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The first time Robert met Dr Hesperius had been on a Thursday, a few days after Robert had arrived.

Robert thought that those first few days when he had woken up from a past life with no memory would be burned into his brain, every detail distinct, recalled in perfect resolution.

But instead the memories had formed just like any other. Hazy, indistinct, different each time he thought of them. The colours muted and the sound turned down.
He could remember trends and patterns, a rough sequence of time, and specific events hung within the chain but their location was never fixed. They swam and darted through time whenever he tried to pin them with any degree of exactness.

The driftwood he had come across on his first walk down the beach. Was it a branch? A tarry section of telegraph pole? A warped plank hanging with seaweed?

He'd tried to find it again, but the tide had taken it back.
Which of the silent inhabitants of the village had he waved to first? The old grey haired woman he hid half in, half out of her front door?

The wizened grey haired fellow always wrapped in a threadbare patchwork quilt, as though he felt the cold no matter what the weather?

Robert couldn't be sure. The first meeting with Dr Hesperius was vivid though.

Robert had sat on the bench, waiting in the clear morning sunshine. The breeze seemed to carry a little of the chill from the last night, Robert could tolerate it, encased in a heavy woollen jacket.

He felt calm, expectant. He wanted to meet the Doctor, and felt the need to make a good impression. Robert concentrated on controlling the anticipation he felt, getting a chance to answer some questions. Who was he, really? What had happened to him? When could he return to the outside world?

That was the question that occupied Robert the most. He had no knowledge of the world outside, but he knew it had to exist. The idea of it skirted around him at all times, a grey amorpheous concept of a world beyond the sea and the dunes (and later, when Robert explored further, beyond the fences).

Doctor Hesperius had almost reached the bench when Robert spotted him, looking away from the seagulls he'd been watching wheeling across the open stretch of cold blue sky.

Doctor Hesperius was a small man, with thin ams and legs supporting a comically round pot belly that hung against his small body like a kind of drum. Itn was the kind of belly that Robert imagined the skin stretched tight over, as opposed to one that was like a large marshmallow of foamy flesh that your hand would sink into if you pressed it.

Doctor Hesperius dressed in shades of light brown under a white coat that bore an ID card or security pass of some sort. It fluttered and jerked in the wind in tandem with his tie, that flailed up into the Doctor's face, beating against his thick black glasses.

The doctor's face was small and freckled, with a jutting chin further enhanced with a little beard that curled around his face, giving him a goat like look. More curls, tight and a grey light brown, toppped his head.
(Later, when Robert was given more books, he would find one about greek mythology and laugh at the description of Pan, the goat legged nature spirit, recognising Doctor Hesperius.)

"Robert!" The Doctor was cheery, hurrying up to the bench and extending his hand. "Good of you to meet me!"
Robert was caught halfway between standing and sitting as he rose to greet the doctor, awkwardly shaking his hand and sitting back down again, feeling a little foolish.
Doctor Hesperius had a small file that he held on his lap, flipping it open and quickly turning to a page at the back.
"I promise I won't take up to much of your time my boy, I just want to check in on you, give you a formal welcome as it were, make sure you're settling in okay...now, how do you feel this morning, any sickness or headaches?"

Doctor Hesperius rattled through a few medical type questions, jotting down Robert's answers in quick jerky notes. Hesperius spoke in quickly, rattling along, punctuating his speech with quick bursts of chuckling.

Before long, he'd worked his way through the sheet, and fixed Robert with a twinkling smile.

"Well I must say I think you're doing admirably. Maria tells me you've been taking yourself off around the grounds for exercise, tremendous stuff. It's good to see you're up and around, it pleases me immensely to see you getting back on your feet so quickly."

Doctor Hesperius patted his pockets as if preapring to leave, looking around himself to check for anything he may forget. He gave Robert another glance, before he continued in a quieter, less boisterous tone.

"Now before I go Robert, is there anything you might want to ask me? I can appreciate that you've been through a harrowing experience, and must be confused about your circumstances. You've done very well to sit here so quietly whilst I ramble on. Do speak up."

"Why am I here, Doctor Hesperius? DId I have an accident, or contract some sort of disease?"

Doctor Hesperius paused for a moment. His lips pursed like he was about to whistle, and his eyes unfocused for a moment, as if he were looking at a object in the far distance.

"Robert, I want you to listen carefully. What happened to you is unimportant. I can appreciate that this is hard to understand for you, but I mean it. How you arrived here, and your life beforehand is nothing for you to concern yourself over."

Doctor Hesperius stood and faced Robert.

