{"id":140342,"date":"2025-03-17T18:07:58","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T18:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/?p=140342"},"modified":"2025-01-12T18:10:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T18:10:23","slug":"maybe-we-can-be-just-two-people-talking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/?p=140342","title":{"rendered":"Maybe We Can Be Just Two People Talking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nI asked Marlene to picture the day her ex broke her nose and waved the wash out wand across the base of her skull. Her light hair fanned out around her head on the pillow as the ultraviolet waves penetrated her Hippocampus, where external event memories were thought to be stored. Prone, she recalled images of Freud and his ladies from early psych textbooks. Or, perhaps darker, if she slipped from the pillow to hang off the edge, someone would have mistaken her for a modern day pictorial of Fuseli\u2019s Nightmare. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nI sat close enough to her that I smelled her lilac perfume. Noticed an undercurrent of sweat, like onions.\n<\/p>\n

\nSome consultant–likely worth a cool million–had advised the Bureau for Tragedy Exchange to structure their offices like therapists\u2019 rooms rather than a doctor\u2019s office. But they hadn\u2019t sprung for leather couches and personal library collections, so we were stuck with teal IKEA couches and shelves with cardboard backing that held empty books, the spindled feet set on synthetic hardwood. Every time Marlene shifted on the couch, it crinkled loudly. At least the walls were a gentle taupe instead of hospital white.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe look and feel supposedly made getting rid of trauma easier, but I wasn\u2019t so sure. Especially not ones with physical associations like Marlene\u2019s. She had to see her nose every day, how it healed around the break, and pulling out all tendrils of this particular incident was tough work. Sometimes, I wasn\u2019t sure the Exchange was up for it, but she was in too deep now. Once the treatment began, she couldn\u2019t receive cash compensation, so she was motivated to see it through to the end. Mostly so, maybe, one day she could sleep again.\n<\/p>\n

\nHer eyelids twitched as I brought the bleach light over the right-hand side by her temple. Blue veins mapped an interstate across her thin skin. The wand gave off a faint buzz. I hummed along.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe monitor at my desk blinked with the image of Marlene\u2019s cortex, zooming in as the wand did its work. I watched the memory particles, small floating amoebas, pop and burst like enemy ships on a video game. I hoped, as I did with all my patients, that she wasn\u2019t letting her mind drift.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe\u2019d destroyed precious things by accident before.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen we were done, she rested in corpse pose on the couch so she didn\u2019t fall over as she rose. I booked her weekly appointment. Always Thursdays.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou good?\u201d I asked.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYup,\u201d her voice was weak and small. Gently, I helped her up to stand and led her to the door before motioning to the exit. Cassandra leaned casually–too casually–against the wall across from my office, but I ignored her. Cassandra waiting outside for you when an appointment wasn\u2019t fully closed was normally a problem.\n<\/p>\n

\nI focused on Marlene instead. The muscles in her face had relaxed, showing the divots of her laugh lines and the crackle of wrinkles across her forehead. The bump at the bridge of her nose. Her pupils, the ones previously hidden by her pale lids, had an unfocused quality.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHave you tried covering up the mirrors? At least until we get somewhere?\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNot a bad idea,\u201d she said. Which meant she hadn\u2019t listened to me last time.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cRemember, don\u2019t drive for the next hour and I\u2019ll see you next Thursday,\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThanks, Yvonne,\u201d she said and headed toward the exit.\n<\/p>\n

\nPatients never left the way they came in and often, unless you searched it out, you wouldn\u2019t know a building was a Bureau for Trauma Exchange unless you requested an appointment. Of the two, I loved the disguised exit far more. It took folks through the back of the building and into a closed flower shop. As much as we liked to pretend it wasn\u2019t the case, there was still stigma for seeking out the Bureau. It marked a person. The worst were people who sniffed at the work we did and called it \u2018a hand out\u2019 or worse, \u2018woke welfare\u2019. Not something the traumatized deserved for the horrors they\u2019d endured.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNew intake for you,\u201d Cassandra said. She had crossed the floor between us and leaned over my door jam, a brown file in hand\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhy can\u2019t Becky take her?\u201d I asked. \u201cThis is my only break today.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNot her specialty,\u201d Cassandra said.\n<\/p>\n

