Extraction

The first thing I noticed walking into the house was the bits of porcelain coating the ground like dust. The wobbling steps leading up to the door should have braced me for the worst, but the damage was more than I expected. The chairs in the dining room looked practically dismembered and had their colorful fabric ripped off. If I hadn’t known better, they would have almost looked like festive tapestries strewn across the room like that. I picked up the pace, fearing that I was walking on haunted ground. Kicking aside broken china, I made my way across the remains of the kitchen to see a woman kneeling amongst the rubble with a dustpan, trying in vain to separate the porcelain dust from the cracked tiles.

“Cheryl, my name is Ali Baqri and I’m here for the extraction you requested.”

           She didn’t turn around, but as I moved closer I could eke out the wrinkles on a face that couldn’t have been older than thirty. Her hair had streaks of gray too, belying her youth and the photo she submitted to my office. Altogether, I could still tell it was the same woman when she eventually did turn around, despite her sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks. “The photo must have been taken years ago,” I thought to myself.

           She looked startled as if she had forgotten that she requested my services in the first place. A moment later and that look of worry flickered away, giving way to tears instead. She told me about her husband, the sleepless nights, the rage. The premise was something I had seen before: an overestimation of love at a young age, failing to expect the worst. I get a lot of those in my line of work.

“And I just can't stop thinking about it.” she sputtered between breaths.

My website specifically mentions that I’m not a therapist nor do I possess a degree in anything. Yet clients still feel the need to explain their backstory and the reason they need me for an extraction. In truth, I’ve never been really good at hearing them out but I never interrupt either. I wait until they’re finished, have them seated comfortably, and use the one skill I have to help them forget.

If you’ve ever seen Men In Black, my ability works in much the same way as the Neuralyzer, except there are more questions afterward. All I have to do is place my hand on someone’s head and I can make them forget anything they would like. Some people suggest I could do a lot more with these powers, along the lines of world domination perhaps, but just like in the comic books every power has its kryptonite. The caveat to mine is that the individual I extract memories from has to give me verbal permission. Usually, getting permission isn’t too difficult especially when you have clients like I do – desperate ones. Most of the time, they’re all too quick to give it to me. The actual process itself is short; the whole thing takes less than ten seconds and then I’m left to clean up the mess.

Cheryl asked me if it would hurt. Honestly, I don’t know how the ability works or whether there’s pain, but I told her it wouldn’t. I could be lying but from thousands of past experiences, no one has ever seemed worse for wear. To be fair, I’m never around long enough to observe the aftereffects.

I told her to close her eyes and placed my hand on her shoulder. There was no flash of white light or eyes rolling back into their socket, but I slowly counted to ten in my head and knew it was done. She was perfectly still the entire time.

Someone a lot smarter once told me my ability probably had to do with electricity. It wasn’t magic in any sense they could imagine, but the physical act of restructuring the brain. I like to think that as my hand was on Cheryl’s head, I was a gardener trimming neural connections and forging new ones. I touched her brain and dispersed electrons like seeds.

When Cheryl woke up, she asked who I was. Years of experience taught me that I should erase the client’s memory of myself to prevent them from seeking out information. “It would leave the job unfinished,” I thought. It would also keep me far from any fallout, and more importantly, accountability for what they did next. In a sense, I was free to act like a ghost.

Like I rehearsed thousands of times before, I explained to her that I was the plumber she requested and pulled out the standard contract that every one of my clients has to sign beforehand. The contract stipulates that I always get paid before a service too, something I learned the hard way. Once the client realizes the toilet flushes just fine, I give them my regards and make my way to the office, leaving the rest up to fate. This time was no different. I left Cheryl in a tattered house after making my “inspection,” unable to answer her questions about the porcelain dust and why it was there. Of course, I always correspond with the contacts the client lists in their initial application so they aren’t completely alone. In my emails to family and friends, I strongly urge that no one should never bring up the details of the extraction or the memories I remove. Most of them happen to understand that some things are best left unspoken.

Every time I walk back to the office, I can’t help but wonder about the kinds of things people want to forget. I doubt a therapist has heard about more childhood trauma, the beginnings of a phobia, and other unmentionable things that used to keep me up at night. Nowadays, I don’t think much of it, just like my clients.

