The Worry Doctor
By Linda DeMeulemeester
As a Teacher, Angela was responsible for guiding the development of Institution’s children-after all the bad memories and feelings that troubled them had been taken away. However, somewhere in the utopia of Institution a dissident lurked, unwilling to conform to the unquestioning bliss of harmony. And now, Angela had an assignment of her own: To suss out the disruptor in her perfect community for mindshaping.
First printed in Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine, issue 2, February 2004
A sea of shiny haired children bowed their heads in task. Angela listened and the scritch-scratch of pencils on paper filled her heart.“That’s right, children, draw me a picture of your special place. It should give you happy thoughts.” Up and down the aisles, Angela glided and nodded encouragement.“Oh, Mary, Candy Land looks scrumptious. I’d love to visit there myself.”Two more steps forward, “James, Soccer Land would be so much fun.” One more step forward and Angela stopped.
“Christa, what land is this?” She dropped her voice and masked her concern.
“Why, Teacher, it’s Ladies Land,” Christa’s brow, first furrowed in concentration, now smoothed when she smiled up at her.
Ladies Land indeed. Angela studied the not-so-stick ladies, and scantily clad at that. No other Grade Twos drew people without their proper tunics and jumpers. But there was something else about the picture, something more disturbing.
“What are these?” Angela pointed to the pencil etched outlines behind the ladies.
“Those are trees in the woods,” said Christa.
The woods past Institution! “But what are those squares the ladies are holding on to?”
“Suitcases,” Christa’s stubby finger traced the boxes on the page. “The ladies are moving.”
“Oh,” said Angela.
Angela took a calming breath and walked back to her desk. She pulled out her anomaly book. Un-uniformed ladies frolicking in the woods outside Institution—this warranted a trip to the worry doctor. Angela sighed. Good thing for Christa and for all the children’s sake she was a vigilant guard of mind harmony. She took it seriously.
“Good work, children. Thank you for your lovely pictures. Tack them on the board, then you are dismissed.”
The class rose in unison and posted their drawings in perfect alignment. No squabbles, no pushes; they maintained an orderly formation out the door—with the exception of Christa who trailed behind.
Next morning the blue card lay folded on her desk. Angela spotted it before she had even removed her sweater. Strange, she hadn’t sent her report in yet. Had someone else noticed Christa’s odd behavior and notified Admin? Was there a problem with one of her other pupils, some infraction in the dorms, or an upsetting weekend leave? No one from Admin needed to become involved. Angela massaged her forehead. That egotistical thought unworthy of a Teacher melted away. Common good was all that mattered, harmony. When she unfolded the card her heart sped up.Angela Roberts is to report to the Principal’s office at noon. All worries are unnecessary.Why was she being summoned to the office? Her mind wrapped around that all morning as her class hummed through their motions. At 12:00, she hurried down corridors and climbed the steps to Admin sector. She reviewed her well-structured life. After marking and prep, it was supper; social tea till 21:00; in the dorm and lights out by 22:30. She enjoyed weekend leave with her surrogate family and courtship dances every other Saturday night.“My thoughts are well ordered,” Angela said as she arrived breathless at the reception room.
“I’m certain they are,” the receptionist smiled. “Harmony for us all.”
Angela stiffened despite the soothing interior of the office, or the friendliness of the woman in front of her. “Then why am I here?”
“Principal Benford will see you now,” the receptionist beamed.
Angela hesitated in the arch of the open door. As she glanced inside the monotone room, she was startled that the Principal was not alone. A worry doctor, gray-suited and inscrutable, stood against the far wall behind her. Angela forced her legs forward as the slightest gasp hissed through her clenched lips.
“Sit down, Angela.” The Principal’s cheeks dimpled and her smile radiated warmth, but Angela felt chilled.
So this is what it’s like for the children. It occurred to Angela that there might be a cost in anomaly management.
The worry doctor’s tall frame and silver hair contrasted with the Principal’s short body and brown round face framed in tight black curls. But both of them looked like pythons curled to strike.
“Well, well, Angela,” said the worry doctor. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen you here.”
Here? Angela stared hard at the worry doctor. A vague image rustled in her mind—him in the same gray suit but salt-and-pepper haired and younger, taller, fitting a happy mask across her face. She shuddered.
“Please, why am I here?” Angela’s voice was now soft and small, like those of her students. “What have I done?”