\nI rolled my eyes. \u201cWe both know that\u2019s bullshit.\u201d It wasn\u2019t like we were the ear, nose, and throat guys.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think you\u2019d find this one interesting. It\u2019s a bit of a sensitive case,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d I asked. Sensitive <\/em>was in our contract. Sensitive <\/em>was what we dealt in every day.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey\u2019re from Lockland Correctional.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nMy jaw dropped. Cassandra smirked. I\u2019d vaguely followed the bill on my morning political podcast that had recently classified intake and exchange <\/em>as a necessary medical procedure and, with prisoners, you weren\u2019t supposed to withhold needed healthcare. They were people, though I\u2019d noticed society did everything they could to tell us otherwise.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat they in for?\u201d I asked.\n<\/p>\n

\nMaybe Cassandra was right. This was interesting. Maybe too interesting. Especially to someone whose life was all picture books about talking rabbits for my daughter, Tallulah, and large iced coffee with almond milk, please <\/em>to the same cute barista at Blue Bottle who never remembered my name. And true crime documentaries, so many true crime documentaries, especially the ones about Mormons, that kept me up at night.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cJust treatment. No talk therapy,\u201d Cassandra said.\n<\/p>\n

\nAlways push treatment first before compensation, <\/em>they\u2019d told us. If someone hadn\u2019t been around when the Bureaus were first established, they might have mistaken the thirty-second ads of readjusted people playing on water-sucking lawns for government propaganda about antidepressants.\n<\/p>\n

\nYou\u2019re entitled to another shot at life after trauma. You deserve a life free of the memories holding you back, <\/em>the very white people in the very white commercials said, even though, statistically, trauma disproportionately impacted minorities and those in lower socio-economic groups.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut clearly, that wasn\u2019t an option.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAre they in Lockland because they–\u201d I let the end of the sentence trail off. Cassandra rubbed her forehead.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou\u2019ll be able to see the prisoner without an armed escort in the room, if that answers your question,\u201d Cassandra said. \u201cWe need to treat them like we would everyone else.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThough that wasn\u2019t necessarily true if they didn\u2019t have a choice of cash versus treatment. I also didn\u2019t like the we <\/em>Cassandra used because with Cassandra, there was no we, <\/em>only you. <\/em>She\u2019d been an Exchange Bureau manager for so long I doubted that she remembered what it was like doing an intake or treatment herself. More likely than not, she\u2019d probably blind herself with the wand.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnyway, go grab some water, bathroom, whatever. We\u2019ll bring her in in five,\u201d Cassandra said. With that, she unstuck herself from the doorframe and turned back down the hall to reception.\n<\/p>\n

\nI went for a smoke instead by the flower shop exit. The windows were painted in a grimy gray, single coat, so it just looked irreparably dirty for any passersby in the alley. Like how, if you did only one coat of polish, you could still see the fingernail skin beneath. The Bureau had even scattered bits of compost and dirt around the floor as well as some shattered flower pots for good measure. Convincing.\n<\/p>\n

\nAs I propped the door open, the brick grated against metal. I pulled out my weed pen. Technically, it was frowned upon to be high at work, perhaps even illegal, but this was a microdose and utterly odorless. Technological advances doing what they did best. Everyone said a single mom\u2019s life was so hard, but they never gave anything for you to cope and then, when you did, they feigned disgust.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe exhale blasted from my nostrils in twin streams of white, the high hitting the front of my head like an inhale from a helium balloon. This was what the government should have been subsidizing, <\/em>I thought. Not wash outs, but weed. We\u2019d all be fine if we just had weed. And free childcare. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe sun was high in its color above the sliver of shadow and cement dust I stood in between buildings. It was a platinum burst bordered with hints of ice and rhubarb stem and nursery room. It glanced off the glass facades of urban camouflage. Overwhelming contrast. For a moment, I felt the searing need to crouch and curl and cry. But the dryness from the high had already invaded my eyeballs.\n<\/p>\n

\nPull yourself together, Yvonne. You will get through today and pick Tallulah up and start again like you did yesterday and the day before that and five years since you thought you would never see her again. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nSome days, it required reminding.\n<\/p>\n

