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     You finally get that raise at work, so you decide it’s time to do the treatment again. What is money for, if not to be spent? And you’ve been waiting a while. It’s been, what, four months? You need this. You need this bad. Worse than you needed that guy from the Village to come over last weekend and let you fall asleep on his chest. You didn’t even have sex–you genuinely just fell asleep.
     The treatment is called “Plan Z.” It’s a treatment for when all else fails. And it’s not unpredictable like ketamine drip therapy, or problematic like ayahuasca tourism. It’s legit.

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     At the beginning of the first session, a smiling nurse with slicked-back hair hooks some nodes up to your temples and gives you a little purple pill. You swallow it quickly and smack your lips. The nurse gives you a judgemental glance, then goes back to untangling the wires that connect your head to the computer. Ashamed, you focus on the fluorescent ceiling lights. The nurse pushes the button to recline your chair. It’s sort of like being at the dentist–a root canal for the brain. You close your eyes.‍

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     You wake up in the backyard of the house by the train tracks. You stand slowly, getting your bearings. It’s twilight and there are no lights on in the house. Everything is tinged purple, even your skin. You stumble across the grass towards the fence at the edge of the property. It’s not a big lawn, so it’s not a long walk. You lean on the rusty chain-link, pressing your forehead into the cool metal. You realize this is how people get tetanus, so you check your hands for open wounds. You find nothing, just smooth skin and chipped black nail polish. You press your hands back against the fence again, feeling it bend forward in response to your weight.
     The fence is at the base of a short, steep hill, which is covered in crunchy leaves. The trees are bare, so it must be fall, or they’re the old oak trees with the old oak tree disease. They would turn black and split, like they’d been burned, even when it wasn’t fire season. You remember that now. And you remember the train. At the top of the hill are the train tracks, which run flat and perpendicular to the vertical incline. When you were small, you would knot your fingers through the holes in the fence and wait for the train to go by. You didn’t usually see passenger trains–it was almost always the freight trains with great big yellow and red boxcars. You wonder about those books with the kids who traveled across the country in boxcars. You never finished the series, so you never figured out what happened in the end.
     After a few minutes of waiting for the train you meander back across the grass to the house. The backdoor is unlocked, and you push it open to find the rooms dark and devoid of furniture. The sight of the empty walls and floors produces an ache in your chest. You sit cross-legged in the middle of what used to be your bedroom. You miss your parents with an unbelievable ferocity. Your brother, too. His bed should be on the other side of the room. You lie down on your back. The carpet is soft against your shoulder blades. You close your eyes. You wait.
     The shaking is barely perceptible at first, but it grows steadily louder. The floor rumbles. The train whistle blows. Your bones wake up to the feeling of it.

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     The first session was uneventful, but that’s sort of the point. It’s the warm-up act for the second session, which is when you get deep. The Programmers recommend that you engage in cognitive preparation for the second session. In laymen’s terms: torture yourself. If there’s something you’ve been avoiding, stop avoiding it. In fact, run straight into the heart of it. Take a big ol’ bite from the rotten core of it. Hurl yourself off a cliff into the rocky foam of it.
     Whatever metaphor makes you least comfortable, do that!
     For you, the choice is clear. What a weird word: “cheating.” What a weird way to reduce a relationship to a test. And, of course, you remember everything. You remember every lie he told and every stupid time you believed him. You remember the mystery illnesses on the days of important events, the shot glasses by the fridge, the nights he spent at unfamiliar apartments. You remember the woman calling his phone while he was in the shower, and you remember sitting nonverbal with your hands shaking, unsure of whether to hate her for her complicity or warn her to get away.
     So, go to her social media. Find the account where she posts silly videos with her friends. Learn their faces to the point where if you ever saw them on the street, you would stop and gawk, and they would give you a stiff nod and a tight-lipped smile, because they have no idea who you are.
     Find the webpage where she designs and sells homemade ceramic earrings. Think about buying a pair for yourself under a pseudonym, on the off-chance it would give you a twisted sense of power to touch something she’s had her hands on. (You probably shouldn’t actually do this. With Plan Z, it really is just the thought that counts)
     Find the more toned-down, personal account where she posts pictures. Examine the way she does her makeup. Wonder if that style–winged eyes with a glossy lip–would look good on you. Look at her in a bikini. On a bicycle. On the train. In a bar. With her eyes closed, with her mouth open, with her hands around the sides of a coffee mug. Wonder briefly–are you attracted to her? Leave the question hanging. It doesn’t matter.
     Find him in her list of followers. Look at his profile. Look at the pictures of you and him that he still hasn’t deleted for some reason. Don’t block him. You can’t block him. You need to see this. You need to remember. You need to be sure that all of this was real, that all of this happened. That you went on trips together, that you bought his groceries, that he helped you move into your new apartment. That the first time you had sex with him was forgettable, but the second time you saw colors in your mind’s eye–sky blue and purple and teal–and it was like that every time after. That he listened and he saw you, and you can see it in these pictures, the way he’s looking at you… But even now, it’s fuzzy, because you can’t actually recall a time when he played a song you liked, or asked follow-up questions when you talked about your work. But don’t think about that now. Just look. Don’t think. Absorb. Remember.
     Plan Z will take care of the rest.

