The Machine

An ammonia tablet was broken under Craig’s nose, rudely waking him. The room buzzed with rusted gears grinding against each other, dueling with the chug of a roaring diesel motor. A white screen on the wall directly in front of him glowed bright with artificial white light. He imagined the gates of heaven opening, it was so blinding. The remainder of the room was cast in pitch-darkness.

Ca-clink. It sounded like metal catching metal.

He attempted to speak, but his lips were numb. Craig couldn’t shift his tongue. Trying harder to feel his body, he vaguely sensed his arms pressed against two wooden panels. Leather restraints strapped his extremities firmly into place. He couldn’t move.

A metal object touched down around the circumference of his head. It felt like a crown. The metal was ice cold against his skin. The ticking of the machine increased, and something swung down fast in front of his face. His skull was pricked by dozens of needles. He stiffened involuntarily. He twitched. His arms began to spasm. His back tightened, vertebra by vertebra. His head radiated warmth. His ears buzzed with mechanical locusts. A copper tang filled his mouth. His eyes leaked hot tears. He’d describe the overall feeling as being plugged in and hooked up to electricity.

The machine grinded faster, humming, churning, working. A mucous-laden startle escaped his throat after a pair of red binoculars was lowered in front of his eyes.

Wuuuuuuuuuum. The machine revved itself.

The binoculars exuded golden light. Pain flooded into his eyes. The gates of heaven were opening once again.

A voice echoed in the room, emanating from the walls, rising up from the floor, and reverberating inside of him. “It’s going to get uncomfortable, Mr. Horsy.”

You’re too late if you were trying to warn me, you bastard.

“Calling me a bastard won’t solve anything,” Dr. Krone laughed. “I can hear your thoughts. They come out of that speaker in the corner. I’m hooked up into your mind.”

Jesus Christ.

“Yes, Jesus would be impressed.” He’d done this many times before, Craig could tell. “Now calm down. I need you to relax.”

The doctor peered into the magnifying lenses over his face and twiddled a circular knob. The change lowered the brightness of the light, but only by a slight degree. Everything was bathed in electric white, the concentration of dozens of computer screens. The headache worsened by the second. His brain was heating up.

“I should let you know that when you signed the court order, you consented to this treatment. It’s a brand new therapy. I’ll have you a changed man in less than four hours, I promise you.”

I didn’t consent to torture. This is illegal. I’ll sue. I’ll burn this fucking place to the ground!

He stopped thinking. Was he hearing his mental voice in his head repeated through a speaker? Each word sounded harmonized.

Dr. Krone guffawed. “You’re hearing yourself think out loud, you fool. Do you really plan on burning my practice to the ground? You’ll be thanking me by the end of the day. You’ll shake my hand, or maybe you’ll buy me a beer. I love any ale on tap.”

I’m not buying you shit.

“You should read the fine print. This is for your own good. You’ll see.”

What about the fake door? Why is this place set up like a trap? Did I really take a fall outside and hit my head?

The doctor stood behind him, punching what sounded to be computer keys. “This is an overwhelming procedure, but it’s also overwhelmingly effective. There are no fake doors on my premises. The door swings both ways, like anybody else’s. You’re talking nonsense, Mr. Horsy. Let’s reel you back into reality. Do you remember breaking that stool over your friend’s body?”

Before Craig could protest, the screen ahead of him lit up with an image. It glowed around the edges with purple flashes of light. The screen crackled with sharp static, but then shortly after the crackling, a scene played out—

Half-Time pub’s television screens displayed the Giants versus the Patriots football game. The scene was what a pair of eyes would see—Craig’s eyes. Next, the bar’s varnished oak counter snuck into the picture. Hank slid a frosty mug of Pale Moon Ale at him. Hank had that special talent of delivering beer five stools down without disturbing the froth or spilling it.

This is a memory of mine. You can’t be doing this. It’s impossible!

“Keep watching.” The doctor put his hands on Craig’s shoulders. “You’ll see.”

The memory skipped a scene. It showed Willis pleading with him, cowering backwards from him in fear. “I’m so sorry. I know you’re mad, but Joey is family—you’re family too. My best friend. I’ll tell you when something else opens up. I’m sorry I can’t give you a job. I’ll give you a hundred bucks, and you don’t have to pay me back. Have another beer. Please, you can’t understand how disappointed I am that I can’t help you.”

“The hell with you!”

“Craig, you’re drunk. Take a deep breath. Hear what I’m saying. Go to the unemployment office. Use me as a reference. If you have to crash at my place, then fine. It might even be fun, huh?”

“I don’t need a place to stay,” Craig’s voice erupted, “I need a fucking job!”

The room tilted, mimicking Craig’s drunken experience.