\nI took one last hit from the pen and tucked it back into my belted work pants. With one hand, I popped a few drops in both eyes, wiped my face, and headed back into the Bureau.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy office door was open and a woman in a black SWAT uniform stood outside. She was a good three inches shorter than me, but her bulletproof vest made her look taller. A filing cabinet with a gun. A small buzz of panic blurred behind my eyes.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cShe\u2019s in there,\u201d the woman said, nodding at where the carpet from my room met the hallway\u2019s hardwood. There was a textured purple scar running down the side of her right hand.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cKeep the timing tight,\u201d the guard said. Her icy eyes watched me, unmoving. \u201cOtherwise, I\u2019ll be in there right when the half hour is up. We don\u2019t want to keep other people who need you more waiting.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThere was something in those last words I found myself both agreeing with and hating at the same time. I never much felt that people at the Exchange needed me. <\/em>They needed money or someone to talk to. I was just the vehicle and, sometimes, the immovable object between them and relief. I thought about Marlene\u2019s skittish hands. The way she asked me to close the window blinds so she didn\u2019t accidentally catch out her reflection.\n<\/p>\n

\nI <\/em>wasn\u2019t what they needed.\n<\/p>\n

\nPeople transformed my office when they walked into it which was why I liked being in there before they took a seat. I stepped over the threshold and closed the office door behind me. There was a gentle rustle of the couch cushion.\n<\/p>\n

\nSteady, <\/em>I said to myself. And then, I turned.\n<\/p>\n

\nInstead of settling in the couch center, the prisoner had perched on the armrest. Even sitting down she was tall, bony, all limbs. There was an I\u2019m-about-to-startle-so-be-gentle twitch to her. If she wasn\u2019t from Lockland, I would have wondered if the tick came from too much caffeine, maybe coke. The need to pay off the electric bill.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe walls, normally comforting in their sandy color, darkened the room. We were crossing into the time of day where the sun wasn\u2019t on this side of the building. I flipped the switch for a standing lamp in the corner. It made the shadows worse.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou can get comfortable,\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe glanced at the couch center.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think I\u2019m good here,\u201d she said. \u201cDon\u2019t want to get too used to the plushness, you know? It\u2019ll make me miss it more.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI balked, but still managed to make my way to my computer and office chair which, luckily, faced the couch. Careful not to put my back to her.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019m Yvonne,\u201d I said. \u201cOne of the Bureau\u2019s Intake and Exchange administrators.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cFancy way of saying you work for the same people who put me inside,\u201d the prisoner said. She wasn\u2019t wrong.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019m just going to pull up your file and ask a few questions before we get started,\u201d I said, falling back to my training, to the routine. I logged into my account and then opened my patient queue. Clicked her file.\n<\/p>\n

\nCarla McGill. Odessa, TX. 25. She\/her pronouns. Status: New intake. Reason for visit: close relation death.\n<\/p>\n

\nNo reference to her current prisoner status. The only difference being that the recommended treatment path was already locked to her account: wash out. <\/em>No cash option.\n<\/p>\n

\nNormally, I didn\u2019t need the introduction script, but I pulled it up on my monitor anyway, just in case. Between the weed and my nerves, there was a real possibility I\u2019d draw a blank in the middle of a speech I\u2019d given hundreds of times before in the years I\u2019d worked here.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBefore we begin, I\u2019m going to walk you through the basics of how all of this works,\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n

\nCarla shifted her hands under her thighs. \u201cYou ever have the treatment done?\u201d she asked.\n<\/p>\n

\nSomething cracked in my chest. No one had asked me a genuine question in months. Between Tallulah and work, I didn\u2019t get out much.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo,\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n

\nEyes rounded, Carla tipped forward, as if by edging closer she\u2019d somehow get absorbed straight into the memory itself.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou took the money instead, didn\u2019t you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShocked, I swallowed hard and turned back at the screen. It wasn\u2019t fast enough.\n<\/p>\n

\nCarla smiled. \u201cWow. What were you in for?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe way she said it–maybe she\u2019d done it on purpose–made me lean back. I crossed my arms in front of my chest. I\u2019d told a bartender once and he\u2019d stopped serving me, which, fair play to him. After that, I never went back for a drink. Carla leaned further forward still, all nervous jitter gone. A surprise crease appeared where the top of her nose met her forehead.\n<\/p>\n

\nStay calm. Cool. Collected. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019re here for you, today,\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDid you kill someone?\u201d she asked.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI didn\u2019t kill anyone,\u201d I said. It came out sharper than I intended and she settled back into the couch. A smugness turned up her lips.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSounds like you\u2019re making an assumption. About me. I knew you judged me the second you walked in after you saw my escort. I saw it on your face. Just like everybody else. Show me that we\u2019re different.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nCarla\u2019s eyes tripped to the bookcase behind me. From where I sat, I could see the side edges were worn. Cracked from turning a screw too far.\n<\/p>\n

