MONO ISSUE 2 - Flipbook - Page 65
don’t remember, but I hate the wind. It rips my hat off my head, throwing it in the
parking lot. I must chase it, as a kid points. I yank it up, and turn around to look at the
tall building, mostly windows, where ‘MindWell,’ resides. Suite 313.
I’ll be back in two weeks; I picture the memory of Carrie being drilled out of my brain
and stored in the bowl of the pink hat. I could lay it on the surface of river water, and let
it float away. My life before I met her, and fell headfirst into the lyrics of Hallelujah,
originally written by Leonard Cohen. I was on a cruise ship once, and a piano-man sang
the song in the bar, and the lady next to me, three sheets to the wind, thought it was a
religious song, and so she held her hands up to the ceiling, saying: ‘Thank you, Jesus.
Praise the Lord.’ I didn’t have the spirit to tell her the song was about secular love, but I
laughed at her nonsensical hand waving. When I returned home that night, I read that
the song was often played in the few churches left, dying relics, and realised both me
and the fanatic had known the song’s meaning: The power of transcendence—and loss.
In her case, her lost god sat in the sky. In my case, she had been on Earth.
###
Dr. Rogers hovers over me. I lay on a standard examination bed. A large medical-grade
light shines above her head, making her look like a cherub. She pats me on the head.
“Are you ready for this?”
I close my eyes and remember Jen. Remember the first time we met, and the times
we spent in her office, sharing tofu sandwiches, and how she hated pickles, so I could
count on two pickles every time we ate at Clean Diet Deli. She was a real vegan, like me.
We didn’t even accept the cheap lab meat from food dispensaries, and if we ever got
rich, we had made a promise to never try honey.
Tears slip, even from eyes closed. I remember her string of messages begging me to
call her, and I remember the police force not letting me past the secured crime scene. I
close my eyes tighter. So hard that my cheeks scrunch up. “Very ready.”
“Okay, I’ll have the nurse come in to get you hooked up. He will also give you a quick
look over to make sure your blood pressure and pulse is normal.”
I open my eyes, and stare at the cherub. My pulse picks up speed, and my hands
break into a cold sweat. Two male nurses enter. One wearing a scrub with alligators on
them. The other in plain blue. They analyze my vitals, and begin opening plastic
packages containing electrodes, and what looks like small bolts with needle-points.
“Is that what will be drilled into my brain?”
One of the men smirks. “Yeah, but don’t worry.
“You’ll be sedated” –the other nurse hooks an IV into my arm. “—and even then, the
tips are so small that you really could have it done while awake. You’re only sedated to
make it easier for doc to locate your memory.”
“Lean back,” the one in alligator says, and I do, as the other shoves something in my
IV. I blank out.
###
A week later, I sit in the sacred office of Dr. Rogers. It’s been decorated to be sacred,
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