Author : Olivia Black, Staff Writer

The clinic is smaller than Joan expected. The surgical lighting and immaculate white surfaces make the space feel less claustrophobic, but it doesn’t do much to settle her nerves. Truth be told, she’s not entirely sure what she’s doing here. This all started out as a joke that’s spiralled way out of control. The ads were just so mysterious. “Envision a new you.” She still doesn’t know what that means. And really, it was her fault for getting up to use the ladies while her colleagues were pouring over the website. By the time she got back, they’d already filled in her information on the registry form.
“Come on, Joan, you have to do it. For science!” Elsbeth had said.

“For science… Right,” Joan muttered under her breath as the equally pristine nurse approaches her.
“What was that?” The nurse asks with a serene smile.
“Oh, nothing,” Joan replies, handing over the plastic clipboard with her completed health questionnaire.
“Perfect. If you’ll follow me, we can get the interview process started.”
Interview process? Joan doesn’t recall there being any mention of an interview on the website, but then again, there wasn’t much outside of new-agey mumbo jumbo.
“Uh, sure.” She casts a forlorn last look at the door before following the nurse through the open archway on the opposite door.

“If you woke up tomorrow as your ideal self, what would that look like?” The doctor, a woman in her early thirties asks, seated primly on a low stool. Joan gapes at her for a long moment. The question strikes her as the kind of thing the guidance counsellor used to make her write essays about.
“What does that have to do anything.” Joan frowns when the doctor lets out a low chuckle.
“It has everything to do with why you’re here.”
“Does it? I don’t even know what it is you do here. Your website wasn’t exactly clear on much.”
“That’s understandable.” The doctor smiles warmly and Joan realizes with a start that neither the nurse, nor the doctor had introduced themselves. “It’s not easy to define our services. You see, each person who comes to us has different specific needs.”
“That doesn’t clear anything up for me.”
“Put simply, we help eliminate those personality traits that are holding you back from being your ideal self.”
“So like therapy?”
The doctor laughs warmly and shakes her head. “No, it’s a more streamlined process than that. Therapy can be… messy, and the results are not always guaranteed to be positive.
We go directly to the source, carefully rewiring your brain chemistry to flush out negative traits.”
“That sounds absolutely insane,” Joan says with a snort.
“Perhaps a demonstration is in order, and then you can decide if you want to proceed.” The doctor stands and circles behind the exam chair, reaching around to pull Joan into a more reclined position. Without much further ado, the still nameless doctor places a mesh cap of electrodes over her head.
“What are you doing?”
“Just relax. This will only take a minute.”

Joan wakes drenched in sweat and not entirely sure what had woken her. While she expects to see bare white walls and nameless medical staff, she’s instead at home, in her bed. The lights are off and it’s the dead of night. The only sound is the occasional gust of wind rattling her window. There’s a throbbing in her temples and her mouth is dry. Her cat is curled up at the foot of the bed, oblivious.