Over the Waters of Lethe

by L. S. Popovich

Conrad

My first life was ordinary. I had a wife and two boys, who grew into men. The drudgery of sales jobs, traveling around in a beat-up Buick. What was my purpose?

I finished a teaching degree, but I was already old and a mediocre teacher. My students were unremarkable, ungrateful. My wife was a plain, smart woman, somewhat prudish, fond of opera. I loved her at first.

The love didn’t survive my obsession. Family matters only got in my way.

I never believed in reincarnation, but that didn’t stop me from seeking immortality. I went into spiritualism, collecting occult texts, experimenting with ceremonial magic, following the hermetic guides, progressing into advanced circles, leading seances. My family believed I was a Satanist, though I had no special interest in that entity.

Finally, I received specific instructions from higher-level beings which led me to inflict self-trepanation. The procedure opened my parietal eye, though my health declined shortly thereafter.

Lying on my deathbed, surrounded by doctors. Time slowed to a crawl. Days and nights of waiting. Months of pain and medicated delirium. Impersonal smiles, endless questions, the constant chirp of life-support machines. Memories floated to the surface, only to sink away before I could grasp them.

Television reruns. Hermetic white halls. A period of empty time. Then my condition worsened. I couldn’t get out of bed.

My cries went unanswered. Finally, no voice rang from my throat. Furious with confusion, I fought against the bonds tying me to the bed. The pain would not end. I wanted to die, but they brought me back from the darkness with electricity, drugs, smelling salts. They rummaged around in my brain. I was supposed to be conscious for this kind of surgery, but I felt nothing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large patch of scalp dangling from my temple like a bald cap.

Somewhere nearby, a baby wailed.

* * *

I pressed my fist into a flexible wall, and it sprang back like an enormous balloon. Muffled voices. The loud throb of a heartbeat. The place was good, comfortable. A long tube carried blood from the pliant wall into my belly. This womb was all I needed.

Then, a lot of commotion. Someone grabbed my forehead and pulled. I slid out onto wet, cold hands. My eyes were unfocused, but I beheld a giant figure looming over me. He lifted me upside down and handed me to another massive figure, a woman. The world was skewed, I’d shrunk. No. I was a newborn. But how was that possible? One thing was clear: I was a man in a baby’s body.

Up-close things were shiny, like the woman’s hands. Far away things were blurry, like the nurses.

The woman shook and dribbled tears onto my face.

All I could do was squirm and cry.

I slept through most of the tests. It took a long time for my thoughts and impressions to make sense.

Our house was small, dingy. I took solace in my dreamless sleep.

* * *

I called Helen mother in my mind, though I still remembered my first mother, from my previous life.

We settled into a routine. Every week, there were tests. I enjoyed the ride in our bland station wagon.

I felt healthy, except, of course, for the aberration of my mind. These thoughts were unnatural, these flashes of memory. It was not a nightmare.

Whatever condition they thought I had, they kept quiet about it, as if they were worried I’d overhear them.

My body was useless. For a year or two, I wouldn’t possess manual dexterity. Memories plagued me. My old family. The occult experiments. Could dabbling with demonic forces have caused this curse? No, it must’ve been the doctors.

My mother seemed oblivious, normal. I fed at her breast. The sensation was not unpleasant.

I wanted to organize my thoughts on paper, but my tiny fingers could barely grasp a toe, let alone a pencil.

Months passed. There were more tests. Nothing to do but observe and pretend to play with cheap plastic toys.

Was this a vicious experiment?

The nuance and texture of experience were still within me, etched on my soul. The love I remembered feeling toward my family was nothing like the unwelcome, innate, almost forceful love I felt for my new mother. I was in thrall to her. My love was like an uncontrollable bodily function.

I must find my purpose.

Somewhere in this series of events, I sensed the secret key to my situation.

Until I solved the mystery, I played peekaboo. My patience wore thin.

My father was nowhere to be found. I was being raised by a single mother. My new grandmother often came to watch over me. I waited for her to fall asleep and crawled into a corner to scribble down my thoughts in a secret notebook.

* * *

It was my second birthday. My name was Joshua, though I couldn’t say it. In my previous life, I was called Conrad.

I made a mess of the cake.

Bladder control was still a problem.

How much longer must I endure this?