"For all intents and purposes, the life you had 'before' is over. You are here to recover, and adjust. This is a safe enviroment for you to do just that.
The best thing you can do here, for yourself and us, is to concentrate on building yourself a new life. Can you do that for me Robert?"

Robert was numb. He had wanted to ask other questions, but couldn't. Instead he sat and nodded.

"I'm sorry if I sounded harsh Robert, I can appreciate that this sounds harsh. Listen, I'll be sending you a package in the next few days. It's a rough sort of syllabus, if you like. I'd like you to pick out something for you to work on here, to help you pass the time, build character."

Robert nodded again, head down and thoughtful. He stood automatically and shook the doctor's hand. Doctor Hesperius said some words of encouragement and goodbye, but Robert only nodded vaguely, already turning his back.

He scratched at the rash on his arm, less red than when he first noticed it, but still hot and itchy. Another thing he'd meant to ask Doctor Hesperius.
____

"What's he like?" Julia asked.
Robert looked over at her.
"He's nice... Friendly. Talks a lot, talks fast. Looks a bit like goat."

Julia laughed, hiding her mouth behind her hands.

"What're you going to ask him?" Robert asked. They had arrived back at their village, and sat on the bench, Julia perched on the back, feet resting on the seat, Robert next to her, shoulders level with her knees.
Quietly they watched the clouds reflected in the pond drift across the surface of the water.

"I'm not sure. How I got here, I suppose. What this is..."

She rolled up her sleeve. A patch of rough red skin, peeling little white flakes of dead tissue wrapped round her wrist like the imprint of a watch strap. Robert reached out gently and felt the heat on the skin with his fingers.

"I've got another patch on my back." Julia sad, her voice quiet, like she was ashamed. "And a large bit on my shoulder. Do you think it's got anything to do with why I'm here?"

Robert shrugged.
"I'm not sure. I had some of that too. On my shoulder and hand and stuff. It heals pretty quickly. You've just got to try and not scratch it."

Julia nodded, gazing at the pond. Robert could see her thinking, planning her next question. She turned to him, leaning forward so that her head was close with his, hovering over her knees.

"What did you ask him?" Her voice was low and secretive.

"What, Doctor H?"
"Yeah."
"I dunno if I should tell you, I think he'd probably want you to talk it all through with him."

Julia pulled a face.
"Come on, I'll tell you what I asked when I see him."

Robert looked away from her sideways smiling face, her hair spilling over her cheek and mouth. he tried to keep his voice as light as possible, to try and keep the mood from falling. He worried about how Julia would react.

He remembered feeling numb and a bit shellshocked. He was afraid that if he told she'd want to be on her own. Robert liked having her around after the weeks of tramping around on his own.

"Well, he just said that I should try and forget about what kind of life I had before..." Robert waved his hands around. "Whatver happened, that it wasn't important. He said I should try and make my own life here, you know, start over."

Julia straightened up, looking off into the distance.
"Oh." Her voice sounded a little flat, but then turned questioning again. She bent her head back down.
"Start over from what?"

Robert shrugged. "I'm not sure. It's not important, apparently."
___

Robert walked across the beach. Maria had stopped leaving tranquilisers for him in the last few days, and he felt as though he could go for a walk later in the day now, without worrying that he was going to get told off.

Julia usually came with him in the mornings, but he liked being on his own. He could think things over.

He gripped the journal in his jacket pocket. He'd started keeping a record of his days, writing down every detail he could think of. He'd started to value knowledge of what he'd done seen and thought, ever since Doctor Hesperius had told him to forget about his previous life.

The journal's thin pages were filled with Roberts spidery handwriting, recording weather, the sea, the beach, birds seen, conversations between him and Julia, the things they found washed on the beach, even cloud formations.

Robert walked up the dry dusty sand of adune and perched on a tussock of stiff grey grass. He pulled a pen and the journal out, intending to jot down a few words before he headed back to the house. He was distracted by a slipping crunching sound, the dry sand impacted under running feat.

He looked round in time to see Julia crest the dune edge. She flopped next to him, sighing with effort.
"Alright? I've just been talking to the Doctor."
"How'd it go?"

Julia pulled at a clump of grass between her legs.
"Weird. I dunno... I mean, I knew what he was going to say, from talking to you, but still..."
"You feel a bit out of it?"

Julia nodded, slouched over, her eyes scanning the sand. She looked back to Robert suddenly, straightening her back.

"He wants to see you again, he said."
"What? When?"
"Tomorrow, in the morning, I suppose around nine."

Robert thought for a moment.
"Did he say why?" Julia shook her head.
___

Doctor Hesperius arrived at nine thirty, carrying a thermos of hot sweet coffee. He and Robert sat for a while drinking and talking over how Robert's week had been. Doctor Hesperius congratulated Robert in helping Julia to settle in so quickly.
"I'm very pleased to see how the two of you are getting on so well, especially under what must be quite difficult cirmstances, coping with the disorientation of your conditions."

