This Is Not Really Happening

“And for the last several days that song ear wormed itself mercilessly.” I said to my therapist as he jotted notes onto his pad. The room we were in was the archetypal therapist’s office, a serene impressionist print on the wall, a fish tank with some mid grade goldfish gliding by lazily, a leather couch next to a coffee table holding a box of tissues. I spent the past hour telling Jorge about the flashback––or maybe it was a hallucination––that was brought on when Jimbo played Down By The Water. Whatever it was, it left me shaken.

Jorge put his pad down. “Why do you think you had such a visceral reaction to that particular song?”

Echoes of the song replayed in my head and for a moment felt like who I was back then.

“It was our anthem,” I said as my eyes followed the smaller, happier goldfish buzzing the bigger ones in the fish tank.

“You mean the Wanton Women?”

“‘Wanton Women,’” I air quoted sardonically. “Heavens, we were just girls!”

“Was the memory from that night?”

“I don’t know. We partied like that every weekend, it all sort of blended together. I had just made a mixtape with Down by the Water on it and Heather––she was my best friend, her hair was long. It might have been senior year, so it could have been from that night. Barbara was standing by the door and then she transformed into Madeline.”

“Your mother turned into your daughter…Fascinating.”

“Right! So, it couldn’t have been a memory. It must be some kind of a psychotic break.” I always lean into the worst case scenario as the most likely option. Whenever I get a migraine, I’m convinced it’s a brain tumor.

Jorge shrugged. “It might have been a memory and your mind filled in the gaps for things you couldn’t explain. The drugs you were on were intense.”

Maybe he was right. There was something else I just realized. Seeing my face squinch, Jorge raised an eyebrow quizzically, which prompted me to speak.

“I first thought it all started when I heard that song, But actually, there were fragments from that time that cropped up before then. There’s this recurring dream I used to have way back, and it started replaying recently––just before Malik’s assassination, in fact.”

“What happens in the dream?”

I pursed my lips. “Hmm. I know it takes place in Barbara’s house.”

“That’s house you grew up in, right?”

I nodded. “And I saw something …” I racked my brain to recall what, but as intense as the dream was, as much as it threw off my sleep cycle, I could never carry the memory of it into the waking world. “Sorry, Jorge, I can’t remember.”

“Well, the dream and the flashback seem to relate to each other. Perhaps you should listen to more of the music you played in high school. It can help resurrect some of those submerged memories.”

Was he nuts? “No thanks, Doc. I came to you to prevent a recurrence, not to evoke them.”

“Why are you so afraid to confront your past?” he asked.

“I’m not afraid,” I answered casually. “I just moved on and I don’t need to wallow in the past.”

“It’s not wallowing in the past to re-examine it as who you are now. After all, you have survived an abusive relationship.”

“I wouldn’t call it abusive.”

“Oh, so you would have given Madeline booze and drugs, insulted her, and…”

“Of course not,” I shot back. “I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“No. You wouldn’t,” he confirmed. Jorge allowed for a prolonged silence to allow me to process that before continuing. “Your mother was abusive, Rhiannon. She led you down a destructive path and it all culminated into that night, something so traumatizing that your mind submerged the memory. Whatever it was, it was so bad that she ran away, leaving her teenage daughter to deal with the consequences. Tell me if I’m missing anything.”

Jorge didn’t miss a thing. I told him everything I remembered. It happened after one of our cleansing ceremonies at the house on Hummingbird Lane. It’s where the Wanton Women always partied. At some point that night, it was just me, Heather, and Barbara who were still awake. We were high as a kite. The next thing I recall, I was awoken by a police officer. It was afternoon by then. The house was swarming with cops, EMS, and terrified parents. Everyone was there except Barbara. I hadn’t seen her since.

Having chosen not to respond, he clasped his hands and continued. “After Barbara abandoned you, you spun out of control. Who wouldn’t have? But you found your way out of the cycle of drugs, destructive sex, and self-loathing. You can reincorporate those memories now, and your mind is trying to make that happen.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to peel that onion, Jorge.”

“I disagree. You’ve overcome so much. I mean, look at where you are today, a professor at Rice University?”

“And divorced with a runaway daughter. Let’s not forget that.”

“We all deal with the Glitch in our own ways. Not everything involves you, Rhiannon.”

I sighed. “Dmitry was an empty suit. I’m better off without him, but Madeline? I thought I raised her better. But then she runs off and joins The Passage.”

“At least they’re one of the happy nihilists,” he said, trying to add a silver lining to a sad situation.

I turned my gaze back towards the fish swimming about, completely content in their tank. If the Cartesians were right, animals were simply part of the simulation.

“You know, Jorge, if there is an end user behind this simulation, they must find it hilarious that a religious scholar’s daughter dropped out of college to join a cult.”