***
Jessica was excited by the prospect of a lie detector test. Finally, after over a week of routinely demanding that her and her step father be given lie detector tests, she was being given one. Dan, the group therapy leader, led her to what they called the quiet room. It was a blank and barren room, with a plastic coated hospital bed in the center, sticking up out of the floor. She didn't like being alone with this fat, ugly man, but it was worth it to get the lie detector test done. They sat down on either side of a desk, along a wall, opposite the door. The orange chair she sat in was made of hard unyielding plastic, which made her lower body stiffen in discomfort. She hoped the session wouldn't last very long.
Dan took the instruments out of a drawer on his side of the desk and he approached her. Jessica shuddered slightly with repulsion as Dan applied the instruments to her body. His touch disgusted her and she recognized an underlying resentment in his movements as he set up the polygraph test. He hooked the instruments up to a machine on the desk and plugged the machine into a laptop, which he looked at.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“All right, I guess.”
“I'm going to ask you yes or no questions. In order for this to work correctly, you need to answer the questions either yes or no.”
“Okay.”
“Are you comfortable?”
“No.”
“Are you feeling tired?”
“No.”
“Do you want to engage in this polygraph test?”
“Yes.”
“Did you and your father get along well until the incident?”
“Yes.”
“Did you steal money from your father?”
“No.”
“Did your father molest you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I've seen enough,” said Dan, giving a slight sigh.
The tone of Dan's voice perturbed Jessica. There was a type of sarcastic exhaustion to it that dug under her skin. She was already realizing just how subjective a lie detector test could be.
“What do you mean you've seen enough?” asked Jessica, feeling defensive.
“Just what I said.” Dan rose from his chair and walked to the door. He opened it and said, “Linda, if I could get your help here.”
Linda entered the room and looked at Jessica with a hard, callous stare, which Jessica hadn't seen from Linda before.
“If you get the polygraph equipment off her, I'll prepare the room for treatment,” said Dan
“What treatment?” asked Jessica, feeling startled by the mention of the word. The memory of the fear on Tracy's face, when Dan had mentioned the party in group therapy, resurfaced in Jessica's mind. Tracy had been afraid to mention the accusation of rape around the hospital staff. The source of Tracy's fear swarmed Jessica's consciousness with a dread that dwarfed the injustice.
The blood rapidly thumped through Jessica's body as Linda removed the polygraph equipment. Dan was setting up electrical equipment around the bed in the center of the room.
“I want to go back to my room,” remonstrated Jessica, raising from the chair and looking toward the door in desperation.
“We're not finished here yet,” said Linda.
“We need you to lay down on the bed,” ordered Dan.
“I don't want to,” protested Jessica.
“Do you want us to call in the other hospital staff?” asked Linda
The dread of more duress gripped Jessica's mind and she said, “No.” Apprehensively, she approached the bed in the center of the room.
Dan was standing near the pillow, on one side of the bed, with a weird looking helmet in his hands. “Lay down on the bed and we'll get started.”
Jessica lay down on the bed and she rested her head against the pillow, feeling exhausted and helpless. She thought of her mother and wished she could call to her for help, but the thought was tainted by her mother's disappointment. Her mother couldn't help her anymore. She had left Jessica to suffer this fate.
Dan put the helmet onto Jessica and he said, “That's your dunce cap.”
Jessica felt silly and embarrassed, wearing the weird looking helmet, and tears streamed from her eyes. She was too worn out emotionally to sob. She just lay there helplessly, with tears falling from her eyes.
Linda put a rubber instrument in Jessica's mouth and a sharp, impending fear gripped Jessica's mind, as she awaited the alien unknown. With the rubber instrument in her mouth, the feeling of silliness was replaced by the sensation of an alien machine, threatening to invade her soul. She dreaded the initial shock.
An electric current passed through her brain, jolting her body, and splitting her consciousness in two. The spark left her with a sensation of seared flesh and a split that had opened across her brain. Her brain passages quaked with the pulsating of blood, seeking to heal the damage that had been done. For a moment, she lay there stunned, unable to process her surroundings. She was faintly aware of Dan saying something, but she was unable to register it. Linda removed the rubber instrument.
Dan asked, “Do you know why you're a dunce?”
The question hurt Jessica and made her think of the electric shock, forcing her to become dumb. Then she felt a need to prove she wasn't completely rendered dumb and she said, “No.”
“You endangered yourself and your entire family just to get attention for yourself. Your father would've suffered worse than this if you had gotten your way, you spoiled brat. Now explain why you made up the molestation.”
“I didn't make up the molestation.”
Dan motioned to Linda and she put the rubber instrument back into Jessica's mouth, causing Jessica to flinch in anticipation of the next shock. Jessica already regretted not having lied about the incident with her step father, as she lay there awaiting another shock.
The shock jolted her body, sending another lightning flash through her brain and splitting her consciousness in two again. This time a force seemed to spread through the crevice opened in her mind, seizing control over her consciousness as she lay there, stunned. Another shock jolted her and the force sunk deeper, making her wish she could have the rubber instrument removed from her mouth to submit.
Linda removed the rubber instrument from Jessica's mouth and Dan asked, “Why did you make up the molestation?”
Jessica felt the electricity flickering along her throat as she said, “To get attention for myself.” It was as if the remainders of the electrical currents had carried her beyond the daze, granting her the energy and reticence to speak the sentence verbatim. Then she realized that her voice sounded automated and robotic. The words had come to her lips before she had even formulated what to say. With the realization that she had come under the control of an alien force, transmitted through the electrical currents, that same force pressed down over the crevice that had opened in her brain, causing her a brief moment of agonizing nerve pain. She squirmed under the pressure and made a painful squeak.
“Making that admission is your first step toward recovery,” said Dan, radiating pride in his voice.
Jessica desperately wanted to recover from her feelings about the molestation. The memory of the molestation now seemed miniscule in comparison to more shock treatment. She wanted to let it go and never think of it again.
Linda's voice sounded soft and consoling as she said, “You can get up now. I'll take you back to your room.” Linda gripped Jessica's hands and helped to raise her from a supine position. A concerned and pitying look had replaced the cold and callous stare.
As Jessica returned to her feet, a mental fog clouded her brain and she wanted to return to her bed in the ward, to sleep it off. The crevice in her brain was forming into an emotional vacuum. Where there had once been comfort and understanding, there was now a void, sinking her beneath the fear of her own knowledge. She feared knowing that an injustice had occurred.