” she shouted. Then she paused, took a deep breath, and felt her white-hot rage turn icy cold. “I could have had the hellish memories you burned into my brain erased. But some memories are just far too important to delete. My memories of what you did to me could have broken me, but instead, they made me strong. They gave me the drive to donate my services to any victim too poor to afford them. Because of you, I’ve treated dozens of women who otherwise would never have had their memories erased.”
She turned, picked up the third needle, and stared at it. “But I have a different gift for you. Ordinarily, I would inject a drug to permanently weaken your marked synapses. But this needle contains a drug that will permanently strengthen those synapses. In fact, it will reinforce them to such a degree that the nerves comprising the marked engrams will constantly fire. In other words, Mr. Harding, the rest of your miserable life will consist of nothing but you reliving the terrible memories you wanted to delete. They will repeat, over and over again, never stopping long enough for you to have another thought, another experience. They never should have let you out of prison, Mr. Harding, so I’m sending you back. Only this time, your prison will be your brain, and you will never be paroled.”
Sam tried to scream as the doctor injected the third drug into his IV. But he barely made a sound as his eyes stared at her in horror.
…
Just after midnight, the police discovered the former craze addict lying in a fetal position in a garbage-strewn alley in a seedier part of town. With his eyes staring blankly and every muscle tightly clinched, they initially thought Sam Harding was dead and that rigor mortis had set in. But once they noticed his rapid shallow breathing, they requested an ambulance, which transported him to the inner-city’s main hospital.
The emergency department doctors could do little for their patient. They prescribed beta blockers to slow his racing heart and muscle relaxants to treat his muscle spasms. But they could neither wake him nor determine the cause of his condition. They admitted him and eventually diagnosed him as suffering from an incurable idiopathic seizure.
Sam Harding was still unresponsive when they transferred him to a state-run nursing home one month later. And he spent the rest of his life there, trapped in a never-ending nightmare.
The staff soon learned to avoid his room. The horrendous expression of terror frozen on his face was more than any of them could stand.