What knowledge was I meant to carry forward? Was this the first in a long line of reincarnations? I had to assume this would be my last chance at life. Was my second life the product of a divine clerical error?

I loathed my diaper. My mother bought a pointless training toilet. I used the disgusting plastic thing to progress to the next stage.

My mind raged on, though my mouth was too clumsy to form words. My body betrayed me at every stage.

* * *

My mother found my notebook in my toy chest. She came across it while cleaning up. Had she caught on to my secret or seen me writing? I watched her expression while she examined the contents. Amusement lit up her face.

Turning the pages upside down, sideways, moving them closer and farther away as if viewing hieroglyphics, she smiled at me. Could she not make out my handwriting?

Later, she brought me a set of crayons and drawing paper. The Bic pen had been confiscated.

Reviewing what I wrote previously revealed that I had been a fool. Not a word of my scribblings was intelligible.

A supernatural force was sabotaging me. Why was I brought back from the dead with this knowledge? Instead of enjoying the world, which should be new to me, I bungled through my days, obsessed with my lost past.

From contextual clues and snippets of newspaper, I learned I’d been reincarnated in a city called Lansing. That was about a hundred miles from where I’d died. Almost no time had passed between my lifetimes.

For the first time in my recollection, I prayed to God to deliver me from this dilemma.

* * *

Memory lapses. I suffered from blackouts. I lost lucidity. Whole days passed without my notice. Mother took me to the doctor countless times. I hated the shots. They must’ve suspected something was wrong.

My grip on this reality was slipping. Was this a holdover in a temporary body? A purgatory? How long would my memory and consciousness persist? Each day I went over what I knew, reiterated the key components of my self. My soul seemed to dissolve in my doughy body.

I recalled this feeling. The approach of death. Must I be one of the only men to die twice?

It was a slow fade. Memory was the first to go. Then reasoning. All my accumulated knowledge was gone. Soon, I would be a toddler, a fresh slate.

Perhaps whatever original slip-up that caused the situation had been corrected.

* * *

Helen Carthage: Project report 34

Joshua is two years old. I watch him closely. He mutters to himself and does not play like a normal kid.

When I take him to the research facility, he throws a fit. You all said he would show signs of precociousness. But every time he fails the tests, you shake your heads in despair. Have you forgotten he’s a baby? It’s almost like he has a split personality.

As part of the deal, I’m supposed to write my unfiltered thoughts in this log book, and I have been very honest with you. I always wanted to be a part of something special, to progress science. I hate the fact that I did the IVF and carried him to term, and now I’m getting mixed messages from you. I want this miracle to succeed as much as you do. I’ve given up three years of my life to it.

Obviously, I needed the money. But if any future mothers read this, I urge you to consider if you truly want to force your child into a cohabitation with another mind.

There are times when Joshua knows something is off. It’s like those accounts I read of siamese twins who could sense what the other was thinking. We won’t know until he talks, but I believe he is fully aware of what we’ve done. It breaks my heart that I’ve misled him.

Project report 42

I am ashamed. What a horrid failure. I fear his brain is screwed up now. You tell me his readings are all normal, but I can see the decline. His personality has changed. I want to know, will he become insane? I can’t bear the thought.

You’ll probably say I’m the crazy one, that I’m overthinking it, but if you saw the way he looks at me sometimes and stares into space...

When I get him back after the observation period, I’m going to complain again.

* * *

“You were warned, Ms. Carthage,” said Dr. Unrue. “Fugue states are to be expected at this stage. It’s too late to stop treatments.”

She stood up from her chair, wanting to intimidate him. “You think you can push me around because I was a prostitute, right? I was desperate, sure, but this was my chance to get clean and live a normal life. Nothing about this is normal. It’s not legal either, despite what you told me.”

“Calm down.” The doctor shuffled the papers on his desk, casting his eyes down.

“I will not. If I have to tell people about it to get my way, I will. I’ll tell everyone I know. I’ll go to the news channels.”

“The consequences of that would be dire. I’ll remind you that you signed a non-disclosure agreement. What do you even want me to do?”

“Reverse the process. Take that other person out of him.”

“Impossible. How about this? We’ll take him off your hands. We’ll throw in a little bonus.”

“Are you kidding me? You want to take him away from me?”

“You’ll have visitation rights. We’ll keep him through the adjustment period, till the after-effects subside. Once his behavior normalizes, we’ll return him to you.”

