The Speed of Dark (46 page)

Noise again.Movement.Cold and warm and hot and light and dark and rough and smooth, cold, TOO

COLD and PAIN and warm and dark and no pain. Light again.Movement.Noise and louder noise and TOO LOUD COW MOOING. Movement, shapes against the light, sting, warm back to dark.

LIGHT is DAY. DARK is NIGHT. DAY is GET UP NOW IT is TIME
to get up. Night is lie down be quiet sleep.

Get up now, sit up,hold out arms.Cold air.Warm touch. Get up now, stand up.Cold on feet. Come on now walk. Walk to place is shiny is cold smells scary. Place for making wet or dirty, place for making clean. Hold out arms, feel sliding on skin.Sliding on legs.Cold air all over. Get in shower, hold on rail.Rail cold.Scary noise, scary noise. Don’t be silly. Stand still. Things hitting, many things hitting, wet sliding, too cold then warm then too hot. All right, it’s all right. Not all right. Yes, yes, stand still. Slurpyfeeling, sliding all over. Clean. Now clean.More wet. Time come out, stand.Rubbing all over, skin warm now. Put on clothes. Put on pants, put on shirt, put on slippers.Time to walk. Hold this. Walk.

Place to eat.Bowl.Food in bowl. Pick up spoon.Spoon in food.Spoon in mouth. No, hold spoon right.

Food all gone.Food fall. Hold still. Try again. Try again. Try again.Spoon in mouth, food in mouth. Food taste bad. Wet on chin. No, don’t spit out. Try again. Try again. Try again.

SHAPES MOVING PEOPLE.
PEOPLE ALIVE.
SHAPES
NOT MOVINGnot alive. Walking, shapes change. Not alive shapes change little. Alive shapes change a lot. People shapes have blank place at top.

People say put on clothes, put on clothes,get good. Good is sweet. Good is warm. Good is shiny pretty.

Good is smile, is name for face pieces move this way. Good is happy voice, is name for sound like this.

Sound like this is name talking. Talking tells what to do. People laugh, is best sound. Good for you, good for you. Good food is good for you.Clothes is good for you. Talking is good for you.

People more than one.People is names.Use names is good for you, happy voice, shiny pretty, even sweet. One is Jim, good morning time to get up and get dressed. Jim is dark face, shiny on top head, warm hands, loud talking. More than one two is Sally, now here’s breakfast you can do it isn’t it good?

Sally is pale face, white hair on top head, not loud talking. Amber is pale face, dark hair on top head, not loud as Jim louder than Sally.

Hi Jim.Hi Sally.Hi Amber.

JIM SAY
GET
UP.
Hi JIM.
JIM SMILE. JIM HAPPY I SAY Hi JIM
. Get up, go to bathroom, use toilet, take off clothes,go in shower. Reach for wheel thing. Jimsay Good for you and shut door. Turn wheel thing.Water.Soap.Water. Feel good. All feel good.Open door. Jim smile. Jim happy I take shower by self. Jim hold towel. Take towel. Rub all over. Dry. Dry feel good. Wet feel good.Morning feel good.

Put on clothes, walk to breakfast. Sit at table with Sally. Hi Sally. Sally smile. Sally happy I say Hi Sally.

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Look around Sally say. Look around.More tables.Other people. Know Sally. Know Amber. Know Jim.

Not know other people. Sallyask Are you hungry. Say yes. Sally smile. Sally happy I say yes.Bowl.Food in bowl cereal. Sweet on top is fruit. Eat sweet on top, eat cereal, sayGood , good. Sally smile. Sally happy I say Good. Happy because Sally happy. Happy because sweet is good.

Ambersay time to go.Hi Amber. Amber smile. Amber happy I say Hi Amber. Amber walk to working room. I walk to working room. Amber say sit there. I sit there.Table in front. Ambersit other side.

Ambersay time to play game. Amber put thing on table. What is this, Amberask . It is blue. I say blue.

Ambersay That is color, what is thing? I want to touch. Ambersay no touch, just look. Thing is funny shape, wrinkly. Blue.I sad. Not know is not good, no good for you, no sweet, no shiny pretty.

Don’t be upset, Amber say. Okay, okay. Amber touch Amber box. Then sayYou can touch. I touch. It is part of clothes. It is shirt. It is too small for me.Too small. Amber laugh. Good for you, here sweet, it is a shirt and it is way too small for you.Shirt for doll. Ambertake shirt for doll and put down another thing.

