by H C Edwards
Maybe that was the issue in itself. How could one be a backboard for human frailty when it had been a lifetime since they had been one?
In the beginning, the sessions had been pure torture, a constant Q and A of his grief. The anger and resentment he harbored assailed him in all his waking moments, and harassed him ceaselessly during sleep. He left the weekly sessions feeling drained and frazzled, and worse, as if all his negative emotions had been heightened by the frustration he felt. It took him nearly a year to realize that the doctor was not providing the emotional relief that had been promised, instead seeming to aggravate the pain. His mechanical and rote questions and responses seemed almost pre-programmed, taken from some old textbook encompassing grief management.
When Quentin realized that the sessions were detrimental, he tried to wrangle out of them, only to find that his father was adamant he continue. His teachers and peers were of the same mindset, believing that such a traumatic experience necessitated a clinical approach. And so, instead of opening his heart and mind as he’d done before, Quentin built a wall, much like the one that protected Akropolis.
Behind that wall, he housed his fears, his guilt, and his pain. On the outside, he feigned acquiescence, going through the motions and the expected replies to the questions posed to him. In private, however, whether at home or by the gently rolling waters of the Bay, he contemplated the true source of his grief.
Quentin could admit guilt was at the forefront, and realized over time that self blame was a poison slowly eating away at his soul with no end in sight. He understood this burden was necessary to remember, but it was not his to carry, because the choice his mother ultimately made was the culmination of suffering beyond his comprehension or control.
The one mainstay throughout all of it was his father.
That was the saving grace of his life.
Quentin knew his mother had suffered, that in the end she was consumed by her pain, but his father was the rock that never moved, the constant by which his life could be measured. They both held tight to their grief, the difference being it was shared. That connection between them is what began to heal Quentin from the inside out…not the poor ministrations of some dry psychiatrist.
“Quentin?”
He realized that his mind had been wandering. However long it took to get his attention must have been slightly more than a few seconds, for the receptionist was looking at him with a worrisome expression.
“Hm?” he offered in way of response.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Appointment?” Quentin repeated then remembered exactly what he was doing there. “Sorry, no, I don’t…but it is very important that I speak to the doctor. It has been…a trying few days.”
That was an understatement, but he hoped that the strain of the past week showed on his face enough that he didn’t have to offer anything further.
“Of course,” the receptionist said after a prolonged moment of study, her expression suddenly becoming compassionate. “I will check the doctor’s availability.”
She gestured with her hand towards the plush chairs and sofas in the waiting area. Quentin chose one, sitting stiffly upright on the front edge. He had never left less comfortable in the room as he did at that moment.
The receptionist’s muffled voice came to him in spurts. Quentin realized that it wasn’t the call network that was down so much as his individual device, which affirmed his suspicions that their group had been singled out. Every moment that he sat still the clock was ticking away, each second a reminder that they were that much closer to certain disaster, if they weren’t already there.
“Quentin,” her voice floated to him from across the desk, a benevolent smile plastered on her smooth and flawless features. “The doctor will see you momentarily.”
“Thank you,” he replied, his leg starting to drum up and down.
Do not show your anxiety, Quentin, Sia’s voice spoke up in his head.
Good advice, he thought, stilling the nervous parts of his body.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long. Within another minute, the door to the adjoining room opened and Dr. Blatty appeared, a waxy smile presented in greeting. He was fashioned in the old three button suit of the Old World, his hair perfectly combed and parted as if it had come out of a mold. His temples were just a bit gray, crow’s feet meticulously placed at the corners of his eyes so that he appeared grandfatherly. Perched near the end of his nose was a pair of unnecessary spectacles that no synthetic ever need wear.
“Quentin,” he said, his deep voice mechanical despite the inflection that was meant to simulate warmth. “Please come in. It is nice to see you.”
The last time Quentin had been in the office for a session was over a year before. His progress in the past half decade justified their time dwindling to once a month, then once every two, quarterly, until their final session saw an overtly magnanimous doctor declare that Quentin need not attend anymore, that he had essentially, built up the necessary fortitude to handle the trauma of his childhood.
The relief he felt from that simple declaration was difficult to quantify. On the one hand he was grateful that he didn’t have to pretend anymore, that his replies need not be calculated and considered carefully before delivered, knowing that that the slightest awkward or questionable response could lead to many more sessions of deep analysis.
On the other hand, Quentin felt guilt that he deemed it necessary to be someone he wasn’t all that time, which led him to believe that maybe he might be two different people.
It had all been so very confusing, that is, until Claire came along. She had helped him to reconcile the two aspects of his life and become the person he wanted to be, not through analyzing his pain, but by embracing him as a whole.
So much introspection today, he thought, knowing that it was so because this day could very well be his last.