\nI cleared my throat. I needed to get the situation back on the rails. \u201cYou\u2019ve been prescribed a wash out for the trauma you\u2019re dealing with,\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhich one?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nEven though her voice exuded a confidence that put me on my back foot, there was a gritty sadness in the finish. I focused back on my monitor.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTechnically, you get to choose. If you\u2019re not careful, you could lose something important.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe room fell into silence as Carla picked at the skin around her thumb. From where I sat, the cuticle was already a blistered red. My stomach flipped.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat do you mean if I\u2019m <\/em>not careful?\u201d A tremor passed through her bleeding thumb. \u201cAren\u2019t you the one deep frying my brain?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of misinformation out there,\u201d I said. It added to the Bureau\u2019s mystique.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf I get to choose, maybe I can forget the look you gave me instead when I walked in,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe part of me that wanted people to like me, that always wanted to say something more to the barista, put sorry <\/em>on the edge of my tongue. I wasn\u2019t a monster, but she definitely knew how to make someone feel like it.\n<\/p>\n

\nYou\u2019re a professional, <\/em>I told myself\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cLet\u2019s finish the walkthrough first. Don\u2019t want to waste any more time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes, that precious government time,\u201d she said. Her eyes had the same quality as Talullah\u2019s: the irises and pupils undifferentiable. They sent me straight back to the morning, her whining and tears streaming out of those eyes. The things I do for you, Tallulah, <\/em>I thought.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDuring the session, I need you to focus in vivid detail on the exact memory that is causing you trauma. Try to recall all of it: sounds, the way the surroundings looked. The way the air smelled. The clearer you can get, the easier it will be for our technology to target the areas of concern. And, the faster you\u2019ll be out of here,\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDo I get to watch the brain cells disappear?\u201d she asked.\n<\/p>\n

\nI shook my head. \u201cThe tech can damage your vision.\u201d She bit her lip. I entered wash out mode on the computer and the wand on its charging post began to hum.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThat looks like a vibrator,\u201d Carla said. I wondered when the last time she\u2019d seen one was. How long she\u2019d been at the correctional for and how long, before that, a vibrator had been a part of her life.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMy daughter thinks it looks like a magic wand,\u201d I said. Tallulah loved telling the other kids in her class about it.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSame thing, right?\u201d Carla smirked.\n<\/p>\n

\nA snort bubbled in my chest. Maybe it was the weed. Even though she wasn\u2019t close to me, she felt uncomfortably so. Her lips curled upward, a mirror.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf you tell me what happened to you, I\u2019ll say the treatment worked faster than normal. I\u2019ll be the number one bureau advocate out there. Reformed prisoner. Whatever you want,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

\nOutside of the lonely bartender at Shirley\u2019s on fifth, the only other person who knew about what had happened was the San Antonio Exchange officer who\u2019d performed my evaluation all those years ago. I\u2019d traveled to a different city so no one in Austin would find out about it. Since its inception in the late 2030s, the government\u2019s Bureau network and associated technology was at the mercy of state funding. Some regional centers like New England and the Pacific Northwest exchanged data but the infrastructure even in-state for Texas was spotty at best. It had been from the beginning.\n<\/p>\n

\nIf the government really wanted to get its ads right, all it had to do was tell people what the cash didn\u2019t give me. How $1,500 bucks didn\u2019t help me forget barreling towards the barrier, the last licks of Chardonnay souring my breath. Tallulah in her car seat in the back.\n<\/p>\n

\nEven now, I still had nightmares about waking up in a flipped car. Because of the angle, blood seeped into my socks and filled my shoes. I only found out later we\u2019d hit a deer, that it broke our crash first, but for the space of that minute, I didn\u2019t know who the blood belonged to. The $1,500 cash comp paid for rent that month, but I couldn\u2019t drive anymore and, in Texas, it made living just a bit harder.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou\u2019ll need to lie down for this,\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes, Ma\u2019am,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

\nStanding, she was a good foot taller than me, though her shoulders bowed forward like a sulky teenager. Maybe she\u2019d worked in an office before Lockland. One with no standing desks or maybe, she\u2019d had childhood scoliosis. I pulled on my protective goggles as she lay down. My breath fogged the lens.\n<\/p>\n

