Mental Block
by Ian Cordingley
I had moved from one point of contact to another. Everything was a haze. There were blind spots in my field of view and I had to fight every nerve in my body telling me to go back. I reached out and touched the walls of the alleyway. At least I still had that sensation, weak as it was.
I tripped over some garbage cans. My contact was within arm’s reach, cooing sympathetically.
I could hear him, barely: words like indecipherable notes, a welcome change from the uncomfortable muteness I had been living in for several months. I wasn’t out of it yet. I’d cracked but not broken my mental lock.
He had something for me. I struggled to my feet.
He held out a green square. An envelope. I reached out, took it in my hands. It flickered; I was fighting the instinct to forget it.
I looked at my contact. A shape resembled a person. I reached over to touch. My hand seemed to disappear into his body. I think he was laughing.
I nodded my thanks. My head was throbbing; I rubbed my left temple, turned back the way I came. I breathed in, out, trying to keep myself calm. Above all, trying to keep myself clear.
On the street, the world came back into focus. Trees, people, and parked cars, but I turned my editing skills off. Buildings were beautiful but plain; I wasn’t in the mood.
I was told this could, somehow, go around my mental lock. I tore open the envelope.
A photograph of the woman I loved and myself. It had been taped back together. I had written on it in large black letters: BITCH. STUPID BITCH. And we were so happy, smiling so wide.
Quickly I folded it into my pocket. I sped down the street, feeling as if every eye was upon me. It would not take much to be betrayed.
* * *
“You want my opinion on this?”
“Shoot,” I said. I took another sip of my pint. I had instructed Griffin to keep it coming. Until the world faded around me for real, I kept swiping my pay card.
“I think you should stop,” he said. “I don’t think it’s good for you.”
“How insightful,” I said, pushing the pint away. I didn’t want it anymore. I had been told that. I wanted pop in large quantities, but swallowed the urge.
“They’ll find out eventually. Best to stop now before you go too far and hurt yourself.”
“I already have,” I explained.
Griffin shook his head. “Before, at least, you were happy.”
Before, at least, some of the people who came in and knew me the best suddenly involuntarily avoided my sight. It was deemed necessary for them to speak to me again and just as suddenly we were all smiles, talking again. But it seemed forced, unnatural.
I was examining the photo. Yes, the scrawls (large and aggressive) were in my hand. Unmistakable, as noticeable as if I had written them just now.
“We were happy,” I declared.
“You were,” Griffin agreed. He was a large man, thick brown-red beard and arms that could conceal watermelons. “It had been a rough patch. Shame your business went under, but as long as you were with her...”
It was one of three artifacts I possessed, and the first linking me to her, displaying my open affection and outright hostility.
“When was this taken?”
Griffin bent over to examine it. “A year ago, I think,” he said. “I think you were vacationing. Yeah, Barbados I think. Somewhere in that region.” He filled another glass with a customer’s order.
We were tanned and wearing Hawaiian shirts. The sunset in the background over the perfect beach was still apparent, despite my attempts to obscure it under large black letters.
“That was before...”
Griffin sighed, “I’ve said enough. Now stop. Lay off and go home. You look like hell. Get some sleep.”
“Maybe,” I said.
I got up, pushing my stool back in place. “Can you believe that we were that happy?”
“No,” Griffin said. “I never figured you for that.”
He sliced off the head of a pint with a thin knife.
“You want my advice? Just stop, right now. They put that thing in your head for a reason. I can’t stand seeing you like this, and if you go on, I’m afraid...”
“All right, I know,” I said. I paid for my drinks.
Griffin watched me as I left the pub. He shook his head.
I dug out the photo one last time. We really did look that happy.
* * *
Coming out of it... was... like my skull split open. Like I woke up and everything was fire and brimstone. And ringing in my ears was the screaming.
Hacking a homonuculus is not easy. It has defence mechanisms. It will fight you.
I was in agony. Like I was ripping out my own brain. In anger it fired off every nerve it could, every unpleasant feeling and experience rippling through my body.
But that was nothing. Following that, there’s the pause, when the world is nice and clear. And like a ton of bricks it rains down upon you.
A single cadence rang through my ears: dead, dead, dead, dead.
I sank to my knees. The room swam. I had successfully wounded, but not killed, the beast. I could see the world better now. I could see what it didn’t want me to see.
I ran through my photo albums. I took all the pictures out of their frames or peeled them off. I lay them all on my coffee table.
And still the strong beat of the chant, almost delighting in my misery: dead, dead, dead, dead.
It had been three months since that night. I had grown weary of the homonuculus. I was tired of walking around in a blur. It was bad but I could take it.
That’s what I thought anyway.
I sobbed the rest of the night away.
* * *
“Excuse me, sir?”
