The Question - IV

The lady was back reading into her magazine even before Jef turned back to her. So he got up and started following the lady who had called him. He was lost and in no position to understand too much. He just wanted to hear something that would calm him down - but at this moment he had no idea what it would be. Was he in the right place? Is this the right thing to do? Whats wrong with this? Anita is better off? So will i be too? What is going on?

As Jef was bombarding himself with torrent of questions - they reached a door. The lady entered and asked Jef to follow. The room was nothing like a doctor's room that Jef had ever seen. It was dim - not much illuminated. Something was calm about the ambience in the room. Jef felt relaxed for some reason. There was very comfortable sofa seats present in the centre of the room. There were plants and flowers all around. The scent of the flowers was very soothing. Jef took one of the seats on the sofa and in a few minutes the doctor entered the room and after a customary greeting they were sitting in front of each other.

'So Mr.Jef I know you must be having a lot of questions. Shall we start?'

'Doctor how do you remove memories? Doesnt it harm the brain?'

'The first thing that comes to mind - and very pertinent too. You see memory is nothing but a connection between two neurons in our head. Neurons are the basic cells that make up the brain. And when an electric pulse moves along this connection you have a reaction called memory. There are multiple routes to a memory but only a few become very dominant. What we do here is to instigate the neurons to make that connection weaker - its nothing to do with destroying anything in the brain. You see if a person has gone through a trauma - then he or she relives the trauma again and again when the connection gets active - and its not in control most of the times. So by just removing this connection we make lives easier for people.'

'But then how do you make sure you are cutting the right connection? And how do you search for it?'

'You see there is no way anyone can tell what the connection means other than the person himself. We just instigate a connection - this makes the memory active in the brain of the person and then he can chose whether this is what he want to delete. No other person comes to know what is being deleted from the memory but the person himself. The precision of our devices is much greater than the cellular level so the probability of a mistake is extremely low.'

'Then how do you know that the person is doing the right thing?'

'We monitor the bodies reactions to memories. It is simple to find out which ones are really bothering the person. Apart from that there is a psycological test you have to go through to be deemed fit for this operation. We are here to save people from unnecessary pain - not create more for them.'

The reasons were very appealing to Jef. Well it was just a matter of a tinsi winsi connection. But the moral question bothered him. Still in confusion - but now desperate for a decision, he spoke to the doctor impulsively.

'But what about the responsibility? I loved her ... so what she is not there anymore ... I love her still.'

The doctor's lips slightly curled at the edges - probably wanting to smile. It was like he was just waiting for that question to be asked. It was like he knew he would have to answer that - and he was smiling because he was ready for it.