ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Tea and Forgetfulness

Vignette - Tea and Forgetfulness
Dramatis Personae Emma, Melinda
In Absentia	2013-08-10 Mel gets her brain fixed.
Location <NYC> Tick-Tock - Greenwich Village
The quiet sound of soft music and softly running water greets the entrants to this tea house, playing from speakers hidden and trickling waterfalls cascading down the rocky fountains by the entryway. The ambiance here is subdued, a quiet escape from the bustle and noise of the city, focused on only one thing: tea. Tea of very good quality. They serve it in over eighty varieties, black and white, green and oolong, rooibos and herbals and mate, flavored and straight up. The seating here comes on cushions or kneeling chairs around low tables, the decorations in earth tones, and the knowledgeable wait staff is always helpful with a recommendation or a snack suggestion to pair with your drink. Behind the long counter along one side is an entire wall of bins of loose-leaf teas, available for purchase by weight. Two tables have been procured for the day's activities, which is a fete for this busy New York location. When Emma is seated early in the morning, she spends most of her first pot of tea quietly nudging people away from the one directly behind her. Wait staff believe the table to be occupied, while most of the customer's simply slide on by the small seating space, seeing something akin to a large ornate vase in the place of a table. She drinks quietly while she waits, molding the minds around her gently and making her presence also somewhat unseen to those around her. At the appointed time, Melinda makes her way into the restaurant and finds a place at the empty table as naturally as if it was reserved for her with a large placard. She takes the seat directly behind Emma as if summoned. She sits quietly, waiting, looking around for her appointment, but ordering a pot of peppermint tea in the meanwhile, her stomach requiring some soothing. When the tea arrives, she pours her first cup and calms herself with the aroma of the herb, and watches the steam curl off the surface. << It has been brought to my attention that you wish to have something removed from your memory. >> Melinda looks up and looks around, perhaps a little startled. << Stay calm. I'm directly behind you, but don't wish to complicate things further by having to remove my face from your memory as well. >> << Oh, okay, >> Mel replies, her thoughts quiet and tired as she sits there. She's been on edge for days and it's starting to show in her mannerisms as well as the dark smudges under her eyes. << Yes. I need to forget where my roommate is hiding from his family - in case they come looking. >> << Yes, Your friend Hive told me about the situation. I can't imagine that this was a very easy decision for you to come to. Memories help make us who we are. >> Melinda blushes a little, her face tense in a grimace. She turns the cup gently and considers drinking, but the temperature of the liquid within the ceramic heats the vessel hotter than she knows her tongue can handle, so she waits, eyeing the sugar. << No, but when my mind isn't safe from intrusion, it's the best course of action. >> She cannot begin to imagine the complications, but is grateful that she told Murphy about the whole thing the night before - so maybe he won't take this some sort of suspicious event that needs looking into. << Is this going to hurt? >> << There may be some discomfort, but the more you relax, the better I can work with your mind. Please, do not be upset if your mind itself rebells. We're not built to like this kind of thing. >> Emma's touch is gentle as she begins to extend more of her presence into the other woman's mind, starting to seep through the cracks in a way Melinda will be able to feel. << Think about something soothing. I enjoy a hot bath with lots of foamy suds, silken soaps drifting in the water and pleasant fragrances rising up off the water. >> Mel presses the cup firmly in her fingers and lifts it to her lips, closing her eyes and imagining a peppermint bath for a little while. Seems like a pleasant enough idea for the summer weather - both hot and cooling at the same time. She tenses briefly as she feels Emma's presence, but she exhales and soaks in it, allowing it to be the soap she mentioned earlier. << Good, now I need you to take me through the event. Let me see what we have to erase and what we can keep around it. >> Melinda takes another long breath as she sips her still hot tea, distracting herself from some of the tension with the feel of burning liquid against her lips and her tongue, then the way it feels as it mildly scalds her throat when she swallows. The event. She remembers Tian-shin in her office, the way her behavior was off enough for Mel to recognize, the feeling bolstered by Hive's telepathic feedback. She remembers guiding them out of the office when Hive got what he needed, and the proximity of the 'rehabilitation clinic' to