Probing Session

“May I come in now?”

The stout Englishwoman spoke with a faded voice from the doorframe. I had yet to calibrate roughly half of my electrodes, and the solution had barely started to thaw in the vial.

“I’m afraid I’ll need at least ten more minutes,” I replied, trying to hide the simmering annoyance in my voice to the best of my ability. “Did Mandy let you in?”

“She might have stepped out to get coffee in the kitchen,” she said. “My bad, I’ll go back to the waiting room.”

“Please do. We’ll let you know when you can come in.”

The patient closed the door behind her with all the whimsy expected of her rather singular persona, the feathers glued to her scarlet cloche hat swinging left and right. Nothing surprised me anymore coming from her.

In a series of mechanical movements, I connected the remaining suction electrodes to the central neo-encephalograph, a semi-translucent spherical device supported by a steel rod at the center of the otherwise practically empty lab room. Everything about the space enclosed by the four monochromatic grey walls yelled austerity. The machines and monitors around the reclining chair felt austere. The cold, barely-padded chair itself felt austere. The freezer the corner felt austere. I, myself, felt austere.

For a moment, I peered into the surface of the sphere and gazed at my reflection. My grey and my bottle-thick glasses betrayed old age, and my deep wrinkles projected the weariness encapsulated inside. Surely, nobody came in this dreadful environment out of pleasure. Despite all the recent technological advancements, Memory Probing remained a very painful and difficult process. Most patients came to me after prolonged episodes of amnesia under recommendation from their physicians. All of them, but one.

This would be Lady Isolde’s fifth session. None of the previous probes yielded any result whatsoever, yet she kept coming back for more, relentless, seemingly unbothered by the invasiveness of the procedure. Where all patients walked in terrified, she walked in confident. Where all of them begged for me to stop, she cheered on and scheduled another appointment. The woman had come all the way to Boston from Oxford to seek a Memory Probist, and she would not leave until the treatment met with success. Nothing stops the rich from getting what they want.

I glanced at the vial on the metallic table by the side of the corner freezer. The liquid had now thawed. Reluctantly, I pressed the reception dial-in next to the door.

“Yes, Dr. Ebb?” asked Mandy’s mellow voice through the intercom.

“You may send her in now,” I replied. “Please make sure the patients don’t wander around while you’re not at your desk in the future.”

“Of course,” she said, her tone now fraught with shame. “I promise it won’t happen again.”

It pained me to reprimand a hard-working, diligent employee like Mandy, but unpredictable patients like Lady Isolde needed constant supervision. Mere seconds later, the door opened again, and the scarlet cloche hat peeked through.

“Apologies for being so eager earlier,” she said, heading straight for the reclining chair. “I just had a promising feeling. Today is the day.”

“I wish I could have your confidence Milady,” I said through gritted teeth. “Our Probing sessions are quite experimental. I can’t promise you anything.”

“No promises needed,” she replied with sickening cheerfulness. “We’ll do a hundred sessions if that’s what it takes, but we will get there, Dr. Ebb. I know we will.”

Patients lecturing doctors about treatment outcomes were always my pet peeve. Lady Isolde took place in her seat, oblivious to my frustration, and babbled about the latest gossip she had heard as I prepared the injection.

“Let’s get down to business,” I said, cutting her off. “As I’m sure you know by now, the serum will stimulate the part of your brain that manages long-term memory. Side effects like nausea and blurred sight are expected.”

“I remember all of that,” she said, chuckling under her breath. “Last time, I almost passed out. If only I could remember this bloody recipe as well as I remember your words.”

“Yes. If only.”

I cautiously inserted the syringe down the vein in the crest of her arm fold. At this point, patients typically experienced dizziness, or at the very least mild discomfort. She remained unfazed, as if the injection had been nothing but a negligible poke.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, knowing the answer already.

"Perfectly fine."

One by one, I positioned the electrodes on her forehead. The depths of the neo-encephalograph's sphere became more opaque and smoky. Soft shadows formed in the recesses of the brain fog, dark silhouettes without concrete identity.

"We're fully set up now," I said. "Think of your grandmother now. Try to recall the last memory you have of her baking these cookies."

One of the silhouettes became more distinguishable. It was a stout woman who looked almost exactly like Lady Isolde herself. She held a golden platter of festive sugar cookies, covered in so much icing I almost had a surge of diabetes from looking at them.

"I see her now," she told me, her eyes closed. Wrinkles of concentration formed on her forehead. "All the ingredients are there. The butter, the milk, the eggs... everything but the secret ingredient."

"Focus. It's there. You just need to unlock it."

She grabbed the sides of her seat as her body started to quake. The treatment was taking its toll.

"I'll give you one more minute Milady, then I'll have to pull you out."

"Wait, I just need more time!"

"You can't remain in a memory for too long, it's dangerous for your health."

Her convulsions worsened. She clung to her seat with all the might she could muster, her mind still firmly set on the fleeting memory. There was something desperate about the way she resisted the inevitable.

"That's it, I'm pulling you out."

"I beg you, please, don't!"

I pressed the emergency button. The sphere became completely translucent again, and Lady Isolde collapsed in her chair, all tension suddenly drained from her limbs.

"You should have left me in there!" she exclaimed, her voice feeble. "I was so close. All I need is a bit more time."

"There is no such thing as a little bit more time with this device, Milady. A few more seconds could have resulted in irreversible brain damage. Probing is a dangerous treatment, and to be quite honest, I don't think something as trivial as a cookie recipe warrants it."

Her murderous look spoke volumes.

"Of course it does!" she replied. "It's all I have from her. I just need to remember this stupid ingredient. Let's do it again."

"Impossible. Your brain could not take it. You'll have to come back another time."

Her cheerful smile quickly faded, and for the first time I saw a hint of hopelessness in her pupils. Disheartened, she got up and walked with unsteady steps towards the door, turning to me one last time before leaving.

"Next time will be the right one. I feel it."

Nostalgia for the simpler past of her childhood once again clouded her vision. Some memories were just not meant to be retrieved. One could either accept it and look towards the future, or chase it forever and live in the past.