Alex was sick at heart. Everything turned out so badly.
What started as a merely academic exercise borne out of curiosity about the way memory was transmitted and stored in the brain, turned into an obsession. It all began innocently enough when he read accounts of Wilder Penfield's experiments in electrical brain stimulation.
Apparently, in Penfield's attempts to map areas of the brain using electric needling, he unwittingly stimulated a region that caused a female patient to relive a part of her past.
This incident fascinated Alex and led him to experiment with stimulating brain tissue from the deceased never dreaming it would enable him to 'read' memories of dead people. But that's what happened.
Alex was shocked because there was no scientific way he should have obtained such a disturbing result. He actually saw the face of a beautiful young woman.
There was more metaphysics than physics in the proceedure. What happened was more a psychic encounter and it thoroughly mystified Alex.
He had to make sure it wasn't some hallucination on his part so he convinced Len, his lab assistant, to repeat the procedure and the same thing happened to him ― he saw the haunting face of a beautiful girl.
Alex now knew the experience was real and was fascinated by it and needed to know who the girl was.
What happened next was shocking to both men. Len saw the mystery girl on campus and found out her name was Elizabeth Miller and she was enrolled in graduate studies.
Alex tracked her down and hired her as his research student but never told her why he chose her in the first place, The truth was, he wanted to observe her and see what could be her connection to the donor brain.
He discovered the dead donor was Mark, her former fiance and now he was in despair because he had hired Elizabeth under false pretenses and now was able to channel Mark's intimate conversations with her.
So, even though he and Elizabeth had been developing a relationship, there was no way she could ever forgive him for misleading her and peering into the personal details of her relationship with Mark.
"You played with people's lives and now you want to ditch Elizabeth like yesterday's paper?"
Len was furious and clearly frustrated at what Alex was planning.
"I'm sorry Len for involving you in this mess ― I feel as helpless as you but I see no way out other han distancing myself from Elizabeth."
Len shook his head. "There is one way you could approach this ― you could tell Elizabeth and really level with her and explain how things got so out of hand. Maybe in time she might understand and forgive both of us."
Alex shook his head sadly.
"I doubt she'd forgive me, Len, afterall, I i snooped into the most private and intimate parts of their lives. I feel like a peep hole spy. I don't see how she could ever forgive me for that."
Len wasn't convinced.
"But why did you go that extra step and secretly experiment late at night? Was it because you had real feelings for Elizabeth and you had to know details of why her image was imprinted on that brain tissue?"
Alex nodded. "But I never suspected it was Mark's brain that I was examining. I could have just continued my relationship with Elizabeth and allowed her to discover the truth on her own. And if she chose to reveal that to me, it would be her decision. Butb now I've wrecked everything."
"I still think you should come clean with her, Alex."
Alex shrugged his shoulders and turned to go.
"If I were honest to begin with, Elizabeth would not be involved in this mess."
The truth of the statement seemed to sting both men but each felt helpless to change what had been done.
For his part, Alex could feel the door closing on his relationship with Elizabeth...
a relationship that he had never wanted to end.