“Done,” Principal Benford cut in. “Why, dear . . . nothing. You’re a model teacher in our little family here.” Her hands spread, expansive—embracing. “That’s what we’re counting on.”
They had an agenda and they’d unfold it as it suited them. Angela waited.
“There’s an emergency,” the worry doctor said bluntly. “We know there is a dissident present in our catchment area.”
Angela gasped.
“And dear, we need someone to find the dissident.” Principal Benford nodded her head. Her dark curls shook in agreement. “The worry doctor chose you.”
Angela ignored the rising dread in her chest. She had been chosen. She leaned forward and listened.
“Some records have been altered,” said Principal Benford. “The problem is, we can suspect, but our minds are united, tuned. Interrogating suspects won’t help us. Our thought patterns have been altered for harmony. We are incapable of the critical thinking necessary.”
“How would I be capable?” Angela asked. The worry doctor sat down facing her, and she squirmed under his level gaze.
He smiled fondly at Angela. “You and I go back a long way, Teacher Angela. I mindshaped you, and seeing the person you’ve become shows us we’ve all done our job.”
Angela’s stomach clenched.
Principal Benford proceeded. “You, the teacher, have always picked up where we’ve left off. After children are mindshaped and have had their negative experiences removed, then Institution works hard to replace those experiences with positive memories.”
Angela smiled weakly, proud of her small part in it.
“But with only positive experiences,” the worry doctor paced the floor, “with only pleasant thoughts. . . .” He stopped pacing. “People are incapable of managing conflict.”
When the Principal nodded her head in agreement, it bobbed as though the worry doctor had an invisible string he pulled for emphasis.
There was something about the way they looked at her.
“We need someone to recall some discarded memories,” said Principal Benford.
“Why me?” Angela’s voice sounded flat.
“We can’t be exposed for harmony’s sake. But your experiences were somewhat sensational and documented. The worry doctor thinks we can reconstruct the events.”
Angela pressed hard into the chair, physically willing all this to disappear.
“I’ll reconstruct the experiences over a period of several weeks,” said the worry doctor. “You’ll begin to notice gradual changes as your thoughts become misaligned.”
“What changes?”
“You will begin noticing things you weren’t even conscious of before, things that others miss. Once you’ve identified the dissident, we’ll bring you both in.”
The worry doctor patted her on the shoulder. “When it’s over, we’ll erase the whole experience and restore you to harmony. All worries are unnecessary.”
Angela hoped so.
Angela visited the worry doctor every night that week. It was an unsettling sensation in the worry doctor’s office when the happy mask was strapped across her face and she first inhaled the faint scent of cherries. No wonder she could never stomach the fruit. She would awaken in the chair with a sense of having misplaced something important. Except she didn’t think she wanted to find whatever it was.She had begun to notice a few subtle changes. The children, always sweet and enjoyable, had never given her a moment’s concern. But now, sitting in the teachers’ commons for dinner, her jaw was sore because her teeth had been clenched all day. This was to restrain herself from saying, “Come on, act a little lively. You’re all so predictable.”
But how was becoming impatient supposed to help her find a dissident?The dorm matron approached her the next morning. “You never signed up for this weekend’s leave. I received a call from your surrogate family.” Matron looked puzzled.“I was behind on my prep and marking, and I didn’t want to miss next week’s courtship dance.”This time Matron smiled knowingly. “You’ll be released from teaching next year. I guess it won’t be long before you and Seth will be attending partnering sessions.”
Angela managed to blush at this, which satisfied Matron. But Seth hadn’t been on her mind at all. The blush was from not being completely forthright. It was true enough about being behind in her prep, with all the worry doctor sessions, but she didn’t want to see her surrogate family. Not when she spent every night trying to remember the faces of her original family. No one recalled their mothers or siblings after they arrived at school. That was no more important than a puppy remembering its mother once it was removed from the litter. But after her sessions, as she was falling asleep, Angela saw them each night, reflected in an opaque pond, waiting for her to reach in and pull them to the surface.
The second week, Angela yawned through her duties. Her eyes drooped from sleep deprivation. There were still the troubling dream snatches about her family. Also, she was staying awake late each night as blood coursed through her veins. Now, Seth was on her mind, constantly.
