My Mind is Made Up

© 2014 Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Chapter Four

Waiting for my sister to return with school work was maddening, mainly because mother continued coming in every thirty minutes to check on me, while Grandmama kept doing the same, only she would stand there quoting sculptures from a book, one of several banned as a crime against humanity after world war three. After all, between it and its two relatives and uncounted derivatives, humanity had been pretty much destroyed in two burning days.

Apparently though Heather had been entranced by the old woman, and the elderly woman seemed disturbed that her ‘dear sweet Heather’ no longer hung upon her every word, eventually demanding that ‘Father Todd be brought in to exorcize the demons now within her granddaughter.’ Meanwhile father seemed happy that his little daughter was no longer completely under his mother-in-laws power, while mother stayed out of the entire fight. Oh boy, one day conscious and already things were not going well, this wasn’t going to end well, not well at all.

Since I was regulated to bed, other than to visit that stinking outside toilet, I decided that investigating Heather’s memories might be a good idea. Especially since history had been my worst course, I had managed to scrape through with the help of study groups and a big push by my lost Patricia, she had a unique way of rewarding passing grades that seriously made it worth the effort and the better the grade the more exotic the reward. So with a poor grounding in history I started searching my new brain.

Oh yes, I forgot, this was over a hundred and sixty years before the concept of ordering ones mind became an important part of everyone’s lives. Heather’s memories were tossed everywhere, mainly linked through the natural random triggers, such as a smell or song. I was going to need some serious meditation time in order to even beginning to clear things up, what with mother and Grandmama barging in every half hour that wasn’t going to happen today. I would need weeks, simply weeks... Then it hit me, prayer. That was the one thing that no one would interrupt, so the next time that one of them ‘peeked in’ I asked for a bible. Well in this case ‘the bible’, Heather’s father wasn’t exactly rich by any measure of the word, other than love for his family. That came out of Heather’s memories, Daddy would do almost anything for his family, even if it caused him more work or doing without for himself and that made him a good man, at least in my book.

Once that hated volume was in my hands I chose a page, then told mother that I was going to pray, to thank God for saving me. She smiled at me as only a mother could, then kissed me on the forehead and left, closing the small bedrooms door behind her. Once I was certain that I could not be bothered for a while I started entering the correct trance.

Now being able to enter a trance doesn’t make you powerful, or even dangerous. What it does do is let you focus everything on one task, in this case studying Heather’s memories and examining them for useful information. I remembered what my Instructor had told me in High School, memories were like a library, the information was there but you had to know how to find it, in most cases quickly. Being able to do that also helped you in whatever task you were engaged in at the moment. Nature used a random style of information storage, everything was linked to everything else, thus it was just as possible to bring up a memory of a long ago love as you were the correct recipe for chicken pot pie, it simply depended on what the strongest link was. Oddly, it was the ancient monks of the Far East who had discovered how to understand ones mind, and a computer programmer who had evolved that skill to maker anyone who mastered it able to remember anything with but a trigger thought.

Eidetic memory, rarely nature gave it to a person, the ability to remember what they were doing thirty years ago on a certain date and at a certain time. Mainly this was the ability to remember images only seen for a second or two, with the training I, and most of my generation (as well as the previous two generations) we were able to order our minds, making the storage of new information much easier. Somewhat like defraging a computer hard drive Patricia once told me.

As I worked I discovered something that frightened me, Heathers memories only went back a few years, it was as though she had been unable to remember anything for a long period of time. She also had sever difficulties putting a name to a face, if this was genetic I was going to slowly forget everything, if it was simply her personality of not caring about memory then I would be okay, but I wouldn’t know for certain until at least a year had passed. Looking at my own memories I discovered that they were beginning to link to Heathers, which was good I hoped. My own memories though were still in order, that made me feel better as it probably meant that Heathers brain was fine, she had probably simply been lazy still I would have to wait to be certain.

By the time that I was satisfied with my first days work, for now at least, it was near supper time. My search of Heather’s memories had given me enough of a foundation to start reacting correctly, but there was one boy at school whom I had better avoid, he had a desire for Heather that had nothing to do with her mind or personality. Thinking about the body that I now inhabited I had to agree with Thomas Kincade, Heather was hot. With the correct physical training I was certain that my body would become smoking hot, but letting Thomas, or any other boy put his hand on my breast wasn’t going to happen again. Heather had liked it, me? I’m still solidly male in mind, even if my body was now female.

Mother’s knocking on the door pulled me out of my meditation, my sisters were home but had given me privacy in my ‘chat with God.’ Now though, as mother reported, dinner was ready and my sisters really needed to return to our shared bedroom. She also mentioned that Charollett had brought my school books as well as a rather lengthy list of homework that Mrs. Martin had sent. ‘Good’ I thought, ‘Now I can start setting Heather, thus myself, onto the road to a better life.’ At least I hoped so.