“I can’t accept that.”

The doctor shook his head. “Recall that you’re the one who insisted on raising him like a normal baby.”

“He is a normal baby. Or he should be. Quit treating him like a guinea pig.”

“As cruel as it sounds, Ms. Carthage, that is exactly what he is.”

* * *

Doctor Unrue answered the call reluctantly. He hated dealing with clients. If he could have his way, he’d lock himself in his laboratory forever with the chimps and rats and rabbits. But then, there was the problem of funding.

“Doctor,” Mr. Stafford said on the other end of the line, “tell me the good news.”

“A few short-term gains. The subject is showing an increase in beta-wave function.”

“I need it in plain English, Doc.”

“Too early to tell.”

“You’re buying time again. It’s been six months.”

“I warned you this would be a slow process. But the science checks out, Mr. Stafford.”

Still carrying the phone, the doctor unlocked the door to the laboratory basement. He would need a hit of nitrous after this call. He proceeded past the rows of filing cabinets. Chimpanzees screeched in the rooms beyond.

He continued talking to Stafford: “The mind of an adult does not sit comfortably in the developing infant. It’s like when the ancients first transplanted organs, they didn’t account for the immune response to the foreign body part.”

“I’ve been bankrolling you for the past four years. This isn’t some hobby I’ve picked up. The clock is ticking. I’m stage four, for God’s sake. All you’ve managed to do is splice a psych patient with a fetus.”

The doctor responded with a sigh: “Like I said, the procedure was successful, but the nascent consciousness of the newborn may supersede the transplanted mind. Although, using a mind with questionable sanity as a test run was a regrettable necessity at this stage.”

The doctor slid into his office chair and opened the desk drawer. Inside was a thousand pages of notes and a helmet studded with electrodes.

Stafford growled, “I’m sick of your excuses. Find me a new man for the next test run. Cost is no object. This is my escape plan.”

“Our method is more advanced now. There is no need for brain surgery anymore. A quick zap with the brain-scanning helmet is all it takes now. I secured a new subject for the next splice. But I’m working on the problem of suppressing the nascent personality without incapacitating the host body.”

“Who is it? Another psych patient?”

“The red tape has limited our options.” The doctor removed his wig and fitted the helmet over his bald head. “I believe a stronger mind with higher synaptic density, in other words, a perfectly sane mind, is the ideal candidate for the procedure. You see, in the first two years, there is a battle of wills, and the stronger intellect prevails. We had the misfortune of selecting a weak match in the previous cases.”

“You better be right about this. If I don’t see progress with the next one, I’m pulling the plug. I’ve been looking into cryogenics.”

“I assure you, that won’t be necessary.” The doctor took a hit from the bottle of nitrous oxide on his desk. “This was a speed bump. Nothing more. The next candidate is being prepped for the procedure.”

“I’d just like to know one thing.”

“Yes?”

“What happened to that guy’s mind? I mean, if the baby mind takes over? Is it buried there for the full lifespan or does it vanish?”

“My theory is that the latent consciousness remains like a knowledge base or creative impetus within the dominant mind.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the host would benefit from some of the knowledge and experience of the transplanted mind, without retaining the specific memories.”

* * *

Joshua: Dear Diary,

Today’s my fifth birthday. I’m starting school next week. Mom says it’s a special school where I’ll learn Latin and Greek and stuff. That will be interesting since I’ve already started on Modern Greek, and I wonder if they will teach me Ancient.

Mom was crying again, though she said it was because she was proud. She’s been doing better, though I have to go to Grandma’s on her bad days, which happened 19 times in the past four months. I got this diary for my birthday, but I don’t see the point in writing down my lessons or thoughts when I can remember everything, like the capitol of Mongolia is Ulaanbaatar.

But Mom insists I will forget things eventually, that I have already forgotten things, like all the stuff that happened when I was a baby, when she had to go to rehab and I lived at the hospital and had to do tests all day long. I still have nightmares sometimes where I can’t move and terrible people are hurting me. Or times when it feels like I’m asleep. but I was actually awake the whole time.

She beats herself up over the hard times we went through, but I think she’s a good mom overall. She asked me to write my dreams because there might be a hidden meaning in them. And so I can remember things. She says I have already forgotten more than she will ever know.