Not in His Attic

"Alrighty, Miss....Smith?" the secretary stared over her gleaming, red glasses into the waiting room, wondering which woman would change their life forever today.

"Yes! That's me, that's me," a short, mud-haired woman shoots up from of her dull, fading leather seat. She catches sight of the doctor who opens the mysterious door that leads to the path that will hold her future. His mold green eyes stared at her, almost insisting that she was making the right choice. Come. It was as if she could read his thoughts. Her black heels begin to clack against the white tile, harder than steel but, more fragile than a wine glass.

"We are going to set you in room 202 while I go get your records together, please have a seat," the strange man directs her into the bright room. She waits in the hallway, stuttering, but for just a second. As she enters the room, her mind is blinded by the earth-shattering realization that she is about to leave her life behind. She turned, her hair smacking her in the face sharply once it catches up with her actions, but it's too late... he had left the room and silently shut the door behind him.

God forgive me for I am about to sin, she thought to herself. She couldn't place a finger on exactly how but she had a summary in her head. She had a plan, and a big one, maybe not the one God had planned out for her, but then again, maybe it was. What would her children remember of her? Would her husband ever forgive her? Would they even figure out what she had done other than disappear from their lives forever? There was only one way to find out. Lying down upon the crinkling paper laid out on the plastic-wrapped mattress underneath her, she lost herself in the lights. Almost like Heaven, she envisioned. The white, pearly gates animated themselves before her eyes, the singing angels, a quiet murmur of her life to be.

Tap, tap. The light sound against the door interrupted her imagination, especially once the strange man with the green eyes barged in, a complete counter personality of what she expected from the soft knocking.

"You will know me as Dr. Barge... for now. It's time to get your physical and make sure your files are as up to date as possible, is that alright with you?" his words flew by her ears quicker than the Boomerang roller coaster her oldest daughter was obsessed with every time they stepped into the theme park.

A nod. That was the only answer, the only action she could force herself to do.

"Alright then, we will start with the verbal questions," Barge inquired. "Your current name is Joyce Smith?" he raised one eyebrow, not breaking eye contact with his pen head steadily above the paper.

"Yes."

The doctor clicked his tongue and nodded in approval, "And you're sure you don't want to remember anything about your life from the past 42 years?"

"Yes," the reply sounded like a whisper escaping from an old woman's mouth as she rested on her death bed. There was not much hope for her anymore in the life she had, not after what she did.

"Alright..." one of his emerald eyes twitched. Just another mopey woman, just another mopey life, he repeated over and over in his head. It was one of the ways he would keep himself from trying to convince these women to stay in the lives they already had. "Do you want to remember who you are? Or shall we change that too?" his eyes followed the list as he switched between questions.

"Nothing, I don't want to remember who I am, what I did, I want it all gone. My family, everything." the tears flew to the corners of her eyes, the most striking resemblance of grey anyone could imagine. However fascinating, if you stared back at them at the wrong moment, you could surely observe them without a speck of life hidden behind the color.

"That settles it then, an entire reset is my plan, as long as that's okay with you, which I'm sure it is, and you're height and weight is all up to date? We want to make sure we put you under with the right dosage so you... might wake up." Barge's voice remained calmer than a dog nuzzled in it's owner's lap, like he had rehearsed the same phrase a thousand times over, which he most likely had at this point.

Cracking the door open just enough he could slide through it, Dr. Barge left momentarily, but almost immediately slammed the door open so hard you could hear the echo in the wall beside Joyce's head. In his hands he held the rail of one of the cleanest, most organized silver carts she had ever seen. The wheels squeaked only slightly, leaving enough room for aesthetic pleasure as possible as you could only notice if you listened hard enough.

As the cart was pulled up next to her head and more doctors and nurses flooded her room, she tried to focus only on what her life could and would be. But of course, would she even remember what she hopes her next life will be? Or would that part of her be erased too, because how can you improve a life that you would never know you even lived?

The sound of needles scraping against the cart stained her ear drums, the noise replaying endlessly in her tiring mind. Finally, a chance for relaxation. What she figured was an anesthesiologist broke the barrier of her eyesight, giving her another human to focus on besides the pit of her thoughts.

"We are going to inject you with just enough to put you under for the procedure, you should be awake within a couple hours of the end of the surgery, okay?" the looming, shadowy man softly informed her from the safety of his dark blue scrubs. In his right hand she caught a glimpse of the needle settled firmly in his grasp, ready for injection at any moment.

Joyce took one last breath of her current life and stared the new doctor right in the eyes, "I'm ready. Let's do this." and resumed her habit of staring straight at the ceiling, waiting for the moment she will forget everything and anything, about her life. She went over each of her children's faces one last time, spending a fair amount of shame-filled regret on each one, including her husband's. Out of anyone she could hurt in this world, she hurt them. She didn't mean to, she didn't want to, but she did, and now it was time for her to go. The last feeling she felt before the world went black was the last stick of her eyes peeling apart to catch one glimpse of her surroundings before they left. Gone.

See, Dr. Barge's name, well it wasn't his name. No one shall ever know the true identity of the man that loomed over the small, frail woman who once again sat on his table. There was no cure for anything these women wanted.

A new life, they always proposed. Well, a short newsflash he wanted to provide them, you can only live once. You wasted it, it's gone. Just like forty-two year old Joyce would be in the coming minutes. She wanted to leave her old life behind, and that's exactly what he would help her do. He never agreed, per say, to bring her back to a new life. The only promise he ever made, was to make sure she wouldn't remember.

His earth-shattering, life-changing eyes stared at her slowing heart monitor as the rest of the "doctors" evacuated the room. Where to hide the rest of this one? he wondered to himself, there wasn't much room left for Joyce, not in his attic.