\nI readjusted the straps and then crossed the carpet. I hooked my fingers under the rolly chair\u2019s post and pulled it over to her head.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI need you to close your eyes,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd focus on the memory.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nWhich one, I wasn\u2019t sure. I should have asked. I asked all my other patients, the Marlenes of the world, to prep their brain cells, to start the recall ahead of time so there was something there to get rid of. But I hadn\u2019t with Carla.\n<\/p>\n

\nFor some reason, I couldn\u2019t.\n<\/p>\n

\nAt least, that was what the Bureau\u2019s intention had been when the well-meaning congressman from South Dakota had started it all. A center to provide reparations, mostly for impacted Indigenous and Black Americans which, somewhere in the Senate had been twisted into a more generic Trauma Exchange to get white moderates comfortable with giving out compensation for emotional work. The system was immediately overwhelmed and started cutting corners, creating behind-the-scenes compensation bands or worse, passing things told in confidence to law enforcement to put more people in prison.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMaybe, I can forget how I got here so we can just be two people talking,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd one of us is holding a weird vibrator. That\u2019d be a wild thing to wake up to.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat put you in Lockland?\u201d I asked. The wand thrummed, but the rest of the room quieted.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe opened one eye, the slit of black staring up at me. \u201cLet\u2019s get this over with.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe eye closed again. Her hands knitted together across her stomach. She sniffed and then rolled her shoulders back into the teal couch. Her pixie cut didn\u2019t melt into the cushion like Marlene\u2019s hair had. Her sneakers hung off the other armrest. They were pristine. New.\n<\/p>\n

\nI uncapped the wand and began. The green light flicked above her scalp. Her skin peeped between her follicles; the cropped hairs swayed as the wand passed over them. Back and forth, back and forth. The scrubbing of clothes against the notched wooden plank. A part of life, erased.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen it was over, I had Carla rest on the couch while I scheduled her next visit. She hummed something with a sugary hook, something I\u2019d grown up with. I didn\u2019t join her even though I wanted to.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen her eyes reopened, she shifted to lay sideways. It reminded me of when I was a kid and my neighbor would come over and lay on my bed and we\u2019d gossip about our crushes as our hands moved closer together.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis has been nice,\u201d Carla said.\n<\/p>\n

\nA strange sentiment. I checked her face. The muscles around her mouth had relaxed. The divot above her nose uncreased. I couldn\u2019t tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Either way, I could pretend as well.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWell,\u201d I said. \u201cIt won\u2019t be the last time we see each other. Got a few more marinations before we really get to the bottom of it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt\u2019s like edges have been smudged off,\u201d she said. \u201cEasier to forget the world\u2019s a briar patch surrounded by wolves.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI offered my hand to help her stand and, she took it. We walked to the door and just before I was about to open it, she pressed her fingers on my arm.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou know, people drink and drive and don\u2019t kill people all the time,\u201d Carla said. \u201cEspecially in Texas.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI froze, hand a half turn on the doorknob.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI wasn\u2019t trying to hurt anyone except myself,\u201d she said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI couldn\u2019t breathe, but also couldn\u2019t move from where we stood, hovering at the entrance. I focused instead on the whorls in the office door\u2019s wood, the large black hole left of center. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That I was worse and that the world didn\u2019t know order.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe squeezed my arm gently. \u201cThank you,\u201d she whispered. \u201cNo one has treated me like a person in a long time. Let\u2019s hope this isn\u2019t goodbye.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nSomething in my chest crackled, bursting into flower. Something like immediate regret. Carla didn\u2019t look back at me when she left, only forward, as she stepped away with the guard back to the exit and then out of sight.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt wasn\u2019t until after she left that I realized what she\u2019d decided to forget. After all, it was exactly what she\u2019d promised.\n<\/p>\n

Salena Casha’s work has appeared in over 100 publications in the last decade. Her most recent work can be found on HAD, Wrong Turn Lit, and Ghost Parachute. She survives New England winters on good beer and black coffee. Subscribe to her substack at salenacasha.substack.com<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I asked Marlene to picture the day her ex broke her nose and waved the wash out wand across the base of her skull. Her light hair fanned out around her head on the pillow as the ultraviolet waves penetrated her Hippocampus, where external event memories were thought to be stored. Prone, she recalled images …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107960,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20136],"tags":[20137],"class_list":["post-140342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-51-spring-2024","tag-the-colored-lens-51-spring-2024","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140343,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140342\/revisions\/140343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}