The image jumped time again.

Shouts and screams clashed with the bar’s banter. Willis cried out, tears welling in his eyes. Genuine fear turned Willis into an unfamiliar person. He wasn’t real. He was a caricature of himself. The seat of the barstool slammed into his nose. The metal leg connected to his collarbone with an aluminum rattle. 

Skipping ahead again. Willis was sprawled out on the floor and unconscious. His nose gushed red. Then Craig was tackled from behind by a bar patron and driven onto his stomach. Someone asked someone else to call the cops.

The typing of computer keys came from behind him, and the image became a blank screen.

Craig was stunned.

“Imagine how many of these horrible memories you have stored in that cerebral cortex of your mind, Mr. Horsy. I’m not suggesting you take them out. I want you to confront them. I can put you in that moment again, physically. You can change the way you reacted.”

But I still hurt Willis. What will reliving it prove?

“It’s a way of forgiving yourself.”

A female voice nearby added, “It’s like changing your past. Why not act out what we meant to do and not what we actually did?”

Dr. Krone snipped, “Quiet. He’ll learn what we’re doing in due time. I’m the one in charge, not you. Keep your mouth shut and watch.”

Is Rachael watching? What does she know about this? She hasn’t been hooked up to this torture device.

Rachel tried to correct him. “In fact I—”

The doctor angrily cut her off. “That’s not your concern, Mr. Horsy. You’re the patient. You’re the one with the ailment. You’re the one with the court order. I’m in charge.”

I want off this fucking machine!

The doctor stepped in front of the screen. That self-satisfied smile dominated his face. The doctor was slick with sweat, his face like melting wax. The entire room was stifling hot. The machine exuded warmth like a space heater from hell. The doctor was enjoying the beauty of his creation, as if experiencing an intellectual orgasm.

Craig feared what Dr. Krone could produce on the screen next. Is this your treatment? Showing me images on a screen?

The doctor’s face clenched. “This is a preliminary. My procedure is meant to drum up old memories. It’s to percolate memories and events from your personal history.”

The doctor stalked back to the machine, shortly after punching another series of computer keys. The screen flickered and then stayed bright, the golden rays piercing into Craig’s eyes and lighting up his skull.

Turn it off, my God, just turn it off!

“Hold on and watch, Mr. Horsy.”

Rachael added, “This is going to be better than your last memory.”

“This’ll take a minute.” Then the frantic typing of computer keys. “I’ll tell you something while we’re waiting. Haven’t you ever thought how cool it would be to see and hear what somebody else is thinking? Nobody can truly explain in words what’s transpiring in their heads. And human beings have a tendency to lie or stretch the truth. Nobody’s accurate in real life. This machine is one hundred percent accurate. I can analyze what’s injected the anger into your life, and I will coax it from your system.”

But you said this therapy wasn’t just putting images on a screen.

“I did. And I wasn’t lying. You’ll see. That’s the next step of the process. Soon, you’ll be living the process.”

Craig was helpless to watch the memory unfold—

“It hurts, Craig—I’m bleeding! Why did we turn on this damn highway? Why did we take your piece-of-shit car? I don’t want to die, not like this.”

He watched his hand clutch his wife’s, both hands slathered in blood. He was positioned on his knees outside the Toyota Camry to catch the baby. Various shades of crimson soaked the car seat. Katie’s thighs were sodden in brown-red birth fluids. She clutched the back of the driver’s side to abate the pain, but her shouting and yelling didn’t stop.

“You can’t push so hard,” Craig pleaded. “Remember Lamaze class? Breathe in and out and push, but not so forcefully.”

“Fuck Lamaze, and fuck you, Craig!”

“Stay calm, Katie, I love you. We’ll get through this.”

“You’re not the one pregnant. And why did you take the highway?”

“It was only lightly snowing when we started driving. I couldn’t know the storm would get worse…”

“You should’ve checked the weather. This car has about had it. We should’ve taken a cab! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“None of this is happening as we planned.”

“Oh, no shit!”

Snow pelted his head. Sheets of white whipped across the highway and blinded the horizon. The below-zero winds pierced him unmercifully. Gusts of air were so fierce, it rocked the car and the shocks squealed.

The engine had quit. It was Saturday at three in the morning. He called a tow truck and an ambulance, but the weather was so bad, they were taking forever to arrive. Sirens wailed in the distance. No other cars had passed them the entire time they were stranded beside the concrete median.

“You waited too long to call for help,” Katie accused him. Softer now, demurring into a dying voice, she said, “It’s too late.”

So much blood had been lost, it dripped from the edge of the seat and spattered the road and colored the snow. The red soaked into his clothes, his skin, and somehow flicked onto his lips.

