MONO ISSUE 2 - Flipbook - Page 63
MINDWELL
by Tiffany Lindfield
STEEL GREY, LIKE SOMEONE melted silver crayons and poured them in a cold room. The
bones in my toes roll like cubes of ice under chilled skin. Even with socks and shoes on.
A robot speaks over the loudspeaker. “Are you ready for the demonstration?”
“Yes, and please up the heat.”
“My pleasure.”
The heat pours in, a screen flickers on. The video begins with a woman and her child
running through a field of wildflowers. The sun is rising. The child disappears and the sky
takes on an ominous color, and a series of shots shows the woman in psychic agony:
Holding a teddy bear, crying into the arms of a man, presumably the child’s father, and
so on. Things go on like this until the woman sees a brochure for MINDWELL, very
similar to the brochure I had seen, and soon she is strolling through another field of
wildflowers. Only this time, she rests her hand on a pregnant belly, with an attractive
man holding her hand. The extended commercial goes on like this, showing a man who
loses his lover, the loss of friends, family, and jobs. Each person is pulled from pure
misery to joy, all via MINDWELL. The medical procedure is explained at great length, and
to ensure I understand everything that will happen, I'm prompted to take an interactive
quiz with the robot.
I pass. The robot speaks again. “Do you still wish to proceed further?”
“Yes.”
“Please wait, and Mrs. Rogers will see you.”
I wiggle in the orange plastic chair with steel legs. It is the only color in the room other
than my yellow t-shirt. My scrub pants are gray. I work the infant room at the state
nursery. New job since quitting the service station. It was hard working there after Jen
shot herself in the bathroom.
I am being watched by three cameras in the room, and whoever sits behind the twoway mirror. I hang my head and play with my fingers. The room is squeaky clean. I
cannot spy a speck of dust, and it smells like citrus. Since three pandemics rocked the
world, everyone has become obsessive-compulsive. My head hurts. A middle-aged
woman walks in, wearing a white lab coat. She has naturally blonde hair, and it shines
like gloss with slices of silver in between gold strands. She smiles warmly, and wrinkles
wrap her eyes like a present. “I’m Amy Rogers. I’m the founder of Mindwell and will be
the doctor doing your procedure. We’ve gone over all the paperwork you filled out
online.”
I nod, continuing to wiggle my toes to life.
“Claire, I want to make sure you are committed to the endeavor you’re about to
embark on.”
“5,000 percent sure.”
The woman squeezes her lips into an approving line. She taps a screen, fishing
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