Choose Your Own Brainwashing, Day 12 (Patreon)

At first you try to figure out what Lee means using logic. You’re missing the knowledge of something, which means you’ve lost a memory somehow. But a memory of what? And how and when did that memory go astray? You cast your mind back over the last several hours (it has to have been hours, right?) and find only a seamless recollection of the events of the day. Standing on the train station waiting for a train that didn’t come, being invited to get on this one instead, the drugged cup, the spiral…

Thinking about the spiral, at which you’ve never stopped staring, reminds you to actually see it, and once you really see it, you realize that it is still pulsing with colors, fluctuating in size, and flickering in various levels of brightness. But that means that…

“And you can just notice that I’m still talking to you, even while you’ve been searching deep inside yourself for meaning and revelation. You hear me when I mean for you to hear me, but from time to time I’ll say something that you don’t need to consciously hear and then…”

And just like that her voice is gone again, somehow this time when you begin again to contemplate the spiral, its changing patterns remind you of nothing other than a need to keep watching it spin and glow.

You know you’ve lost a memory, but a memory of what? You think you remember… someone… talking about mantras but as soon as that thought crosses your mind it fades away (even though your mouth is still dry, and your jaw is still strangely slack, and your throat is vibrating.) You start to wonder why you got on the train in the first place.

Why had you gotten on the train? It had seemed very straightforward at the time; you were asked if you wanted to board, and since the answer to every question you’re asked is always “yes” of course you boarded the train.

And you know in your bones that the answer to every question you’re asked is always “yes”, but you’re startled to realize that you don’t know how you know that. Has it been true your entire life?

(“And you’ll be able to remember times in the past where you’ve needed to say “no” to something, and that will be very comforting for you because you know you’ve been keeping yourself safe, and you’ll be able to remember that for now, and for the rest of the time you’re here with me, if it’s safe and appropriate to do so, that the answer to every question I ask you will always be “yes”.)

Almost you can hear a voice speaking, or remember a voice speaking? But when you try to concentrate on that memory, you get distracted by the glistening of the spiral. And as you continue to watch, the light of the spiral begins to blink on and off, with a rhythm that for some reason reminds you of singing, and as your eyes track that rhythm, you realize that your body is starting to become very, very warm.

Why are you warm?

1. It’s hot on the train.
2. You forgot to take off your heavy coat.
3. Your body is flushing with pleasure.
4. Someone is making you heat up.