007: hypnotic

THE POCKET WATCH DANGLED from a gold chain, swinging slowly back and forth in front of a pair of cerulean blue eyes.

"I want you to relax, Lawrence—"

"You," Gowan swallowed hard, "you can call me Larry if you want."

The doctor's voice was soft and mellow, coming from between her red-lips in a soothing monotone. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a professional bun and dark-framed glasses graced her rather plain features. "Relax, please. Make yourself comfortable. This isn't going to work if you don't relax."

The look on his face was one of skepticism mixed with pure misery. He chuckled, sounding embarrassed as he averted his eyes, picking an imaginary piece of lint from his faded black jeans. "I'm sorry, I really am. It's just that I really don't buy into this whole hypnotism thing. I mean, to me it's just a bunch of hocus-pocus, faked party trick kind of stuff. I mean, how do I know that if you do manage to hypnotize me, you won't make me think I'm a chicken or something. I mean, how do I really know that I can trust you? I don't." His eyes were on the small pad of sticky notes in his hand on which he'd scrawled HYPNOTIST: SHE WILL HELP YOU REMEMBER.

"I understand, Larry. Dr. Rexworthy was quite specific when he explained your condition to me over the telephone—"

Gowan licked his lips, looking down at the next line on his pad. "Sometimes," his voice dropped to an ashamed mumble, "sometimes I forget things. I can't really even take your word for it because in about-" he glanced at his watch. "In about three minutes I won't even remember why I'm here."

"I'll remind you," she assured him, reaching out to pat him on the shoulder.

"Dr. Rexworthy recommended you, right?" He was already starting to forget, even though he was looking at the note he'd written himself.

"He did."

"And he's convinced that my condition is psychological. I don't remember him saying that, but I have it written down here."

"Mr. Gowan! I assure you, I am a professional. I'm not some hack in a bar trying to trick you into making out with another man." Gowan tensed at that and she made a mental note, "I can assure you that I am the best in this business. Please, let's just try this again. Just sit back and relax. Focus on the movement and the sound of my voice."

Begrudgingly, Gowan laid back on the couch, and attempted to get comfortable. His eyes immediately locked on the watch as it resumed its pendulous movements.

"Do you have a good imagination, Mr. Gowan?"

"Larry," he corrected her, his voice losing some of its usual animation, "please just call me Larry— I don't really think I do have a good imagination.

"Nonsense, Larry. You're just being too hard on yourself. In other words, what I mean is can you close your eyes and visualize a scene and see it in front of your eyes?"

"… I think so."

She smiled, "good. Let's test your imagination in a few ways. I'll describe what I want you to visualize and then after you close your eyes and imagine it, I'll ask you a few questions about what you see…"

"Okay." His eyes were locked on the watch as it slowly swept back and forth.

"Larry, do you drive a car?"

"Yeah… of course."

She nodded, "excellent. Alright now close your eyes and imagine you're standing in front of your car. Now when you see it very clearly, just nod your head."

He nodded slowly.

"Fine, now you're looking at your car. Larry, what color is it?"

He licked his lips, sounding like he was talking in his sleep. "It's black. Shiny black like patent leather."

The pocket watch returned to her blazer pocket before she spoke again. "Wonderful. Now I want you to open the door of the car and get in behind the wheel. Now look straight ahead. Is the speedometer in the centre or to your right or to your left?"

"In the centre. The tach is on the left and the gas and oil gauges are on the right."

"You're doing so good, Larry. Now tell me: is the speedometer circular or semi-circular?"

"Circular… no wait, it's more of a semi-circle. Yeah, semi-circular."

"What color is the needle that indicates the speed on the speedometer?"

Gowan smiled, "bright orange. Like fire."

"Alright, fine. Open your eyes. Could you see all that clearly?"

Gowan blinked blearily and nodded, "yeah. That was easy."

"Now, let's test your imagination in another way. We learned a couple of things about your imagination right then. This time when you close your eyelids right down, imagine you're at a swimming place, a beach, a pool, a lake or at the ocean. Close your eyes, Larry. Now I want you to imagine that you're at that swimming place. When you see the scene clearly in your minds eye, nod your head…"

A split second later, a much more relaxed Gowan nodded his head slowly.

"Alright, fine. Now look around you at this place and tell me what you see—"

"The beach. There's sand and a blanket lying in front of me. The water's a nice shade of aqua, inviting and the sand is white. It's Cancun, I think. Might be the beach that we went to that one time when Brad—"

"Larry? Is there something wrong? Your tone just then, it indicated anger."

There was a subtle shift in his features, a wrinkling of his brow. "It's not Cancun. I was wrong. It's just a beach somewhere…"

The doctor frowned. Clearly there was a bad memory here, perhaps even something that was at the root of his retrograde amnesia. "Let's continue then, shall we? Are there any people there with you?"

"No. I'm alone."

"Well, what do you see? Are there any objects there? You mentioned a blanket…"

"It's the blanket I keep in my car… it's white with orange tigers on it. Besides that, there's a Frisbee sitting in the middle of the blanket. Hmmm… it's neon yellow, with something written on it. Oh… it says Nextel… it's got the Nextel logo on it. I had one like that once…" he trailed off into an awkward silence.

"That's very good, open your eyes again, Larry. You could see all that clearly as a mental picture? That showed that you have a good imagination to create, because in that instance I asked you something where you had to create the scenes in the picture. Now we'll go to the other extreme and find out how well you can imagine a simple, single object. This time when you close your eyes, imagine that you're looking at a full moon…"

"Okay," he nodded.

"Close your eyes again. Now then I want you to imagine that you are either seated outside or in a car, or at the beach, or maybe looking out your bedroom window. It's nighttime and you're looking up at a full moon. To help you to see the full moon, I want you now to roll your eyeballs back up, with your eyelids remaining closed down. Roll your eyeballs back up in your head as if you could see the full moon right up here—" With a cool, dry finger, the doctor lightly tapped his forehead. She spoke again, and the tone was calm, quiet, but the words were rushed together, sounding authoritative. "Roll your eyes way back up in your head and as you do your eyelids lock tightly closed the more you try to open them the tighter they are locking closed… try now to open your eyelids they're locking tighter and tighter, now stop trying, just relax and sleep. Let a good and pleasant feeling now come all over your body. Let every muscle and nerve in your body go limp and loose. Breathe easily and deeply and send a wave of deep relaxation from the top of your head to the top of your toes."

Gowan's breathing was deep and regular, his posture relaxed as though he was asleep. Crossing her ankle over her knee, the doctor leaned back and picked up her notepad. "Tell me, Larry. Who did this to you? Who are you afraid of?"

"My brother," the words came out tonelessly, "Shawn Stevens."