Rhys Overton, MD, and John Salisbury, MD, continue to oversee the research portion of their facilities. Over twenty memory-splicing clinics have opened around the world, adhering closely to the Overton method.
I’m starting to feel a little claustrophobic. When we learned about Overton in school, we learned that they helped people with memory problems and trauma. I know I saw online that they could also help sleep and cognition. But removing memories completely? Altering them?
And it’s dawning on me just howdeliberateeverything is in here. How much it’ssupposedto look and sound and feel like you could come here for a flu shot.
My hand is shaking by the time I hear my name.
I jerk my head up to find a man in a button-down shirt, glasses, and loafers smiling patiently at me. Dr. Overton…Jr.? He must be. He’s younger than the founders in the picture, forty at most.
“Hi,” I say, standing. I can’t exactly run out of here, can I?
“How are you today?” He holds out his hand, and I shake it. A male nurse hands him a chart—mine, I assume—and whispers something to Dr. Overton, who nods and peers at it for several seconds. The doctor instructs me to follow him to an office down the hall, where he slides behind a desk and motions for me to sit, too. He seems a little distracted, still reading my chart. Do all doctors have access to a person’s full medical history? Because the chart he’s reading is way thicker than the forms I just filled out.
Finally he glances up and smiles at me. “So how can I help you?”
Dr. Overton picks up a half-eaten granola bar and finishes the rest in one bite. The music from the waiting room—a piano piece by Schumann—drifts in under the door of his office. “Sorry,” the doctor says, scrunching up the wrapper and throwing it at the small garbage can against the wall. “Low blood sugar.”
I’m surprised by how casual he is. How friendly and informal. I relax into my seat across from him, trying to let the unsettledness from a few minutes ago pass. It’s not like he’s going to operate on me.
“I’ve been having some issues with my memory,” I tell him. “I was in a bus crash twelve days ago.”
He sits up straighter. “Not that one up by Greenvale? I heard it was very scary. How are you doing?”
“Um, not so good,” I say. “I mean, that’s why I’m here. I’ve been having…” I can still hear whispers of piano music outside, the very deliberate lilts and lurches in the tempo. Can you usually hear the waiting-room music in the doctor’s office? Do they want to make sure the appointment is as soothing, as uneventful, as the wait?
“I haven’t been sleeping well since the accident. And I keep, like, losing my concentration and forgetting little things.”
“And this just started after the accident? It’s not something that’s been ongoing?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “Also, I’ve been seeing things.”
There’s a long crease down his forehead now. “What kind of things?”
The music is still slipping in from under the crack of the door. My nails are digging into my palm. Why am I here?
Tall. A boy my age. Big smile. I see him, but nobody else does.
Instead of giving him the description I gave Katy or the manager at the Cineplex, I say, “Just, um, things.”
“Hmm,” he says, still watching me with concern. Then he asks if I’ve been having headaches.
“No,” I say.
Nausea? Auras? Blurred vision?
“No.”
“Hmm.”
He is silent for a few moments, then he explains that they specialize in memory procedures, not more general problems like mine. They wouldn’t be able to do anything without a guardian’s consent, anyway, because I’m only seventeen.
“It’s possible you have a concussion that wasn’t detected at the hospital,” he says. “And I’m happy to do a very basic test for that, but I’d really make an appointment with my family practitioner if I were you.”
“You’re not a doctor?” I ask.
Hearing the alarm in my voice, Dr. Overton laughs. “I am.” He points at the MD certificate and a dozen others on the wall to my left. “It’s just that we don’t practice family medicine here, and the medical community is quite uptight—no, let’s go with ‘stringent’—about these things.”
“Oh,” I say.