Also funny shape, wrinkly black. Not touch, just look.If wrinkly blue thing shirt for doll, wrinkly black thing something for doll? Amber touch. Thing lies flatter. Two things stick out bottom, one thing at top.

Pants. I say Pants for doll. Amber makes big smile. Good for you, really good.Sweet thing for you.

Touches Amber box.

Lunchtime.Lunch is food in day between breakfast and supper. Hi Sally. It looks good Sally. Sally is happy I say that. Food is gooey between bread slices and fruit and water to drink. Food feels good in mouth. This is good Sally. Sally is happy I say that. Sally smile.More Good for you and good for you.

Like Sally.Sally nice.

After lunch is Amber and crawl on floor follow line, or stand on floor one foot up then other foot up.

Ambercrawl too. Amber stand on one foot, fall over. Laugh.Laugh feel good like shaking all over.

Amber laugh.More good for you. Like Amber.

After crawl on floor is more game on table. Amber put things on table. Not know names. No names, Amber say. See this: Amber touches black thing. Find another one, Amber say. Look at things.One other thing same. Touch. Amber smile. Good for you. Amber put black thing and white thing together.

Do like that, Amber say.Scary. Not know. Okay, okay, Ambersay . Okay to not know. Amber notsmile

. Not okay. Find black thing. Look. Find white thing. Put together. Amber smile now. Good for you.

Amber put three things togetüer . Do like that, Amber say. I look. One thing is black, one is white with black place,one is red with yellow place. Look. Put down black thing. Find white thing with black place, put down. Then find red with yellow place, put down. Amber touch Amber box. Then Ambertouch Amber things: red in middle, Amber say. Look.Did wrong.Red on end. Move. Good for you, Amber say.Really good work.Happy. Like make Amber happy. Good happy together.

Other people come. One in white coat, see before, not know name except Doctor.One man in sweater with many colors and tan pants.

Ambersay Hi Doctor to one in white coat. Doctor talk to Amber, sayThis is friend of his, on the list.

Amber look at me, then at other man. Man look at me. Not look happy, even with smile.

Man sayHi Lou I’m Tom.

Hi, Tom, I say. He does not say Good for you. You are doctor, I say.

Not a medical doctor, Tomsay . Not know what not a medical doctor means.

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Amber say Tom is on your list, for visiting. You knew him before.

Before what?Tom notlook happy. Tomlook very sad.

Not know Tom, I say. Look at Amber. Is wrong to not know Tom?

Have you forgotten everything from before? Tomask .

Before what?Question bothers me. What I know is now. Jim, Sally, Amber, Doctor, where is bedroom, where is bathroom, where is place to eat, where is workroom.

It’sokay, Amber says. We’ll explain later. It’s okay. You’re doing fine.

Better go now, says Doctor. Tom and Doctor turn away.

Before WHAT?

Amber puts down another row and says Do what I did.

“
I TOLD YOU IT WAS TOO SOON
, ”
DR. HENDRICKS SAID, ONCE
they were back in the corridor. “I told you he wouldn’t remember you.”

Tom Fennell glanced back through the one-way window. Lou—or what had been Lou—smiled at the therapist who was working with him and picked up a block to add to the pattern he was copying. Grief and rage washed over Torn at the memory of Lou’s blank look, the meaningless little smile that had gone with, “Hi, Tom.”

“It would only distress him to try to explain things now,” Hendricks said. “He couldn’t possibly understand.”

Tom found his voice again, though it didn’t sound like his own. “You—do you have the slightest idea what you’ve done?” He held himself still with great effort; he wanted to strangle this person who had destroyed his friend.

“Yes. He’s really doing well.” Hendricks sounded indecently happy with herself. “Last week he couldn’t do what he’s doing now.”

Doing well.Sitting there copying block patterns was not Tom’s definition of doing well. Not when he remembered Lou’s startling abilities. “But… but pattern analysis and pattern generation was his special gift-”

“There have been profound changes in the structure of his brain,” Dr. Hendricks said. “Changes are still going on. It’s as if his brain reversed in age, became an infant brain again in some ways.Great plasticity, great adaptive ability.”

Her smug tone grated on him; she clearly had no doubts about what she had done. “How long is this going to take?” he asked.