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     Second session. You wake up in a bedroom. It’s comfortable. Inoffensive. The floor is clean. The windows are open, and a breeze blows through yellow curtains. You’re lying on your back on the bed. The comforter is white with a pattern of tiny red strawberries.
     There’s a knock at the door. You sit up to answer but it’s already opening. He enters the room one body part at a time–head, shoulders, toes, thighs, pelvis. His hands are jammed in the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders hunched like he’s cold or ashamed. You expect a pit to open in your stomach but it doesn’t come. You almost feel relaxed, but not enough to smile. He sits tentatively on the side of the bed, running a hand over the strawberry sheets.
     “Hi,” he says.
     “Hi,” you respond.
     “It’s good to see you.”
     “It’s been a while.
     You don’t remember moving, but you’re sitting next to him on the side of the bed. He puts his arm around your shoulders. Being touched by him is like being touched by your own hand.
     “I brought someone,” he admits
     She stands in the doorway, unsure whether or not to come in. You watch her run a hand through her hair. You watch them make eye contact. There’s so much knowing between them. So many recollections of moments they’ve shared. Worse than moments. Secrets. Their eyes transmit a signal your body can’t receive. It comes up static in your brain. But it’s strange, because his arm is still around your shoulders, and now, more comfortable, she breaks eye contact and slips past him, her skirt brushing against his knees, and she sits next to you. And now the three of you are sitting together in a row, and now you’re backing up to the center of the bed. And now you’re upright, on your knees, and he’s suggesting that you kiss her. So you do, and her lipstick is pink, and when you pull away you feel it on your teeth. And now you’re on your back again, with your calves around his neck, and she’s watching, smiling. And he–still inside you–turns to meet her eyes again, and you watch them watch each other, and there’s this overwhelming sense of familiarity, but you can’t discern who it belongs to.

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     That was a weird one. Don’t worry, it happens..
     When it’s over, the nurse gives you a little plastic cup of water, the same kind they gave you to swallow the pill. You sit staring through the cup’s plastic bottom at your own distorted legs. Walking home, you begin to question your choices. What if you had spent the money on something else? A nice dinner with friends? A vacation to Florida? Or what if you’d just saved it? How is all this supposed to help you? You trip on the curb crossing the street. The limitations of your own peripheral vision are starting to irritate you. You have this feeling that your two eyes, and therefore the part of your brain that reproduces images, are trapped between two rigid sides of your head. What a terrible feeling. What an unbearable feeling.
     You hate Plan Z. You will never go back. You don’t want the third-and-final session. You don’t need it.

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     But you go home and get in the shower and wash your hair. You cleaned your sheets yesterday, so when you crawl into bed – your real bed, not the strawberry bed of incomprehensibility – everything is soft and fresh and warm. You are surprised to find that you don’t want to be touched. In fact you are so, so, happy that nobody is touching you. You spread out like a starfish under the covers. You take a deep breath. It fills your body.
     Your body. Yours!

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     Third session. You don’t need to prepare for this one, but you can if you like. If you do choose to prepare, the best thing to do is called “intention setting.” If there are certain things you want to see or feel, you can meditate on them prior to the session, and they may appear as images or sensations during the treatment period. But be warned, the Programmers crank up the mental intervention for this one. There’s only one way it can end, so most of what happens will be completely outside your control.
     Why?
     It’s the third session and you’re only now asking why?

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     You wake up in the middle of a crowd under red lights. You know this place. It’s the venue in the city where you saw your first concert. You were sixteen. It was your best friend’s birthday. You look around, but she isn’t there. You look down at your own body. You aren’t sixteen, and you are surrounded by strangers, who are swaying and smiling and staring at the stage. A single man with a guitar strands playing under a spotlight. His voice is deep and resonant, and the sound dissolves over you. You sway with the strangers, watching the lights on their faces change from red to pink to blue. You remember your friend, on her sixteenth birthday, crystal refractions from a disco ball all over her chest, and how you told yourself you’d never forget the image. And here you are, and you still haven’t.

     The song is beautiful, but you’re having trouble making out the words. You stick your fingers in your ears, thinking maybe you’re wearing ear plugs, but there is nothing there except a buzzing sensation and a ringing that approaches fast and loud. That’s when your body hits the ground. It crumples as it falls.
     For an extra $49.99, you can see what happens next. It’s called the Post-Mortem Package.
     Deal? Okay, here is how it goes:

     The people around you notice like a wave. The first person gasps, then kneels, then yells “help.” A circle forms around you, and they are checking your pulse, and the singer is asking the crowd if everyone is okay, and everyone is shouting “no!”
     Someone asks if there’s a doctor in the crowd, and there’s no doctor but there is a nurse, and the nurse calls 911. The paramedics arrive and put you on a stretcher and race you off the floor. There’s a long silence permeated by whispers. The singer, waiting for the go-ahead from venue management, makes a few jokes to ease the tension. They decide it’s okay to continue the set. His next song is about the wrath of god. The people at the periphery of the crowd, at the front and back and sides, aren’t even sure what happened. They think maybe someone got a little too high and passed out. But the people next to you, they know. They wish they didn’t, but they do. They hold each other’s hands and when the show ends they linger on the floor, blinking hard and stepping over droplets of sweat and liquor.
     All of this is happening, and you are somewhere else.

[ ]

     You pay with a credit card at the front desk of the office. The receptionist asks you if you were satisfied with the treatment this time around. Don’t you feel refreshed? Don’t you have a new sense of clarity? You say yes, thank you, but when you step out of the office into the street, you really take a moment to consider.
     Are you satisfied? It’s okay if you’re not completely certain. It’s normal, actually. To become alive again is a disorienting process. Maybe give it a few minutes. Or hours. Days.
     Give it years if necessary.
     Give it a long, long time.