and dangerous and horrible, and it made me feel sick to my stomach. I remember looking into his eyes at the end and wondering whether I was looking at a psychopath, and I knew that I couldn’t carry on. I just had to end it there – it just felt to me as if this had made a mockery of everything that I was studying, and I had to get out.
I left the stage and hurried out, leaving the lecture unfinished and my tutor shocked and angry. It was terrible, but I couldn’t do anything about it, I just had to get out of there. I caught my tutor’s eye just as I was leaving the auditorium, and I knew this was something that he wouldn’t forgive me for, but at that moment I just didn’t care. And you know what was truly shocking? That student, that little shit, he came up to me just before I escaped. He touched my shoulder and it almost made me sick, and, can you believe it, he asked me out for a drink…. Anna shuddered visibly …. God, I wonder what happened to him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up as a serial killer or something like that, at the very least he’s probably in jail. Ah. I wish I could have blamed him for everything, if only it was that easy. I know I have to take some responsibility, and it was far more complicated than one conversation at one lecture, but that failure led directly to my being suspended from my course, failing to go through the requisite interviews and tests to reinstate myself and dropping out. My tutor, I remember, he begged me to come back, I was one of his brightest students, he said, I couldn’t throw it away. He was a lovely man, and completely genuine, but I couldn’t forgive him for not having supported me when I needed it, and I think part of the reason I left was to spite him. I hate myself for it, but I have to admit it to myself, and that’s why I talk about it openly, I need to acknowledge my own failure and guilt. I ended up drifting for a while; I moved back in with my parents and stayed in bed, then I tried to go travelling but I really struggled with it.
I was half way across Europe, sitting in a bar in the centre of Warsaw on a December night, by myself, drinking a beer, when I looked my own reflection through the bottles behind the bar, and I realised that I was rushing to each new place just to avoid facing up to my disappointment about the old one. I think I had thought that I could replace my exploration of the mental with that of the physical, that I could find the place where they meet and rediscover my passion there, but instead I just found the boring and the banal, I found people whose interests stretched no further than the contents of the bar or the shape of my body, whose attempts at conversation hadn’t evolved beyond the puerile, and yet they considered themselves enlightened.
I searched for solace and understanding in the churches, the monuments, the buildings of ancient cities and the beauty of nature, but I found only blank empty spaces. And so that night, after I had fended of the attentions of some lonely businessman on expenses, and the sly grins of the local boys, I found a quiet bar where people didn’t seem interested in disturbing me and the owner was happy to speak his few words of broken English to me, and other than that leave me be with my drink and my copy of The Bell Jar.
I would love to say that I had an epiphany that persuaded me to return to the fold, but that wouldn’t be true. I just saw my current path for what it was in its futility, no better really than the adolescents struggling with their growing pains. I did return to England, and I trained and worked as a nurse and there, yes, I have found some sort of fulfilment, although it’s not what I expected and not where I still see myself ending up. In fact, I haven’t worked in the field of dream psychology since that day in the lecture hall, although I have thought about picking up my PhD again, recently. It’s funny, isn’t it, the trail that runs through my life from that day until your mail. I meant to ask, were you at that lecture?
That lecture, I asked, a chill running through me. The truth is that I do remember that well, I think I’ve mentioned it already, I remember Anna of course but I also remember saying things that surprised me, that I didn’t recognise, although I could never have imagined it having such a profound impact on someone. Now her curious gaze made me uncomfortable and I needed to shift the discussion on.
Sorry, I said, I thought you said you did get your PhD?
She smiled sadly and admitted to me that no, that wasn’t entirely true, that she was still struggling with turning back to face the darkness, even though the light she thought she had found was grey and murky and cold. That’s why, she admitted, she had been excited to receive my mail, she remembered me as having vision, determination and passion, as would anyone who forced themselves to stay awake for two weeks in the name of science. It was just as I left, she said, you were in the middle of that experiment, and I didn’t ever get the chance to find out if you finished it successfully.
The statement was left hanging in the air, and I didn’t know how to fill the emptiness. I will tell you that, I said, but first it would be great if you would help me with that question I asked, about retrieving lost dreams.
She gave a crooked smile and told me that yes, she had done some research on it early in her PhD, but it wasn’t altogether successful. The challenge, she told me, was controlling the impact of the treatment. Electro shock therapy combined with the right sort of drugs, in the right quantity, at precisely the right time, could unlock the memories and force them back into consciousness. However, results were haphazard and hard to predict, and some of the consequences were unexpected. Our understanding of the brain’s function was much greater now than it was in those times, she told me, partly due to some pioneering work on thought control that she had heard about, and she was surprised that I was asking about research that she had carried out over twenty years ago. They were playing around in the dark then, experimenting with things they didn’t really understand, and eventually they shut the project down because of concern about the long-term impact on some of the subjects. They had successfully rescued memories in just over five percent of cases, but the incidents of failure and the side effects were serious. There were instances of long term memory loss, real memories and dreams being intermingled and confused, and even stranger cases. She recalled a very disturbing incident of time distortion, where the timeline of memories in a particular man became jumbled up, and an interesting phenomenon where the man’s brain replaced memories that didn’t fit in the new timeline with distorted memories that did fit, which resulted in his whole history being rewritten and rewired in his brain.
But the most worrying case, the one which caused them to shut the project down, was about a man whose entire personality changed, as well as his entire memory system; memories reinvented to support his new view of himself. She shivered as she remembered this, and described how her tutor called them in one day and said it was over. He took all their documents and instructed them all to erase any other personal records they had, and not to discuss the findings with anyone. He didn’t exactly threaten people, but he made it clear that it would not be in their interests to talk about their findings, that the subjects, even though they had been volunteers and were completely aware of the risks, may feel some personal antipathy towards Anna and her team.
But why are you asking me this? Surely you have access to much newer data?
Did you ever feel threatened by them?
Well, I can’t be completely sure, but I did always wonder whether that student who destroyed my life was somehow related to it all – maybe not one of them, maybe his brother or best friend or something like that. And then there was… (She trailed off into the distance).
Go on, (I encouraged her, but she had already moved on and fixed her eyes back on me).
Tell me. Tell me really, why are you here. Tell me who you are.
But I’m… (I started and then I stopped, not even knowing who I was in her sad, dull eyes, that managed a tear now).
Maybe you’re one of them, she whispered. I did think that, I did wonder, when I got the mail, it just didn’t sound right, and you, you’re not right. So, tell me, whoever you are, are you satisfied? Did you get what you want? Will you leave me alone now?
&n
bsp; I had no idea what to say, so I said nothing, just stood, turned and left. I hadn’t even touched my glass of red wine and it stood now, glinting in the soft light and lonely and lost as Anna.
Is she an angel?
Sylvia was waiting for me at home, which was a nice surprise. Even though I’d moved out of the family home, I’d had her a set of keys cut for my new place, just to make her feel welcome. She occasionally came round and let herself in, and we would talk into the night about things, nothing consequential, but it made me feel like we were still close, and her too, I guess… you sometimes need someone to talk to, who you can be unguarded and open with, and I have always prided myself on being a good listener. I felt a little shiver of excitement when I saw her car parked outside my house, and the disappointment and strangeness of the evening faded a little.
She was sitting in the living room, a glass of wine in her hand, but she looked worried and guarded. Where the hell have you been, she asked heavily, turning hope into fear. I told her in vague terms that I had to catch up with an old friend, and thankfully she moved on, scolding me for leaving her and Lou so