The office stood near an alleyway, gray, dull, and wholly unremarkable. Still, something about it tickled my memory, and a sense of déjà vu overcame me. I shook it off, sure I had just seen a photo on the website, or something like that.
The receptionist smiled warmly at me as I walked in. A knowing smile. A familiar smile. I reflexively smiled back, the way that people do when they know that they should know someone. She cheerily greeted me, told me all of my information was on file, and Doc H would be with me as soon as I filled out the incident report.
I completed the so called incident report, titled "Romantic Attachment with Female Identifying Companion", in a matter of minutes. What was her name? Where did we meet? When did we meet? The last question had "date and time, please" scrawled next to it in pen. Then a short paragraph describing who she was, how things had ended, and why I wanted to forget.
This whole clinic seemed like something out of a Charlie Kaufman script come to life. Memory donations. You didn't have to even pay the doctors to take them. They paid you. It would be like a blood bank paying you to get rid of your bad blood.
The last box had just been initialed when a tall man in a lab coat rounded the corner and called out my name. His accent was faint, but held a hint of Northern Europe. Scandinavian, perhaps. He shook my hand and clapped me on the shoulder in a familiar way before leading me to a poorly lit examination room.
After looking over my form, the doctor clucked a bit disapprovingly when he saw the woman's name. I asked what was wrong, and he said that some people will try to take advantage of anything, no matter how much it is meant to help others. He promised that he would leave the tiniest memory of her face, and a bit of pain, in case she tried to find me one more time. I thanked him, but as much as we hurt each other, I doubted she ever wanted to see my face again.
I asked a bit about the process, and he told me that the donations were handled by his associate, a Doctor Moonan, I think, thought it might have been Mewnan. They had been practicing the technique for decades, though it had only recently been approved for use in the States. He assured me of the precision of the procedure, that there was no chance they would take any more memory than absolutely necessary.
When asked what they did with the memories, I was told that the majority of them were sold to busy executives that wanted to experience love and heart break but just couldn't find the time. Happier memories were worth more, though those often found their way into the minds of patients recovering from traumatic accidents or painful treatments. There was even another pair of scientists measuring the effects of emotional memories implanted into the brains of sociopaths.
Scientific advancement may have been a great side effect, but I admitted the main draw for me was the promise of a large paycheck and relief from this heartache. He laughed, and said that, knowing me, the money would be gone before I knew it, and I'd find a new heartache. I glared at him, but that just made the doctor laugh even harder.
Irritated, I asked when the procedure would begin. He had me lie back, count to ten, and then describe meeting her. To my surprise I couldn't. He smiled reassuringly, telling me that his associate must already be hard at work. I glanced nervously around the room, peering into the shadowed corners. Somewhere in the depths, I caught a glint of something, almost like a drop of water on an onyx marble. The room distorted and spun and I was glad to be lying down. After a few seconds, the vertigo passed and I stared into the shadows once more. Again I found the glinting onyx, and this time a sound accompanied the disruption of my equilibrium. A rustling sound, a rushing flapping sound filled my ears, and then everything went dark.
I awoke this morning with the hangover from hell and my encounter in the doctor's office fading like the strange dream that it was. A dream that I've had far too often. I looked around the room. At some point someone had scrawled "Persistence of Memory, My Ass" in marker on the mirror, and there was a large pile of cash in one of the drawers.
Apparently I made my way to a casino sometime last week, got blackout drunk, stayed that way, and somehow won a fair bit more than I lost. That's the only explanation that makes sense, really, and hey, it only cost me a week of my life, near as I can tell. Sometimes, though, sometimes I wonder just how much time I've spent in the bottle, because face in the mirror seems a few years older than it should be.
This whole clinic seemed like something out of a Charlie Kaufman script come to life. Memory donations. You didn't have to even pay the doctors to take them. They paid you. It would be like a blood bank paying you to get rid of your bad blood.
The last box had just been initialed when a tall man in a lab coat rounded the corner and called out my name. His accent was faint, but held a hint of Northern Europe. Scandinavian, perhaps. He shook my hand and clapped me on the shoulder in a familiar way before leading me to a poorly lit examination room.
After looking over my form, the doctor clucked a bit disapprovingly when he saw the woman's name. I asked what was wrong, and he said that some people will try to take advantage of anything, no matter how much it is meant to help others. He promised that he would leave the tiniest memory of her face, and a bit of pain, in case she tried to find me one more time. I thanked him, but as much as we hurt each other, I doubted she ever wanted to see my face again.
I asked a bit about the process, and he told me that the donations were handled by his associate, a Doctor Moonan, I think, thought it might have been Mewnan. They had been practicing the technique for decades, though it had only recently been approved for use in the States. He assured me of the precision of the procedure, that there was no chance they would take any more memory than absolutely necessary.
When asked what they did with the memories, I was told that the majority of them were sold to busy executives that wanted to experience love and heart break but just couldn't find the time. Happier memories were worth more, though those often found their way into the minds of patients recovering from traumatic accidents or painful treatments. There was even another pair of scientists measuring the effects of emotional memories implanted into the brains of sociopaths.
Scientific advancement may have been a great side effect, but I admitted the main draw for me was the promise of a large paycheck and relief from this heartache. He laughed, and said that, knowing me, the money would be gone before I knew it, and I'd find a new heartache. I glared at him, but that just made the doctor laugh even harder.
Irritated, I asked when the procedure would begin. He had me lie back, count to ten, and then describe meeting her. To my surprise I couldn't. He smiled reassuringly, telling me that his associate must already be hard at work. I glanced nervously around the room, peering into the shadowed corners. Somewhere in the depths, I caught a glint of something, almost like a drop of water on an onyx marble. The room distorted and spun and I was glad to be lying down. After a few seconds, the vertigo passed and I stared into the shadows once more. Again I found the glinting onyx, and this time a sound accompanied the disruption of my equilibrium. A rustling sound, a rushing flapping sound filled my ears, and then everything went dark.
I awoke this morning with the hangover from hell and my encounter in the doctor's office fading like the strange dream that it was. A dream that I've had far too often. I looked around the room. At some point someone had scrawled "Persistence of Memory, My Ass" in marker on the mirror, and there was a large pile of cash in one of the drawers.
Apparently I made my way to a casino sometime last week, got blackout drunk, stayed that way, and somehow won a fair bit more than I lost. That's the only explanation that makes sense, really, and hey, it only cost me a week of my life, near as I can tell. Sometimes, though, sometimes I wonder just how much time I've spent in the bottle, because face in the mirror seems a few years older than it should be.