Hendricks did not shrug, but the pause might have been one. “We do not know. We thought—we hoped, perhaps I should say—that with the combination of genetic and nanotechnology, with accelerated
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neural growth, the recovery phase would be shorter, more like that seen in the animal model. The human brain is, however, immeasurably more complex—”

“You should have known that going in,” Tom said. He didn’t care that his tone was accusatory. He wondered how the others were doing, tried to remember how many there’d been. Only two other men had been in the room, working with other therapists. Were the others all right or not? He didn’t even know their names.

“Yes.” Her mild acceptance irritated him even more.

“What were you thinking—”

“To help.Only to help.Look—” She pointed at the window and Tom looked.

Theman with Lou’s face— but not his expression—set aside the completed pattern and looked up with a smile to the therapist across the table. She spoke—Tom could not hear the words through the glass, but he could see Lou’s reaction, a relaxed laugh and a slight shake of the head. It was so unlike Lou, so strangely normal, that Tom felt his breath come short.

“His social interactions are already more normal. He’s easily motivated by social cues; he enjoys being with people.A very pleasant personality, even though still infantile at this point. His sensory processing seems to have normalized; his preferred range of temperatures, textures, flavors, and so on is now within normal limits. His language use improves daily. We’ve been lowering the doses of anxiolytics as function improves.”

“But his memories—”

“No way to tell yet. Our experience with restoring lost memories in the psychotic population suggests that both the techniques we’ll be using work to a degree. We made multisensory recordings, you know, and those will be reinserted. For the present we’ve blocked access with a specific biochemical agent—proprietary, so don’t even ask—which we’ll be filtering out in the next few weeks. We want to be sure we have a completely stable substrate of sensory processing and integration before we do that.”

“So you don’t know if you’ll be able to give him back his previous life?”

“No, but we’re certainly hopeful. And he won’t be worse off than someone who loses memory through trauma.” What they’d done to Lou could be called trauma, Tom thought. Hendricks went on. “After all, people can adapt and live independently without any memory of their past, as long as they can relearn necessary daily living and community living skills.”

“What about cognitive?”Tom managed to say in a level voice. “He seems pretty impaired right now, and he was near genius level before.”

“Hardly that, I think,” Dr. Hendricks said. “According to our tests, he was safely above average, so even if he lost ten or twenty points, it wasn’t going to put his ability to live independently in jeopardy. But he wasn’t a genius, by any means.” The prim certainty in her voice, the cool dismissal of the Lou he had known, seemed worse than deliberate cruelty.

“Did you know him—or any of them—before?” Tom asked.

“No, of course not.I met them once, but it would have been inappropriate for me to know them
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personally. I have their test results, and the interviews and memory recordings are all held by the rehab team psychologists.”

“He was an extraordinary man,” Tom said. He looked at her face and saw nothing but pride in what she was doing and impatience at having been interrupted. “I hope he will be again.”

“He will, at least, not be autistic,” she said, as if that justified everything else.

Tom opened his mouth to say autistic wasn’t that bad and shut it again. No use arguing with someone like her, at least not here and now, and it was too late for Lou anyway. She was Lou’s best hope of recovery—the thought made him shiver involuntarily.

“You should come back when he’s better,” Dr. Hendricks said. “Then you can better appreciate what we’ve accomplished. We’ll call you.” His stomach churned at the thought, but he owed Lou that much.

Outside, Tom zipped up his coat and pulled on his gloves. Did Lou even know it was winter? He had seen no exterior windows anywhere in the unit.The gray afternoon, closing in to dark, with dirty slush underfoot, matched his mood.

He cursed medical research all the way home.

I AM SITTING AT A TABLE, FACING A STRANGER, A WOMAN IN A
white coat. I have the feeling that I have been here a long time, but I do not know why. It is like thinking about something else while driving and suddenly being ten miles down the road without knowing what really happened between.

It is like waking up from a daze. I am not sure where I am or what I am supposed to be doing.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I must’ve lost track for a moment. Could you say that again?”

She looks at me, puzzled; then her eyes widen slightly.

“Lou? Do you feel okay?”

“I feel fine,” I say. “Maybe a little foggy…”

“Do you know who you are?”

“Of course,” I say. “I’m Lou Arrendale .” I don’t know why she thinks I wouldn’t know my own name.

“Do you know where you are?” she asks.

I look around. She has a white coat; the room looks vaguely like a clinic or school. I’m not really sure.

“Not exactly,” I say.“Some kind of clinic?”

“Yes,” she says. “Do you know what day it is?”