“I’m longing,” Angela concluded with some surprise one morning as she spent twice her usual amount of time in front of the mirror. She had heard of “longings” once partnership sessions had begun.
“Am I as pretty?” She pulled and shifted her jumper tight in flattering angles and fluffed out her wavy brown hair before tying it behind her back. As pretty as whom? An image materialized in her mind of herself, very young, standing beside someone a bit younger still, someone blond with shining blue eyes and rosy cheeks.
“Isn’t she adorable,” all the voices would say about the blond girl, including Mother. Hurt flushed up, squeezing Angela’s chest; hurt and jealousy.
Funny, as unpleasant as those feelings were, she wanted to understand them better.
There had been no question about her wanting to take family leave the next weekend. She couldn’t wait for courtship dance. Angela stretched out on the porch swing and tried to relax. It didn’t work. Shadows in corners seemed to draw her in, beckoning her to examine the ones in her mind. She resisted. Reaching down she scratched the back of Dog’s neck behind its collar. Why was it that every surrogate family had two parents, two children, and a dog? Harmony?Their own emerald green patch was situated amongst the other uniform patches lining Family Row. Angela swung slowly as she watched Little Brother throw a ball in the yard. Something wasn’t right. She closed her eyes, and instead of seeing the black-haired boy on the lawn, she saw a blond-haired girl. Sister. Cherished sister. Angela forced open her eyes, trying to block the flood of insecurity. As she ran inside the house, she slammed the porch door, startling Little Brother and causing him to drop his ball.Later that night Angela inhaled the pine-scented air. A shadowy horizon of trees completely surrounded the township. Courtship Hall was at the end of Family Row, close to the woods. She turned around and moved back toward the outdoor dance floor. That evening at the courtship dance, the swaying color spectrum of patio lights did nothing to soothe her raw nerves. Nor did the tinkling, melodious chords of the dance songs. More than a few couples glanced Angela’s way, widening their eyes at the sharpness of her voice.“Did you ever wonder what would happen if we all just kept on walking past Courtship Hall, past the gate and into the woods?” Angela was only trying to stir up the ritualized conversations. She hadn’t meant to startle them. If only the conversations hadn’t seemed trivial and insipid. Whenever she tried to maneuver people toward subjects of more substance, they only looked at her with vacuous expressions that dissolved when someone else changed the topic. They’re all idiots , she thought.
“What’s wrong with you tonight?” asked Seth. She grew uneasy under his searching gaze. “You’re short tempered and coming up with such strange ideas.”
“Is it strange to wonder what life might be like outside of Catchment?” She looked again toward the wooded horizon and wondered why no one had ever mentioned it before. This was one Institution. It didn’t seem remarkable to her that there would be others. What seemed remarkable was that she hadn’t ever thought about it. The very prospect elicited a steady tingle that started in the pit of her stomach, fanning outwards.
“Think,” she mused once she pulled up the covers from her soft bed in her surrogate home. “Past the Hall, through the woods, out toward. . . ?”
When Angela returned to the dorm, it wasn’t long before her last veneer of harmony chipped and peeled away. Exhausted from many sleepless nights, she decided to skip that evening’s worry doctor appointment. She didn’t want her memories to return; they brought uncomfortable feelings. Why did she need to be a critical thinker to find the dissident? Critical thinking made her friends and even Seth appear like morons.Instead of her doctor’s appointment, she forced herself to join the social tea. Although she’d planned on mingling, Angela sagged into the comfortable sofa by the fireplace safely distancing herself from the others. Socializing wasn’t worth the effort. She felt too tired.Angela’s body molded into the sofa as it grew softer every minute. Her eyes blurred as she stared into the fire until the flames grew huge and surrounded her. The memory the worry doctor had been trying to reconstruct began surfacing.“Help me, Mommy!” Angela had screamed this from her bed. Smoke rose thick and choked her. With streaming eyes, she saw her mother’s soot streaked face above the flames, frozen in animal fear. Her mother had looked through the door to her, then to the other side of the hall before she turned her back and went through her sister’s door.
“No. Choose me!” Angela had cried.
