The Name Game

Grief

Each step Forty-One took, her feet grew heavier. She dreaded what lay behind the doors that lined the hallway.  She could feel the chill of the air - though that very well could have been a fragment of her overactive imagination.

The man stopped abruptly. Issuing a silent command, he flicked his wrist, and the door on the right swung open. 

Forty-One was unimpressed. She had spent the last few hours envisioning the terrors that would await in the room, but instead, she saw nothing but a metal hospital bed and a small machine. On the wall, a monitor displayed straight lines. She assumed that those lines would soon be stimulated by her heart beat.

The man nodded his head towards the chair, indicating for her to sit down. The anti-climactic aura of the entire situation had left her with an overwhelming sense of courage, so she walked buoyantly over to the chair and sat down immediately. 

The man gave another flick of his wrist. The chair suddenly sprang to life, tethers jumping out of its arms and legs, binding her wrists and ankles. Forty-One sat there, once again unimpressed by the lack of excitement. Being attached to a chair was certainly the least frightening of all the scenarios she had envisioned.

The man left, closing the door behind him with  a flick of his wrist.

The room came to life. The monitor on the wall began to beep steadily as the whirring sound of machines filled the air. Forty-One almost laughed with relief. It was no one but her and the machines. There was no way the test could be that bad. A glimpse into the future seemed much less intimidating with no one else watching. That feeling of the test being extraordinary had disappeared. It just seemed right. 

Welcome to your first test.

Forty-One jumped at the bodiless voice. It was impossible to identify the source, for the noise was coming from the walls, completely surrounding her.

It is time to remember your future.

She had just enough time to register the alien phrase the voice had spoken before she tumbled into oblivion.

.....

Forty-One was walking along a riverbank, her heart heavy.

But then who was the Forty-One sitting in a chair back at the institution, undergoing tests?

Forty-One could feel herself in both places - in both times. She could hear the steady beeps of the monitor and the steady rush of the river. She could feel the warm summer sun on her face and the tethers binding her wrists.

Coexisting was confusing. She couldn't tell what was now and what was then. For that matter, she couldn't even tell which was now and which was then. It was nothing but a jumble of mixed emotions. Trying to isolate a moment was like trying to untangle a ball of thread. It was all intertwined, existing together instead of separately. 

She tried to resist each moment in turn, cutting off the senses and emotions of each. But that just made the senses stronger and the emotions more powerful. It was as though her heart was being divided between elation and grief.

And then she realized it was. 

Her elation came from the relief that this test wasn't complicated. It wasn't dangerous.

And her grief came from...

Upon the isolation of her grief as an emotion apart from the elation, she was fully immersed in the riverbank scene.