Memory Therapy, Part Ii
...Jack watched her go, rather confused,
he looked to Johns and said, “That’s strange…”
Johns nodded, said, “It will made sense,
there’s much that I have to explain.”
He had a folder in his hands,
on it Jack could see his full name,
it was quite thick, bulging even,
which to Jack seemed rather insane.
How could they know so much of him?
He had lived such a quiet life,
never arrested nor detained,
lived alone, did not have a wife.
But Johns looked up an said, “Have you
heard of implanted memory?”
Jack shrugged and said, “Like suggestion?
Like those mentalists on TV?”
Johns just shook his head and declared,
“Something more serious than that,
I mean reprogramming the brain?”
This brought a confused look from Jack.
Johns nodded and said, “Of course not,
they’d blank such knowledge from your mind,
but it’s been done fifteen years now,
to help people from time to time.
“Normally it’s a focused thing,
blank a trauma you can’t escape,
last ditch when therapy won’t work,
in rare cases it can take place.
“We implant a new memory,
something nicer to ease their soul.
it’s not done often but something
helps a mind to regain control.
“But you…you were another thing,
look at this, tell me what you see.”
He handed the folder to Jack,
who opened it atop his knees.
What he looked upon shocked him cold,
crime scenes quite bloody and obscene,
battered woman, men beat senseless…
the things that he saw in his dreams!!
And not just similarity,
People and places were the same,
in the back of it came mugshots,
his younger face being arraigned.
He tossed the file back at Johns,
“What the hell do you mean by this?
Is this some scam, some frame-up job?
Some god-damned photoshop bull?!”
Johns stayed quiet, just shook his head,
“Everything you see here is true.
Jack Ripton committed these crimes,
all this evil was done by you.”
Jack moved to object to this lie,
but then Johns just pulled up a page,
a picture of Jack, in a machine,
the date below ten years of age.
“You were facing a life sentence,
murder in the second degree,
with extra time for several rapes,
and several dozen robberies.
“Even out in San Francisco
the bleeding hearts were at wit’s end,
it takes a lot to get hippies
to say you can’t live among men.
“But you had one card left to play,
experimental therapy,
we blanked your mind, and replaced it,
you were second of the first three.”
CONTINUES IN PART III.
Copyright © David Welch | Year Posted 2023
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