Tian-shin's office. She remembers the creeping discomfort of the armed guards and the information that they were ready and willing to fight - at only the slightest provocation. She remembers the long corridor they took them down when Hive 'convinced' them that they should be here, the ridiculous little table where the other guards were settled. It reminded her more of medieval guard posts in a television show she watched than anything she had seen in any of the other rehab facilities she had visited. Then there was Tag, stuck in an all white room, treated like a hostile animal. The kept calling him the wrong gender and insinuating he was anything other than the sweet young man who wouldn't hurt a fly. Mel stops musing when she gets toward the end of the pertinent information, sending more flashes of Tag's erratic behavior, his sarcasm and anger, his inability to remove his own blindfold. The images of his body - forced to display more femininity than she even knew he had. She remembers the location Hive said they could take him to, the hasty let eerie retreat they made through the newly controlled facility, and the long, awkward cab ride through the city to kill time and to throw anyone following them off their scent. Then, finally, Mel reveals the arrival at the safe house both of them have been using, the clothes and toothbrush she's been borrowing and the faked phone calls into work saying that she's sick and cannot come in. Worry overshadows everything. Emma's presence begins to soak the past few days in a sort of milky silence, obscuring it from Melinda's recollection, her ability to review the information impeded, causing her to lose her place, forget where she was going with thoughts, and begin to forget entirely what she was trying to remember. << Wait. I can't forget everything... >> Mel interrupts, a little bit of panic rising. << I feel sick at the idea of being pressed for information and not knowing why. >> << It would be cleaner if you forgot the entire encounter. >> Emma chides, quietly. << Yes, but I need to know he's safe, and I need to know that he'll be okay. If I don't know he's out, then I'll be asking and causing problems that way. And if I stumble back over there and start pursuing the matter with our mutual friends, then I'll see him again and this will all be for nothing. >> << Fair point. >> Emma thinks, the fog still rolling over Melinda's thoughts. << Okay, how about this. I turn that rescue into a dream at most, destroying the better parts of the memories, but leaving you some of the framework -- and as for seeing your roommate again, well, I can put up a wall against recognition. You could be standing a foot away from him and not know he was there. >> << So I'll never see him again? >> Melinda frowns, resigning herself to the thought. << No. I'll build in a trigger - send it to your friend, Hive. When all of this is over, he'll release you. >> << Okay. I... I can do that. >> Melinda agrees, quietly sipping more tea. << Excellent. Let's get started then. >> One of the wait staff touches Melinda's elbow gently, nudging her. Mel sits up, quickly, blinking blurry eyed at the room and the cup of tea she's cradling in one hand. "Wha? Hm? Oh. Hell. I'm sorry. I fell asleep, didn't I? I'm so sorry!" "Perhaps you should have ordered something with caffeine," the young man next to her smiles, still stiff in his posture. "Don't worry too much. You've probably only been out for five minutes or so." And yet, he still wants something. Melinda frowns, embarrassed. She wipes at the side of her mouth gingerly and reaches out to rub a napkin against the corresponding spot on the table. "I am so sorry. I should probably go, right?" She draws in a deep breath, looking up at him sheepishly. "Maybe I could get the rest of this..." She lifts the handle on the pot of tea at her table, finding it bone dry and light, confusion covering her expression. "Oh. Um. Never mind. I am sorry." She sets down the pot and reaches into her purse, pulling out her billfold, and laying down more than enough to cover the price of tea and a generous tip. "I just haven't been feeling well and thought the tea would help. I'll just... go home." Her feeble excuse rendered, she gathers her things and begins to clear out. Unable to stop herself, she glances over at the table behind her, looking for whomever was there helping her. A strange little boy with big brown eyes is in the chair behind her, his parents sitting opposite him, looking at pictures on their cell phone. Melinda frowns and stuffs her billfold back in her wallet, jamming her finger against a stiff piece of cardstock she did not see before or remember putting in there. There's a phone number raised in the center, but no ink to distinguish it from the rest of the paper and nothing else imprinted on the card. She purses her lips thoughtfully as she begins to make her way out of the restaurant and onto the street, taking herself home for the first time in days, without realizing how long its been.