Quentin couldn’t shake that feeling as he followed Dr. Blatty into the office, a cozy room swathed in beige and faux leather furniture. Landscape pictures of the countryside and cafes from a long lost world dotted the walls, the floor adorned with a thick carpet of muted cream, soft ambient sounds playing from the speakers hidden in the walls.
There was a solid resin desk adorned with all sorts of trinkets and models whose purpose Quentin never quite understood, but there was one item on the desk that caught and held his attention. It was the flip up computer view screen, which he knew to be connected to the Pantheon database.
Quentin tried not to stare at it.
Dr. Blatty seated himself behind his desk and gestured to the chair in front. Quentin followed suit, almost frowning at the familiar sinking feeling of the too plush cushions beneath his bottom.
“I was surprised to receive you today, Quentin,” he began. “You seem a bit distressed. Might I inquire as to why?”
Quentin nodded, clearing his throat. In the past he had always feigned his emotions, but he didn’t have to fake the distress he felt on this occasion.
“Um,” he fumbled. “Yes, well…the past few weeks have been…difficult.”
“Difficult how?”
Quentin licked his lips, thinking about the EMP baton he had tucked in his shirt sleeve.
“I haven’t been sleeping very well. Stress, I’m guessing. It probably has some to do with the end of the year finals coming up in my classes.”
“I am sure there is much more than that, Quentin,” the doctor replied, interested, or at least feigning it.
The best lies always started with the truth. He had read that in a book somewhere, most likely one of the stories from the Old World.
“There was a girl,” he explained in a halting way, as if embarrassed or unsure of what to share.
His hands, in his lap, began to nervously wrangle each other, but it wasn’t the confession he was trying to force out…it was the EMP baton he was attempting to free without notice. To the good doctor, however, it appeared the former.
“Tell me about t
his girl,” Blatty urged, steepling his fingers beneath his chin.
“She’s beautiful,” Quentin stated, and there was no need to feign the emotion that bled through. “Witty too…I thought that, well, perhaps there might be something to it, something other than adolescence.”
“And what happened with this girl?” he asked slowly, as if his patience spanned the near hundred years he’d spent as a synthetic.
Quentin felt the baton slip out from between his forearm computer and settle in his shirt sleeve.
“I don’t know. It seemed as if it was proceeding pleasantly,” he replied, realizing that he was falling into old speech patterns.
It was the doctor’s fault, a man whose aesthetic oration leaned towards the pristine and grammatically correct, but it was also relaxing in a way, allowing Quentin to fall into the act more easily.
“The more acquainted we became, the more time we spent in each other’s company. With her, it was easy to forget about…other things.”
“I am assuming that ‘by other things’, you are referring to your past trauma,” the doctor surmised, hitting a bit too close to home.
Quentin, not trusting himself to reply verbally, nodded instead.
“The fact that you are here now leads me to assume that your liaisons have been interrupted, or perhaps even brought to an abrupt end.”
He felt a hot retort rise like bile in his throat but choked it down. Quentin knew the cause of the ‘abrupt end’, as the doctor had put it.
“Yes, “ he answered humbly. “And I’m not certain the cause…only that she has refused to answer or reply to my calls, my messages.”
“What do you take from this?”
Quentin shrugged. How easily he fell into the lies, was his thought.
“That she doesn’t want to see me. Perhaps I said or did something…I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”
“Have you been having dreams?”
Quentin looked up sharply, his alarm anything but a facade.
“Dreams?”
Dr. Blatty sat back in his seat, crossing his fingers across his stomach.
“Yes, Quentin, dreams. In the past, your dreams mirrored your emotional state. We discussed how they were your subconscious reacting to extreme distress.”
He did remember that. It was one of the very first sessions, back when he thought the doctor could actually help him, but he couldn’t possibly know could he? Was it too far-fetched to think that his subconscious had been tapped into? Were they monitoring dreams? Could that happen?
Quentin had to struggle to maintain his composure as he strangled the paranoia that wanted to nip at the edges of his consciousness.
“Yes, I’ve been having dreams,” he replied when he was in control again.
“Can you recall the last dream you had?”
Quentin thought about the last few weeks, the dream of his death at the beach, the waking fugue states of his childhood, the repressed memories coming back to him. He could have laughed at the absurdity of the question.
“Do you mean daydream or nightdream?” he asked, speaking his thoughts aloud.
The doctor frowned.
“A dream is a dream…do you recall?”
Again, Quentin thought of the beach, except he wasn’t thinking of the dream weeks ago, but of the one he’d just had.
“I do,” he muttered.
It had felt so real, but then so had all the others before.
“And what was the dream?”
He played it in his head again, a quick fast forward. The details were stark and easily recalled, the product of his synthesized brain.
“I don’t think you would understand.”
