THE SLIDE Part 2

Chapter 11: A Long Recovery — (the past)

A Fantasy Story: A Recovery

Farha’s skin glistened as she hoisted herself from the steaming hot waters of the convalescent spa’s pools. She donned a towel and walked carefully back to her room without the motor-assisted calf bands (M-ACBs).

There was a note on the monitor that Uncle Tem and Aunt Mila would visit that afternoon. She sat, ate a few pieces of fruit, and dozed in the lounge chair. Moments before they arrived, her physical therapist was there, encouraging her to put on the M-ACBs.

“I don’t think I need them anymore,” Farha said.

“Humor me,” the younger woman, Sofie, said. Farha complied only because she reminded her of someone that had a similar countenance and personality. Her desire to please her PT (Physical Therapist) was comforting.

Uncle Tem and Aunt Mila returned just after her PT exited. They were both beaming. Farha made a mental note that they each appeared much younger than her memory. They relayed news of an early release from the home and they had hired three PTs, including Sofie, if Farha approved. Two of the best PTSD healers in all the Euro-Asia West Confederacy were hired.

There were beaming smiles all around.

Military Overseers of Memory

General Bayard; Colonel Jean Baptiste, Neurologist; Commander Marie Bissett, Physician- Chief Memory Specialist; and Lieutenant Claire Giorgio, Technical Support gathered for a meeting on the Lieutenant Tem Aulclair-Izem and Farha Izem Project.

“I have some ideas about going forward, and we need to review our successes and failures,” The General began. “Colonel Baptiste, I assume you have examined the medical records of Lieutenant Aulclair-Izem? Let’s start there.”

“Yes. It was a wise decision on the part of Commander Bissett to have stopped the memory medications when we did. If not, he would have suffered major irreversible damage to many parts of his brain, as reviewed in detail in my report,” Baptiste stated matter-of-fact.

“I concur,” Commander Bissett interjected. “And we did get some useful data, but we no longer have a window into Tem and Farha’s world.”

“True, but I have some informants in place. Besides Lieutenant Aulclair-Izem is not in key areas due to his personal leave,” the General said.

“There is the success with Nikos — the Greek,” Lieutenant Giorgio interjected.

“Yes,” the General’s head bobbed up and down like a marionette. “We discovered and put and end to the secret agenda of Nikos Papadopoulos and caught one of his spies, who unfortunately killed herself before questioning. The bigger loss is we did not capture him. And we do not definitely know whether he and his family died in the fire or not.”

“There is Pierre Tueterria,” Lieutenant Giorgio mentioned.

“Yes, but are we not getting ahead of ourselves?” Commander Bissett suggested.

“This memory science is very new and I have seen numerous failures in many of the provinces,” Colonel Baptiste fretted.

“Let’s stay on track,” General Bayard used his command voice.

“Would that be the next expedition into the Slide, sir?” Bissett ventured.

“It may, it may. More research needs to be done.”

Memory — PTSD and Healing

After three weeks, the Izem Estate was as active as it had been since Farha’s Momo and Papa reigned over all. It was the day that all three PTs approved Farha’s solo horseback walk around the small track in a few days hence.

Farha saw herself going into a gallop. She teased Sofie about it and always recanted at the last moment.

“You’re terrible and behaving badly,” Sofie playfully scolded Farha.

A day before the ride, Farha pushed hard and Sofie began to tear-up. Her cheek had a trickle of a single tear. Farha took her into her arms to console “Sofie, the innocent one”. Sofie collapsed into the embrace, forgetting her station, while Farha’s face softened.

“Excuse me,” Sofie said, straightening and pulling away, “for being so gullible and unprofessional.”

“That’s not a problem. I apologize,” Farha said humbly.

“I accept your apology,” Sofie said, smiling self-consciously, bowing her head and looking down.

Farha thought to offer a compliment and then bit her lip, stopping her own mouth.

The small track had been raked. A special net surrounded the horse as to cushion a fall if that were to happen. Farha laughed when she saw it, knowing that galloping would be out-of-the-question. It was a success, of course. It was a walk.

Momo falls through the already broken glass as I slip and fall backwards, my back to Momo’s back in the descent. In the sky above are short bursts of lightning.

“Then I wake up. Each night for the past three, they have repeated. And I wonder, did lightning break the glass and snatch Momo from the window and throw her on the ground? Maybe she did not kill herself,” she wondered in relaying the content to her healer. “But there was the matter of her lifeless body on the gravel,” Farha concluded.

“In the desert, I am surrounded by light and it pricks my skin.” Farha dissociated. The healer waited for her return.

The snatches of memories from the desert from that fateful night plagued her sleep with nightmares, night terrors, and body memories of pain. Oft times during daylight, shattered windows of memories assaulted her from the past, blending early childhood traumas with the relatively recent.

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