On the other hand, I’ve erased memories that probably should have been remembered. People walk in reeling from the heartbreak of a first love or the death of a close family member and I hardly question it. The most I’ll do is ask them if they’re sure. I much prefer being a passive observer, refusing to judge the weight of someone’s experiences.

The weather outside was strangely beautiful considering the work I had just finished. Spring flowers were supposed to start blooming any day now and the sun shone brightly to coax out the petals. Children were out riding their bikes, friends were sharing laughs over ice cream, and around the corner came a couple walking their dog.

“Ali! It’s nice to see you out on a day like this!” the man with the dog yelled.

“We’ve hardly seen you lately, you must be so busy!” his companion added.

From a distance, I could hardly recognize them as my neighbors, Vince and Jane, but I decided it was too late to evade. I plastered a smile and managed a throwaway line about work keeping me away and how we should all get together soon. I sincerely hoped they wouldn’t keep me to it.

           I couldn’t help but stare at their dog for too long. It was a small Australian shepherd that strikingly resembled their past two dogs. Vince leaned forward and told me that they were so happy with how well-trained Ollie was. I didn’t have the heart to tell them they had plenty of practice at this point. Ollie wasn’t their first dog and in my core, I could feel it wouldn’t be their last. It dawned on me that in a few weeks, I would have to reintroduce myself to them for the third time once this dog would meet the same fate.

           Vince and Jane, for all their warmth, were terrible pet owners. Their first dog died because of malnourishment, each of them assuming the other would feed it. The second dog went exactly the same way. Both times they knocked on my door in the dead of night, begging for the opportunity to forget. Ollie looked up at me and wagged his tongue, and it made me feel nauseous. For some reason, the new dog was always the spitting image of the last and had the same name too.

           “I’m sorry, I have to dash back to the office. It’s urgent,” I lied.

I couldn’t stand looking at the dog for one more second. Maybe it was pity for the animal or self-loathing, but it felt like I was staring at imminent death. Vince and Jane saw me rush away, but they didn’t see me break out into a sprint as I passed the corner.

I got back to the office with stitches in my side, dry-heaving in front of my building as people passed by. I must have looked manic to onlookers, but I was secretly steeling myself for the rest of the day. After a job and before the next one, I meditate, thinking it’ll help me keep my sanity. Today, I didn’t have the strength to refocus my thoughts. I walked through the door of the building and paced nervously to the elevator, overjoyed by the fact that no one else was waiting. As I arrived on the fifth floor, I turned down the long hallway toward my private room.

Entering my office always feels a bit more relieving. If I’m the conductor for electrical brain signals, my office and its floors were the only things I could ground myself with to avoid being consumed by the shock. It was comfortable not for any decorations, but for how plain it was. White walls, one desk, and books on a shelf that I had never read nor planned on reading.

I opened my ledger and saw the name of a client I forgot I was supposed to meet in twenty minutes. Luckily, my earlier sprint brought me here with enough time to review his application. The man was eighty years old and went by the name of Alex Thrum. The gray hairs fit on his head better than Cheryl’s, but somehow he seemed to be even sadder. Under “reason for extraction,” he had checked the box for “wife.”

“Plenty of those going around,” I thought.

There was one peculiar thing in his application though. Under the contact list, there were no names. Normally, I would have assumed that the client just forgot and I would stamp denied over their application, but something felt different here. I was absorbed in my own thoughts, rationalizing other scenarios when there was a knock at the door. Apparently, Alex had a preference for rhythmic knocks because as I approached, I felt a beat to it. The door peeked open before he pushed it with gusto, and the sight of a little old man with that much strength caught me by surprise. I looked around for someone else but it was just him. On initial inspection, he looked exactly like the picture - graying hair and beard, wrinkles along his forehead, a pointed nose. The only thing I didn’t expect was to see how small he was – no more than 5’3 if I had to venture a guess.

“Hello, am I in the right office?”

“I believe so. You’re Alex Thrum, correct?”

“That would be me. It took forever to find this place.”

“I actually hear that a lot, but most of the people that swing by don’t typically want to be seen.”