I glanced back. I had my key in the door’s lock. Someone was standing behind me. “Yeah?” I grunted.
“Excuse me but... you seem to be hurting.”
“Thank you,” I said. I swung my door open. “Now piss off.”
I had to finish this quickly. I had strangers inquiring about me. I was broadcasting my imperfection to the world. Better act quickly before they try and fix me again.
I put my photograph with the rest of the evidence.
Jennifer Carmichael: three months older than me. Tall, blonde, with a gorgeous smile: a row of perfect white teeth. I had arranged everything into what I perceived to be chronological order. Like the unwelcome discovery of an unexpected fossil in the wrong stratum, the Barbados trip had upset my timeline.
I put it where I thought it would go. I took a step back.
So, this was what everyone was trying to keep from me?
I didn’t remember asking for a homonuculus, but they remove that memory too. It’s the latest therapy, to go with the slow march into the human mind by virtually all modern technology. It’s had mediocre success in prisons as a means of rehabilitation, but its proponents argue it will get there. Just give it some time.
I don’t know if her family would like to speak to me. No, they would have taken it too. They wouldn’t know me from the average man on the street.
So I sat down to plot my next move, what to request next from my contact.
* * *
“This’ll be over soon,” I told Griffin.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Griffin slid a pint over to me. “I have to ask you,” I said. “You knew me and Jen pretty well. How come you didn’t have a block put in?”
Griffin sighed. For a moment he worried himself with filling glasses with beer before he replied, “It was watching you.”
He continued, “Yeah, I felt like crap. Everyone did. And then you all went and forgot about it.”
The transition was seamless. Until I finally hacked through mine, I didn’t know what I’d been missing. At least, not for a while. It gradually dawned on me that something was wrong, something big. But for the longest time I put it off, tried to push it aside. I was happy after all.
And then I met my contact. He told me what was wrong. It wasn’t an easy conversation. I could barely hear him half the time. Words that would distract from my happiness were muted. But he made his point clear.
Since then I’ve been active, trying to figure out what they got rid of.
Progress, admittedly, has been slow. I’ve been fighting every instinct, the vestigial remnants of the homonuculus. My resistance to its control has been growing. My contact assures me soon I will break it in half.
“In my mind,” Griffin said, chuckling at his own pun, “it’s too much of a fad.”
“Bad for business. We have to go to a doctor and spend colossal sums of money that could be better spent here, burning out brain cells more cheaply.”
“In a way,” Griffin agreed, “though don’t think I approve of that either.”
Some of the more recent memories I recovered were after my store went down. Jenny and I here, drowning our sorrows and cursing our bad luck. They weren’t sorrows. Every toast to our disappointed creditors was out of some unexpected source of joy. Her laugh made me indescribably happy.
I drained my glass.
* * *
I met my contact in our usual place.
“Well?” I asked.
“How much do you want to know?”
“Everything,” I replied. “I want this over with.”
My contact shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He rummaged through a bag. “Here, use this.”
It was a headband.
“It’ll effectively cauterize the last traces,” he said.
It took it from him. I was hesitant. It seemed so sudden. What had I gotten myself into? “And that’s it?”
He nodded. “All she wrote,” he promised.
I turned it over in my hands. It seemed harmless.
I slipped it over my brow. “Now what?”
“Are you sure?”
“About what?”
My contact shrugged. “I just want to give you fair warning.”
“It’s been a burden,” I growled. “I’ve had enough. I want to know what happened.”
“And are you sure you’ll feel better?”
“I’m sure it’ll be better than this.”
He chuckled. “That’s not very often, I’m afraid.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
My contact thought for a moment. “Several reasons, I think. You could say someone needs to.”
He held the control unit in his hand and made some final touches, tapping a few buttons. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“No,” I lied.
“Well, from here on, this is your problem.”
His control unit beeped. “Then here we go.”
He pushed the button.
The world went numb.
Well, where’s my money?
Jenny wasn’t saying anything. Her mouth was open. I heard words, but ignored them. I raved at her. Her replies were predictable. There was no excuse.
I had a switchblade in my pocket. I can’t remember from where.
I can’t remember what she said that set it off. All I remember is the feeling of hate. I tracked her down. I demanded to know why. Maybe she was the reason everything fell apart; I only know she had made things worse.
And in an instant...
I flipped the blade out. I lunged towards her.
The world came back.
“How was it?”
I couldn’t find the words to respond. It was clear now. All too clear.
“Wasn’t what you expected, was it?”
I croaked out, “Me... I...”
“My work here is done,” my contact said. I got a good look at his face: weathered, grey. He turned and left me, bidding me a happy day.
I feel to my knees. My head was aching and her screams rang in my ear.
And still the strong beat of the chant, almost delighting in my misery: dead, dead, dead, dead.
Copyright © 2008 by Ian Cordingley
