Among the Shades of Lethe
Waking up was like looking upon her lifeless, comatose body for the first time: Facing the hard reality of what had happened made him nauseous. The realization that fantasy had to be suspended, memory denied, and the business of living gone about was a maddening blow, a blow as bad as the first news of her condition had been. He went to his bathroom, and he vomited---as had become his habit every morning since he had bought that new machine and developed the habit of falling asleep under its effects.
Jason Simpson wiped the vomit from his mouth and slouched his way to the shower: As the cool water drenched his face, the final intoxicating effects of the machine wore off. He remembered everything the machine had caused him to forget and forgot the joyful memories it so vividly allowed him to relive. She was gone. The water of the shower mixed with his tears.
His wife had fallen into a coma six months ago---three months later, after the doctor had claimed that his wife was all but dead, he had bought the Memorex 2000: This state of the art entertainment unit had cost him a third of a year’s salary. Between this and his wife’s hospitalization bill, the man would soon find his savings depleted---and he would be hard pressed to make his salary cover his needs and the cost of his wife's stay.
Jason continued perfunctorily about the business of getting ready for work: The man who had once been noted for his attention to detail now dressed in the slovenly manner that customarily served to distinguish those who were destined for failure from those born to success. Food stains of all sorts marked his clothing. In nine hours, he thought, I will be able to return to my Christine.
As he navigated traffic, Jason saw in each passing vehicle a pantomime of that terrible crash. He contemplated the strange and deadly potentialities that surrounded him and imagined again and again what Christine’s last moments must have been like. Strange that I can be so calm in the midst of all this: That I can contemplate her suffering so stoically but cannot contemplate my own with similar detachment.
He performed his work mechanically: His coworkers had given up any pretense of maintaining the normal social graces with him. They ordered him about as if he were an automaton---and he was happy to oblige them by becoming as mindless as one. The day passed. As he drove home from work, the machine beckoned him as the mirage does the weary desert traveler. The waters of Lethe promised to quench his thirst.
As he put on the headset, all the memories he had developed over the last five years vanished. He relived their fifth date---the first time they had made love---for the hundredth time. The machine perfectly recreated the moment; no detail was missing. Each reliving of the memory was untainted by the notion that this was merely a memory: It felt exactly like reality. Though one could not change anything in the memory, the sense that one was really doing every action the machine brought to mind was retained: Jason’s sense of free will was unaltered.
This pattern continued, the cycle of zombie-like work and vividly relived memory, while his wife’s body remained on life support. Jason worked through all the large and small sweetnesses of their relationship---omitting fights and the other concomitant unpleasantness of a love affair, he was able to relive every embrace, every kiss, and every act of lovemaking over and over again. He had relived their wedding in minute detail; some portions, like the kiss, he may have relived a thousand times or more. He had gained perfection---except for the awful act of waking up.
This pattern continued for years---his suffering renewed with each morning’s onslaught of unwanted memory.
Jason was at work when he received a message regarding his wife’s condition:
"This is Dr. Braddock. Excellent news: Your wife is a perfect candidate for an experimental new therapy that will repair (or, more accurately, replace) the damaged areas of her brain. I know you and I had been hoping for this for quite some time. As you already know, luckily her brain damage was localized to the brainstem---the areas responsible for personality, memory, our sense of self were unscathed. Of course, this therapy hopes to eventually be of use in instances of brain damage that are even more severe than your wife’s. But---given the limits of the current technology---hers is an ideal case. Almost no work was required to get her involved in the study. If all goes well, and that is not a promise with a therapy as experimental as this, she should be returning home to you in a matter of months. I do hope you give me your permission. "
Jason had always known about the progress being made in this area---it had been the one hope that inclined him to pay the hundreds of thousands the life support had cost. That money was paying off. In honor of his wife’s arrival he replayed the memory that he had avoided for so long---that of their first meeting: And he resolved to put the machine away, despite a strange and uneasy feeling about doing so.
When she had recovered enough to have visitors, Jason was the first to see her. They weren’t able to speak for long. Their reunion, however, was appropriately tearful: More so on his part than hers, since the span of experienced time apart had been years for him and merely months for her---and his experience, of course, was intermixed with the remnants of the fear that her condition had been terminal.
The day that she finally returned home was perhaps the happiest day of Jason Simpson’s relatively young life (he was now only 34 years old). Of course, the physical therapy would take time. But she was there---real. There would be no more walking up to fear he would never really hold her again, no more cold sweats . She had returned to him.
Christine’s recovery proved difficult. She was bound to a wheelchair for months as she worked through the difficult process of physical therapy. Naturally, her husband became the focus of her rage during much of the recovery. It was a full year into her treatment before one o f her rages caused him to do something he had never thought possible: to revisit the machine. He played through their second date again---the one that had marked their first kiss.
The young woman who occupied this dream world seemed more vibrant, more loving than the one he shared his bed with. The temptation to deal with her complaints and recriminations by retreating into that machine became overwhelming.
Once she was walking again, Christine’s discovery of the Memorex 2000 was inevitable. Jason had not told her anything about the machine; he had hidden his use of the it with the pretenses of going to the gym or taking a leisurely walk. She had, however, long suspected something different: Her first thought had been that he was seeing another woman. And, a machine of this size could not be hidden from a woman intent on finding evidence of cheating---no matter how resourcefully one went about it.