He did his best to keep her conscious. “Hey, stay with me.”

She passed out.

He shook her body. “Katie, stay with me!”

Sirens blared from nearby.

Help had arrived.

You sick son of a bitch!

That was the last he’d seen Katie alive, with blood staining both her cheeks in handprint shapes from when he touched her. She died three hours later at the hospital from an internal hemorrhage. Jenny was miscarried. Katie’s parents were the last to see her alive.

Dr. Krone and Rachael clapped in unison.

What the fuck are you so happy about? You enjoy watching my wife suffer?

“This is progress,” the doctor rejoiced. “Please understand. Your mind is accepting the machine’s impulses. This means my treatment can be effective. Not everybody’s mind allows my machine to enter their memories.”

Take me off of this machine right now!

The doctor moved into Craig’s line of vision again, Rachael standing beside him. They were side by side, the woman hugging the doctor with one arm. They were delighted.

Dr. Krone said, “Do yourself a favor and calm down. Like what you said to Katie, correct?”

Fuck you. You have no right to talk about Katie. You don’t know her. You don’t know me.

The doctor’s eyes lit up. “But I will know both of you very well in time.”

The doctor removed the binoculars from Craig’s face. The screen went blank. The golden rays vanished. Purple and white blotches corrupted his vision. He couldn’t see anything for five minutes.

The two were busy at work. The time to chat had concluded. The mechanical whir of a metal fan matched the grinding of gears. The device was warming up again. Burning hot now, Craig’s skin absorbed the heat, and he couldn’t do anything to abate the rising agony. Computer keys were tapped at ninety words per minute. What Dr. Krone was instructing the machine must have been intricate, as intricate as navigating the depths of his mind.

Rachael pushed a syringe into the back of Craig’s neck where his spine and brain stem connected. She was lost in her work. Her eyes didn’t meet his. The smile, the excited expression, almost childlike in its intensity, had vanished into firm determination.

“What’s wrong with you people?”

He could talk again.

Dr. Krone sighed. “Inject him with a numbing agent. We can’t have him yammering while we work.”

“Stop this right now.” Craig couldn’t move his limbs. The fresh injection served to further numb his processes. “I’ll call the police. You can’t silence me. People will miss me. They know I’ve gone to Dr. Richard Herbert.”

And that was the problem.

“This isn’t a real clinic. I’m not where I'm supposed to be.”

“It sure is a clinic,” the doctor said. “I have an address. You can enter and leave my practice as you wish, but you’re required by law to stay. You signed the court document. You had a choice. It’s the best decision you’ve made in your lifetime. I’m saving you and the public any future harm. Now, let us get to work. Give my treatment a chance. You’ll enjoy it, Craig, I promise.”

“I didn’t want this. Stop what you’re doing to me!”

Rachael seized his jaw. A needle pierced his lips, clacked against his jawbone, and he was instantly anesthetized.

He yipped in his throat when she unbuckled his khakis pants. She dragged them down to his knees. The room was colder now. He shivered, holding his breath without realizing it.

“He’s very serious about helping you.” Rachael removed his underwear and installed a catheter. “You don’t have to be scared. This will be a therapeutic experience. You’ll thank us later.”

Dr. Krone inserted an IV needle into each arm. One was a morphine drip, the other a feeding tube.

Rachel stared at him apologetically. “This looks intimidating. This is the hardest part of the process. Please, try your best to relax. We’ll be done shortly. I know you’re scared. But don’t be.”

A blanket was draped over his legs.

Ca-clink. The machine was charging up once again. It was like eleven furnaces kicking on to fight the dead cold of winter. 

The metal gears churned faster. Crrrrrrrrink.

The seizure was one swift motion. Two steel prongs swung down, connected to robotic arms. The plastic at the ends of the arms were fingers that pried open his eyelids.

“This is the hardest step,” Dr. Krone warned. “Brace yourself.”

The machine worked at deafening levels.

The doctor had to raise his voice to be heard, “Stay strong, Mr. Horsy!”

The spinning motor’s hum now sounded like a dentist’s drill held up to a microphone. Two new robotic arms were posed before his eyes. At the end of each arm was a metal circle. Thin needles lined the circumference of each circle.

Oh God!

The needles pierced the wet tissue around his eyeballs and dug two inches deep. They touched specific parts of his brain. New sensory were activated, while other functions were terminated. Electric impulses seized him, circulating into his bloodstream, his nervous system, every vital process hooked up to a power source. His skull crackled and his hair popped with static electricity. Drool spooled from his lips. Tears trailed down his cheeks.

Dr. Krone stepped into his line of vision, beholding Craig, before he flipped on the final switch.

“Now the therapy begins, Mr. Horsy!”