Dr. Blatty smiled his self-righteous smile, the one that said he knew all about dreams and what they meant because he had been doing this for well over a hundred years.
“What makes you believe that?”
Quentin felt the anger stirring again, like a simmering pot brewing in the pit of his stomach.
“The fact that you don’t think it matters.”
There was a long pause as the doctor considered the words. At least the smile was gone, Quentin thought.
“…I do not understand.”
“I know,” Quentin responded evenly. “There is a fundamental difference in day and night. On a certain level your consciousness is aware. A dream in the light of day is not the same as the one in the dark.”
The anger was starting to boil.
The doctor seemed to sense something amiss, or perhaps just didn’t like where the conversation was going, because he switched tracks almost immediately, clearing his throat to make way for his next question.
“Are you afraid of the dark?”
Did he sound uncomfortable? Quentin thought he did.
“Are you?” he returned almost immediately.
Dr. Blatty’s lip seemed to twitch, and for a moment, Quentin thought he was going to see his true face…but then it passed.
“This is about you.”
Quentin smirked.
“I know,” he said. “Believe me I know.”
“The dream,” the doctor insisted, the smallest hint of an edge to his voice.
“Oh yes, the dream,” Quentin threw out almost flippantly. “I recall it.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
He almost laughed. It was all so absurd, almost as if these sessions had never ceased.
“Maybe…maybe I want to tell you everything…all the events that led me here,” he said, and for a brief second, he did consider it, just to see if he could wipe that sanctimonious calm away from the doctor’s face.
“I’m listening.”
“Do you have to respond to everything I say?” Quentin snapped, feeling the pot not just boiling but starting to froth and bubble out. The doctor flinched. It was just the smallest of reactions, and probably would have gone unnoticed, but Quentin was paying very close attention. That slight reaction helped him to reign in the anger. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, and when he looked up again and spoke, he was surprised to find that his voice sounded even.
“Thank you for that,” Quentin said, but he wasn’t thanking the doctor for his silence, so much as he was thanking him for his ineptitude, because without it, Quentin wouldn’t have been able to see through him so easily.
“Anyways, I do want to tell you about the dream,” he lied again, falling easily back into the act. “I want to tell you because I don’t understand it myself…and I feel that I should.”
He unclasped his hands, the fingers of his right hand starting to slide up the sleeve of his opposite arm.
“Why do you feel that way?” the doctor asked, but his voice almost seemed distant.
“Because I remember things and I don’t,” Quentin said, stirring in a bit of the truth again.
His fingers brushed the tip of the baton.
“And the things I remember may or may not be real.”
“Dreams are not real,” the doctor replied, as if reminding Quentin that he was safe.
“I knew you were going to say that,” Quentin tilted his head and smiled slightly.
If he had a hand free he might have waggled his finger at the man, as if reprimanding him. Instead, his fingers closed on the handle of the baton.
“But here’s the thing…my dreams often feel more real than this place. So what does that say of me? Am I real or is what I know not?”
For the first time ever, Quentin saw the doctor’s brows come together.
“I don’t-”
This time Quentin did laugh.
“Please,” he said. “Please don’t say it…I know you don’t. You never will.”
The fingers fished the baton from his sleeve, and his hand closed over the grip.
“Dreams are…fickle things to you, projections based on memories and experiences.”
He knew he should act at that moment, but the words wouldn’t stop.
“What I’m saying is, what if the memorie
s themselves are flawed, unreliable? Does that mean we can only rely on our dreams to tell the truth?”
Quentin was fishing. How much did the doctor know about his life, his death, his synthetic existence? Had he been privy to it all this time, from the very beginning, as the council had known…as Talbot had known?
“The memories you have are not flawed,” the doctor replied, a near replica of the advertisements of old, back when they were still trying to convince a large portion of the population.
Quentin felt his heart sink. There were no answers here. There never were.
“They are a part of the Cloud,” the doctor continued, oblivious to Quentin’s reaction. “They are recorded as experienced.”
“So you say,” he mumbled his reply.
“It is the truth,” the doctor said gently, yet adamantly.
And then Blatty’s eyes strayed over to the view screen at his desk. It was a quick glance, one that if Quentin had not been paying such close attention would have been missed. As it were, he felt a cold chill start to creep up his spine.
“Truth?” Quentin said. “I think there is your truth and then there is mine. For instance, why have I been brought here?”
He was goading him, seeing if the doctor would slip again.
“You are here so that I may help you.”
It was a benign response, and well delivered, almost believable, except for the small fact that he had ignored Quentin’s choice of words.
“You’re going to help me?”
“I am,” the doctor said serenely, the smile returning.
From behind him, Quentin heard the door to the office open. He turned his head to look over his shoulder, and saw an armed guard enter the room, hand resting on top of the pistol at his hip.