I said the last line without thinking. It felt a bit too accusatory coming out of my mouth but Alex laughed instead. He took the seat in front of my desk, the only other one besides mine. I never keep more than one seat because I only see clients one-on-one.

“Before we begin Mr. Thrum, I’ll need you to explain why there aren’t any contacts listed.”

“Please, you can call me Alex if I can call you Ali. Though to answer your question, I have no contacts. None that exist anymore as it were.”

           His tone didn’t shift at all while he said that as if he were simply stating a fact. Judging by the surprise on my face, he felt the need to continue.

           “I have no living family or friends left and my wife and I didn’t have kids. And I’m sure you read the rest of my application and know there’s no wife left either.”

           His last line came out as a joke, but I was too flustered to muster a fake laugh. I didn’t have any experience with a person who had nothing left and felt like I was treading new water. Scratch that, I was being submerged.

           “I see. Well, I’ve never performed an extraction quite like this one then. Are you really sure you’d like to forget about your wife Alex?” I asked him very slowly, expecting him to change his mind. That would be a first though, no one has ever walked into my office and left as the same person.

           “Absolutely. She was the finest thing that ever happened to me.”

           “I’m not sure I understand sir.”

           “You see Ali, I never got along with my family. My parents only married to appease the frustration of two wealthy families, so there wasn’t much love between them let alone enough to share with their only son. Once I turned fifteen, I set off on my own and never heard from them again. No school, just trade stuff. Acquaintances came and went too as I traveled across the country, but none of them could ever compare to Lenora. She was something quite different.”

           “I hear you sir but I’m not understanding exactly why you would want to forget her then.”

           “ I thought it would be simple Ali! Lenora was the light of my life. We met while I was doing odd jobs, carpentry at the time I think. I still remember when she snuck me a glass of lemonade out of the house while her parents were upstairs. We shared it and the rest was history. We squeezed the same amount of joy out of life as we had that one cup of juice. Traveling across the country, doing odd jobs together, and sharing what little we always had. That is until she died last year.”

A lump welled up in my throat I hadn’t felt for years and without thinking, I asked him how she had died. Later, I would recall that this was my most unprofessional moment. The wrinkles on Alex’s face contorted ever so slightly and it made me think that in the past, he must have laughed a lot.

“Terminal illness. I honestly couldn’t tell you what it was because the name was so long, but between the diagnosis and her final days, I would say we had two months left with each other. The day she passed away felt like the end of my life too. Over the past year, I’ve been living alone and you’d think that fond memories of someone would be enough, but what they don’t tell you is that it also chips away at you. Maybe it would be easier if there were other people, but Lenora was all I had, and the things we did together remind me every day of how happy I had been. I miss her dearly. Living with the memories of happier times sometimes makes you wish they never happened at all Ali.”  

In all my years of being a business owner, no one had asked me to extract something happy. Alex sat there waiting for my reply but we sat in silence for what felt like an eternity before I could manage a syllable.

“I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of a request quite like this. Usually, it’s the sadder moments of our lives that people want to forget, but nothing ever so positive comes up.”

“I think it just might be easier for me to live the rest of my life knowing that there were good things interspersed than to have every happy moment snatched away in an instant.”

“Are you sure this is something you want to go through with Alex?”

“Absolutely. I’ve thought long and hard about this.”

“Okay then.”

I started moving towards him hoping that he would just tell me that it was an elaborate joke. I wanted him to say she was terrible or to forget someone else altogether. I never expected to extract someone’s happiest memories. I felt a quiver in my hand as I placed it on his head. For a moment, I thought I wouldn’t go through with it and try to convince him otherwise. In the back of my mind though, I knew there was nothing I could say to change a decision so firm. I paused to look at his face and could swear that I saw a smile curving his lips.

           “Do I have your permission?”

           “Of course.”

Ten seconds was all it took to scatter his electrons to the wind.

Ten seconds after that and Alex asked me who I was and what he was doing there. At this point, I would call the client’s contacts or mention his plumbing issue.

           “Forgetting again Alex? My name is Ali Baqri and we’re very old friends. You came by to share a cup of lemonade with me like you always do.”