Angela shot up from her seat spilling her tea, oblivious to its scalding heat. Rigid, she fought to control her ragged breath. It didn’t matter that she had been rescued anyway. It didn’t matter that she never saw any of them again. What mattered was that her sister had been chosen. Not clumsy, plain Angela. As an adult, Angela could justify her mother’s actions. Her mother likely knew there had been someone on the way to save her. Seconds after her mother had escaped with her sister, a man crashed through Angela’s window and carried her down a ladder to safety. Little sister was smaller, younger. But logic had nothing to do with it. Emotion dictated her memory. She released a slow, steadying breath. Beneath her shock of the recovered memory there was a primal directive, instinct beneath conscious reason. Don’t be a spectacle. Keep this to yourself .
As for keeping her shock from Principal Benford and the worry doctor, over the next few days, she discovered how simple the administrators were. Not very far up the evolutionary scale , she thought with contempt. While she didn’t know how she’d bear the burden of her memory alone, it was easy not to confide in the worry doctor. When she went for her appointment, Angela read the fear in his eyes. His voice whined as he lifted off her happy mask and finished with, “All worries are unnecessary.” He was afraid of being contaminated by her unhappy thoughts.
Angela had felt intimidated by Administration. She had been in awe of the unfathomable knowledge that lay behind their smiles. Now it was clear. Their smiles weren’t enigmatic, only vapid. Something tugged at her. A few moments passed before she recognized the unfamiliar feeling as disgust.
The next day in school, while the children were outside for exercise drill, Angela sat in her desk as if nothing was different. But everything was. Her thoughts never stopped spinning and she wondered how her recovered memories were supposed to help. Rather than detecting a dissident, she felt drained by all the emotional upheaval. How could someone break away from order anyway? All children were indoctrinated at five years of age and then monitored for the rest of their lives. Of course, she realized suddenly, if you knew how to lie, the monitors didn’t know how to detect it. That idea intrigued her. A discarded incident emerged and her thoughts slid to a halt.It was an insignificant moment two weeks before. Then, as now, she had been sitting at her desk when James and Christa had come forward, interrupting her constant musings.“Teacher.”“What, James?”
“Christa took my pencil, my good purple one.”
“Christa,” Angela had asked, “Did you take the pencil?”
“No I didn’t. It rolled under the bookshelf.”
“Oh sorry.” James shrugged his shoulders and checked under the shelves. Even though he never found the pencil, Angela had just assumed it was jammed under there somewhere.
Angela sat in Christa’s desk, reached and pulled out the pencil box. The tips of her fingers felt numb as she flipped open the lid. Nestled against crayons and a chewed eraser lay the purple pencil. Angela walked back to her desk on shaky legs. I won’t tell anyone. I’ll visit them myself. I’ll see things for myself. The litany had a calming effect.
It was a short walk to Christa’s family sector. Catchment was like a large spoked wheel with Institution in the middle. It was a reasonable distance from Institution to anywhere in the township. Angela closed the gate of the white picket fence and stepped up onto the front porch of the butter yellow cottage trimmed in green. She scrutinized it, but it looked no different from every other pastel home in this sector. Taking a deep breath she knocked, not quite as firm a knock as she’d intended.A woman opened the door. She looked strangely familiar. It took a second to register that she resembled a grown-up Christa.Confused, Angela could only sputter out, “Hello, I’m Christa’s teacher. I’m concerned about Christa.”“What exactly is the matter?”
“May I come in?”
The woman shrugged for her to come in, a casual enough gesture, but Angela detected wariness in her manner. Inside the front parlor, there were no photographs, pictures, or flower vases—the typical things in a surrogate family home. She saw stacked boxes lined the hall. Angela walked over, bent and peered into a box. Inside were clothing, dishes, and pictures of Christa.
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” the woman laughed. “I’m cleaning, that’s all.”
Angela saw the nervous twitch of the woman’s hands before she clasped them tightly behind her.
“You’re lying.” Angela’s voice sounded so matter of fact. Weeks ago this scene would have been inconceivable.
The woman backed away slowly.
“Why turn your back on order?” Angela needed to know. Here was someone else, someone who saw more than the others.
“Christa,” The woman said.
Angela was puzzled. “You have her every weekend.” Then she gasped. “You’re not a surrogate family. Christa is your birth daughter.”
The woman’s face crumpled in despair.
“Keep your own child?” Angela struggled to understand, but the idea was so foreign. “Women don’t keep their own children. After partnering and raising babies, all children need to leave home. Their neural dispositions need to be altered for unity’s sake. Remember your history lessons; parents couldn’t accomplish that. Remember the chaos in schools.”