After hours of diligent searching, she found the machine and strapped on its rather inoffensive looking helmet: She relived the memory of their fifth date---from Jason’s perspective, or at least the closest approximation the machine could produce. The thoughts that swarmed through Jason’s mind while they made love for the first time shocked her. Their crudeness contrasted mercilessly with the sublime, wordless sensations that had pervaded her consciousness in that moment. The feeling the machine produced during orgasm was frighteningly unlike the one she had been accustomed to labeling with that word. It seemed strangely confined to that one single area of the body---not the sense of having one's whole form and mind pervaded by ecstasy. It was made all the more terrible by the crude sense of conquest she felt at her own trembling nakedness. The experience had filled her with dread and disgust. Jason was not the man she had thought him to be. The feelings of self-loathing that filled her as she came to realize that she herself had been the other woman contested with the incredible strangeness of this experience for primacy in her consciousness. The odd mix of feelings---excitement, dread, jealousy, and self-loathing---produced a curious vertigo: She quickly fell to her knees.
Finding Christine attached to that machine was not unlike evisceration. The thousands of little cruelties that make up the male sexual instinct---that out of love we keep so delicately hidden---and the fear of having them exposed contributed a sharpness to the dull, throbbing pain of the violation of privacy. To be deprived of the many subtle disguises that make up a marriage---that the married wear with the same reverence an actor has in wearing his costume---was more than he could bear.
She starred at him in dumb amazement---a stupor caused by the realization that all her jealousy was unknowingly directed at her younger self. Her husband did not speak a word to her: He simply packed up the machine and placed it in a nearby suitcase. "Speak to me, damn it. How can you keep running to those old memories as if they were real.; I am here---right in front of you. I might as well be dead to you. Is that how you like your nasty, slutty meat? How could you think that? And as you told me you loved me." He went upstairs, packed, and walked out of the home without so much as a compassionate word or a single gesture of tenderness----never to hold her or speak to her again outside the confines of memory.
Waking up felt like facing a lifeless reflection of himself for the first time, a stark reminder of the reality he wished to avoid. The truth hit him like a physical blow - fantasy needed to yield to memory, the demands of life overshadowing his desires. The nausea was an all-too-familiar reaction to this realization, a morning ritual since the introduction of the new contraption that had lured him into its sleep-inducing embrace.
Jason Simpson wiped the remnants of his morning sickness from his lips and trudged to the shower. As the cool water cascaded over him, it gradually washed away the lingering effects of the machine's allure. He recalled every memory it had helped him forget, as the water mingled with the tears he could no longer suppress.
His wife's comatose state had persisted for six long months. After the doctors had nearly given up hope, he had invested a substantial portion of his earnings in the cutting-edge Memorex 2000. The financial strain of this purchase, combined with her mounting medical bills, left him navigating precarious financial waters, threatening to submerge his savings beneath their combined weight.
In a perfunctory daze, Jason prepared for work, a stark contrast to his once-keen attention to detail. Stains adorned his clothing like badges of defeat. "Nine hours from now," he thought, "I can return to her."
Through the traffic's flow, each passing vehicle mirrored the gruesome crash that had torn his world asunder. The bizarre potentialities that life held were ever-present, a constant reminder of his vulnerability. In his mind's eye, he revisited the horrors that must have defined his wife's last moments, his detachment from his own pain serving as a poignant contradiction.
The workday blurred into existence, mechanical and devoid of purpose. His coworkers directed him with cold detachment, treating him as a mere automaton. He complied, relinquishing his individuality to mimicry. Time drifted by. The drive home drew him like a mirage in the desert, offering him a drink from the waters of Lethe.
Settling into his chair, the headset transported him to a world of recollection. Five years of memories vanished, replaced by their fifth date, their first time making love. The machine's precision was uncanny, reconstructing every detail. Despite the unchangeable nature of these memories, the illusion of free will persisted, much like reality. He continued this cycle, a dance between mindless labor and vivid recollection, while his wife's body remained trapped in stasis.
Years passed, each morning a renewal of the pain he sought to escape. Jason's immersion into the machine's embrace showed no signs of waning, even as his wife's chance of recovery grew. He relived their moments of intimacy, meticulously omitting the quarrels that tainted their love. He replayed their wedding day in meticulous detail, a thousand variations of a kiss.
However, the allure of the past was eclipsed by his dread of the present. The daily torment of awakening to reality's stark light drove him deeper into the machine's embrace.
One day, as he toiled at work, a message arrived regarding his wife's condition. Dr. Braddock's voice delivered a note of hope - an experimental therapy promised to mend the damaged facets of her brain. The prospect of her revival sparked a determination in him.
Christine's return home marked a watershed moment, a year of physical therapy and emotional turmoil in the making. Reuniting with her was a tearful affair, a convergence of time's paradox that emphasized their shared experiences.
But even amidst her recovery, Jason's secret held the power to shatter their fragile reconnection. A rage-filled outburst led him back to the machine, replaying their second date, their first kiss. The memories of his past actions haunted him, stirring a storm of conflicting emotions.
Discovery was inevitable, as Christine uncovered the machine's existence. Strapping on the helmet, she revisited their fifth date from Jason's perspective. The shock of his thoughts during their intimate moments tore at her heart, revealing the darkness within him.
The confrontation was a gut-wrenching violation. The unveiled truths stripped away the carefully crafted masks of their relationship, exposing the raw and often harsh realities that love concealed. Jason packed the machine, sealing his fate and leaving behind the woman he once vowed to cherish.
In the end, his escape into the past proved to be his downfall, a path that led to isolation and broken connections. The allure of nostalgia had blinded him to the present, robbing him of the chance to truly experience life as it unfolded before him.