Bracquemond has a minion!

wedding ring the Generic Minion

coding by Chen

art/story by Lemon_Noir

It was 1952.

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Or maybe it was 1953, or 55. The exact dates and details were all a little tangled up to him now, overlapping overriding overpowering scribbles that clamored around in his head when no one was looking and sometimes even when they were. So many white spaces, so many empty boxes.

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Jay Bracquemond had gone into the Kingsway Hospital expecting to be seen as a patient, but somehow he was viewed under a microscope coloured by colour. It hadn't always been this way. His parents had been sharecroppers. A few of his uncles had died trying to get out of that little Louisiana farm and his Papa had lived to tell of it. How exactly his Ma made it from Louisiana to Canada was always a tight-lipped mystery to Jay, however. Still, the occasional hard feelings sent his way had been nothing of the ill-treatment of his parents and theirs, to the point that prejudice was almost spiritual. It was always present but never there. Looming but distant. So it was up in Canada, he had thought, but not at the Kingsway Hospital.

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"Are you sure I need to be on this kind of medication, just for some headaches?" he asked them. "Why, I've never needed this sort of stuff before. Why can't I see my regular doctor?"His questions seemed to test their patience."Mr. Bracquemond, if your regular doctor was doing his job, you wouldn't be here, now would you?"He wanted to protest, to defend Dr. Abbott, but the glaring white of their lab coats intimidated him. To keep a coat that clean in a place as messy as a hospital, you had to mean business."Well, alright, I'll go on your trial then, I guess."

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'Complications,' they had called it. He had to stay in the hospital because the stupid trial they'd put him on was causing him 'complications.'What kind of medicine did they practice anyway?For two straight weeks he couldn't eat unless he finished all the alcohol they poured him.Even then, he couldn't quite complain. Not yet, anyhow.

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It was becoming clear that these weren't doctors, they were devils.How Satan had gotten a medical license to practice in the Kingsway Hospital was beyond Jay.But then, so many things were beyond Jay. Drifting further and further as he went.

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Surely it was hellfire that burned his arm sockets once they'd released him from the ceiling.Surely it was ash they were forcing into his lungs through that machine.Surely it was the underworld into which he sank each time they asked him all the questions. So many questions.

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The lights were blinding but Jay tried his damnedest to keep his eyes open to show that he was in control. That no matter what they pumped into him, he was in control."Mr. Bracquemond, as I've explained before, unless you cooperate and answer our questions you will not be released from this state."A large white pheonix danced behind the doctor in the white flames of the light. Its wings fluttered like the lose flanks of a labcoat as a corner was turned.

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It was 1958 when they let him out. Or maybe 1959. He kept getting it wrong, he kept getting it wrong.Why did the year matter so much?Did they change the year on him?They could change so much, changed so much, distorted so much.It was not far-fetched that they had erased time.Carol had remarried. How long had she waited? It didn't matter.His family had been so relieved, so relieved, so relievedand then they were disgusted.This wasn't Jay, he wasn't Jay.This man couldn't hold a pencil without shaking. How could he pen cartoons?Only his mother still cared. He was her child. Her child.

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She kept him under a blanket all day. Not his head, of course, never his head.She read him stories and the newspaper.She put up with his screaming in the night.He only hit her once and he didn't know it was her, her didn't know, it wasn't her.He tried to starve himself after that but she talked him out of it.He wanted to see the kids. Not for long, just to make sure they hadn't been dragged off to the Kingsway Hospital.

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He wet the lollipop with his tongue and studied his reflection. He wasn't a man any more. No man can exist within a lollipop, within a hospital room.

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An ode to MK Ultra