“So lemme get this straight,” she asks, “Lex’ broke your memory eraser machine because it was too painful to forget?” The woman tries to wrap it up before her tone edges any closer to panic, “A-And now her brain is broken —f-forever!?”

Seemingly unfazed by the panic in the woman’s question, and still unimpressed with my existential crisis, the raspberry blowing doctor shuffles through his desk, and fishes out a translucent model skull. He unscrews its top with an unsettling indifference.

“In layman’s terms, this incredible machine identifies the neurons containing the offending memories.” He pokes at the various wrinkles with his pipe, ”Bzzzt! They each get a little zap, suppressing the memories for good.”