The woman reached out and grabbed her arm, “I’ve heard things, other ways of life outside Catchement.”
Angela caught her breath. She’d wondered too.
“Imagine how hard it is to give up your own child?”
Now Angela broke from her grasp. “It isn’t hard for some people,” she said, remembering her own mother. The pain that memory gave her. . . . Despite her growing disdain for Principal Benford and the worry doctor, Institution had saved her.
“If you want to be a parent, why don’t you apply as a surrogate?” Angela asked.
“No,” the woman sobbed. “I chose Christa.”
Angela hesitated at the door. Chose. All she could remember about her own mother was that she hadn’t chosen her. No one had. Except the worry doctor. Why? Why had he? Like Christa, she hadn’t fit in, couldn’t obtain mind harmony, and couldn’t fall into an exact line. She was always the unfavored child. Institution helped her, so why did Christa’s mother feel compelled to escape.
“Please don’t turn us in. Christa’s different. She’d never survive order. It could never be harmony for her. She’d need so many treatments. She’d end up a blank slate, a. . . .” The woman choked back the rest of her sentence.
“A Teacher.” Each word was an ache squeezed out of Angela’s chest as she realized what had really been done to her. “A Teacher, like me.” The room shifted and disintegrated behind her tears. Angela needed answers. She turned and ran as the woman’s pleas echoed down the path.
It took time to reach the archives in the bowels of Institution. At each level, Angela needed to pass a teacher, dorm matron, or Admin. When she succeeded past Institution’s guardians with lie after lie, she felt less like a puppet and more like a puppet-master, pulling her own strings, bobbing her own head.The archive stacks loomed row upon row. Where to begin? Student records went back decades. Fifty years seemed as good as any place to start. Compared to the thin reports she recorded, those records bulged—filled with incident after incident. Bile rose in her stomach as she read about bullying, neglect, and abuse. Along with incident reports of those poor children were recommendations to see the school counselors, the predecessors of worry doctors.When Angela finally straightened up, her back ached and her neck felt stiff. There had been a time, as Angela understood it, where removing conflict had been nothing more than a healing process. Take out the bad memories, replace them with only good ones—give those children a chance. But without conflict, people didn’t develop critical thinking. Then the inevitable followed, manipulation and mind control. She despised the worry doctors and envied them. Her brief experience at being a puppeteer felt so right.
Angela sorted through her confusing emotions. Everything had a price, including harmony. Her footsteps fell hard and heavy on the stairs up to Admin Sector. She flinched as she passed other students and teachers in the hallways. She despised their bland expressions. She didn’t want to feel this way. The worry doctor would happily arrange for her to have mind harmony again. He would help Christa and her mother as well. They didn’t have to suffer.Yet, despite her pain, Angela felt tempered, stronger. She saw more than anyone now. Did she want to crawl back into her cotton-batting cocoon and be safe? Was it her place to decide that for Christa and her mother? Again, Angela was amazed how much Christa’s mother risked in choosing her own daughter.The worry doctor had taken a risk, too. He had picked her for this mission. Angela stopped mid-step. Picked her—and now Angela knew why. Nothing was as strong as her desire to be chosen. Hadn’t she been waiting all her life for that? If only she could still help Christa and her mother escape.As usual, the worry doctor waited for her by the harmony chair in his office.
“My dear, is there any news yet?”
Angela let him lead her toward the chair. She wanted to please him, to be his chosen one. She couldn’t help notice how his smooth face looked pasty and bleached under his silver hair. She hated how his eyes watered and that he wrung his smooth manicured hands nervously while waiting for her answer. He’s like putty himself, she thought, waiting to be shaped.
“My dear, I asked if there’s any news?” This time his voice grated in a whine.
Waiting to be shaped. . . . Angela knew what to do. She would help Christa and her mother escape. Angela knew in her heart she could never leave Institution like them. She had been chosen. She also had a choice . . . she’d stay behind and reshape the others.
Instead of sitting down, Angela turned at the last second. She shoved hard, catching the doctor off guard. He fell into the chair instead of her. His guileless eyes blinked up at her. She choked back her bile.
Angela decided worry doctor gray would look good on her. As she lowered the happy mask over his face, Angela heard a slight hiss before he inhaled the cherry- tinged gas.
“Some worries are necessary,” she said.
