Grantblings

Wednesday Words – The Job Part 5

The Job – Part 5
By Grant Baciocco
Link To Part 1
Link To Part 2
Link To Part 3
Link To Part 4

The next thing Patrick knew he was vomiting over the side of the chair.  He had no even real inclination that he was doing it.  He’d been in the chair, there was a flash of light, and the contents of his stomach were spilling over the clean white floor of Dr. Levitt’s laboratory.

Dr. Levitt rush over to the opposite side of the chair and put a hand on Patrick’s shoulder.  “Patrick!  Patrick!”

Patrick heaved a few more times but his stomach had been vacated.  He dropped back in the chair, breathing heavy, his shirt soaked with sweat that had seemingly come out of nowhere.

As he rasped for air, Dr. Levitt checked his pulse, then his pupils.  All seemed fine.  He hovered over Patrick until patrick waved him away.

“I’m…” Patrick finally spoke, “I’m fine.  I am…okay.”  Patrick breathed heavy for a few minutes, then wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt.

Dr. Levitt began to speak, softly at first, “I suppose I calculated the effects of sending the information to the brain in the past, but neglected to calculate the sudden onset of two year’s worth of new memories on the present brain.”  He looked down at Patrick, his hand still on Patrick’s shoulder.  “Like Deja Vu?”

Patrick nodded.  “Yes…but no.  I know that I’m here, I know that I’ve ben sitting in this chair for minutes, but it was like, all of a sudden, it was all completely new to me.”

Dr. Levitt was quite for a second and then he nodded.  “Jamais vu.”

Patrick looked weakly up Dr. Levitt.  “What?”

Dr. Levitt smiled, “Jamais vu.  It’s sort of the opposite of Deja vu.  Deja Vu is where you feel you’ve lived something before, even though you know you haven’t.  Jamais vu is where your brain tells you you haven’t lived through something before even when you know you have.  It would make sense.  Your brain was suddenly flooded with two year’s worth of memories that, up until seconds ago, it hadn’t lived through.  At least I think that’s what happened.”  He looked at Patrick, “Dd, did it work?”

Patrick thought long and hard about this.  Trying to sort through the 17520 hours of new memories that were rolling around in his head.  “Yes.  It did work.  I was at home in my tiny one bedroom apartment, playing World of Warcraft when the future memories hit me.  I,” he pointed at the mess on the ground, “this didn’t happen, but it was a lot.  It was almost that my brain shut down it was so much information.  I staggered to my bed and just lied there for days.  Not sure how many.  The next thing I was aware of was Mary.  Mary shaking me awake.  I don’t know how long I had been in that state for.  She said it had been five days since we had last spoken and she’d gotten scared.  We had only just started going out at that point.”

Dr. Levitt listened fascinated.

“But you talk about your Deja Vu, it didn’t happen that often because I was aware of what had happened.  That I was undergoing this process.  So my day to day life was changed.”  Patrick sat quietly for a moment and thought.  “But it was the big things.  My Grandmother going into the hospital.  I knew she wasn’t going to make it out again, because I’d lived through it.  I was able to spend more time with her.  The first time around I’d been too busy.  Busy with nothing, goofing off, but I’d just assumed she’d pull through.  After she passed I was racked with regret.  I’d spent every summer with Grandmother when I was a kid and now she’d gone and I wasn’t there.  But this time…this time, I knew she wouldn’t.”

“What did you do?”

“I made sure I was there.  I was there when life left her.  I was by her side.  The regret was gone.”

Dr. Levitt nodded.

“That was just the start.  Just the start of the changes I made.”  Patrick sat quiet for a minute.  Letting the knowledge of all the changes he had made in the past two years wash over him.  He turned to Dr. Levitt with a smile.  “Dr. Levitt, this works.”  Patrick gestured wildly around the room, “This…this works!  You’ve created away for people to abolish regret from their lives.”

“Not all regret, I assume.”  Dr. Levitt asked, clasping his hands at his waist.

“Hmmm?”  Patrick was puzzled.

“I assume that even though you were able to make changes, your Grandmother for instance, there are still other decisions you made, that you now regret.”

Patrick was silent for a second.  He nodded.  “Yes.  Yes, there are.  But it was the big ones, the big ones that I’d made in the past two years that I was able to fix.  They’ve given me a whole new life.  A better life.  I have a job now.  In fact, do you have the time?”

Dr. Levitt, looked at his watch, “12:30PM”

“I gotta go.  I gotta get back to work.”

Dr. Levitt smiled.  “Good.  Okay, good.  I, uh, I will need to schedule an interview with you.  A videotaped interview that I can use to present to the board along with the footage of the experiment to hopefully get more funding towards this project.”

“Sure.”  Patrick stood, carefully avoiding the mess he made.  “You want me to clean that up?”

Dr. Levitt smiled, “No.  I’ll get it.”

Patrick stood still, feeling like a stranger in a new body.  He stretched out a hand to Dr. Levitt.  “Thank you.  Thank you for this.”

Dr. Levitt smiled.  “This is just the beginning.  Now go.  I’ll be in touch.”

Patrick turned and began walking out.

Dr. Levitt watched him walk towards the door, slipping his hands into his lab coat and finding the envelope with the cashier’s check.  “Patrick?”

Patrick stopped at the door and turned around.  “Yeah?”

Dr. Levitt held up the envelope.  “You want the $3000?  Technically it’s yours.”

Patrick smiled and shook his head.  “I don’t need it.  I have everything I want.”

Dr. Levitt looked at the envelope and then back at Patrick, “And Mary?”

Patrick smiled the biggest smiled Dr. Levitt had seen on a man’s face before, “I have her too.”

Dr. Levitt nodded.

Patrick turned and walked out the door.

THE END