Doctor Hesperius tailed off, and up ended his cup over the grass in place of talking, shaking out the sugary dregs. Robert watched, knocking back the bitter brew and passing the cup to Doctor Hesperius.

Robert could feel some big annoucement building with in the Doctor, from the way he busied himself with the flask, before pulling out a larger, thicker file than the one Robert had seen him with before.

Eventually, after arranging his coat around himself, and adjusting his glasses, the Doctor felt ready to begin, straightening his back and clearing his throat.

"Robert... Robert, Do you remember when I told you that the life you had before you arrived here had no bearing?" Doctor Hesperius cast an eye to Robert, who nodded quietly.

"Well, I've someone here I'd like to talk about," The Doctor waved the thick folder, " ...And I hope this makes things clearer."

"Danny Gosport was Born to a Sharon Gosport, 16 years old. His father is unknown. His homelife was unsettled, punctuated by numerous visits from social services, with both his mother and grandmother being arrested and chaged with low level offences, most of them alcohol or drug related. From the ages of six to nine, Danny was in care and a variety of foster homes for extended periods of time."

"His school record is poor; a history of chronic underacheivement and disciplinary problems. This is hardly suprising. Danny's situation was by no means unique, and the schools he attended where all underfunded and under pressure from a host of pupils all like Danny. It's not hard to see how he slipped through the cracks"

"Secondary education was much the same, with truancy becoming a major theme. By Fourteen, Danny had left the education system, which is where the Police record really begins to Blossom." Doctor Hesperius intoned the word with a grim sarcastic relish.

"We have cautions for vandalism, loitering, low level offences, then we see he's charged with numerous cases of shoplifting, theft, drunk and disorderly, aggravated assault, up until he is imprisoned for after..." Doctor Hesperius paused to read in detail from a sheet within the file

"Attempted Murder. It would appear that he took a hatchet to a man after an argument in a pub."

Doctor Hesperius put the file to one side and looked levelly at Robert.
"The prisons are full of men and women like Danny. People with poor beginings to miserable lives, who can do nothing to alleviate their own misery, because they've never had the oppurtunity to learn."

"The public at large realise that prison is not the answer. That incarcerating societies problems is not the way forward. Some form of rehabilitation is required, but how do you rehabilitate someone like Danny, who was only diagnosed as a dyslexic by the prison doctor?"

"You have to understand Robert, most of these people do not want to be rehabilitated. They're looked into a mode of behaviour that means that any attempt at re education is most likely doomed to failure. Any modicum that success that is achieved is soon lost once the subjects are released back into the enviroment that created them."

"The situation as it is now is at crisis point. Prisons are so over crowded, even the conservatives are calling for reform. The argument is over what to do with people like Danny, the persistant repeat offenders."

Doctor Hesperius hunch forward toward Robert.

"Imagine Robert, Imagine if you could take someone like Danny, and wipe the slate clean. Give them a brand new start. Undo the damage caused by abusive parents, neglect, poor education. Erase the low self esteem and sense of inadequacy that leads to the aggressive and self destructive behaviour."

"What kind of a chance do you think you'd be giving people, Robert? A whole new life, without a criminal record, without a past filled with stupidity and hate and frustration? You'd be giving them the world Robert, you'd be setting them free, more than you ever could by releasing them from a prison to fall straight back into their old patterns."

Robert's head whirled. He felt cold, He felt sick. He wanted to speak, but could only croak, his throat was so dry. Eventually, he managed to utter a few words.

"Doctor Hesperius, am I that Danny, the one you where talking about?"

Doctor Hesperius looked sad, and shook his head, laying his hand on top of the file, as though bidding a restless dog to be still.

"No, Danny is currently serving a life sentence for stabbing his cellmate to death during a riot. But before, you were someone like him."

Robert shook his head, feeling stupid, feeling silly. He laughed, but it sounded harsh, a braying noise, false and wrong.
"What happened to me?"

Doctor Hesperius sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose behind his glasses.

"The procedures are complicated, they involve a lot of new drugs and procedures that're all brand new to neuroscience, to medicine as a whole.
In the simplest possible terms, we used a combination of staged micro strokes and various inhibtors to cause mild and intensely localised brain damage."

Robert started, and Doctor Hesperius laid a hand on his arm.

"I want you to know that we'd experimented with these techniques exhaustively before we got to you. We knew exactly what we were doing at this point."

"But you weren't before?" An accusing tone had crept into Roberts voice without him noticing, and Doctor Hesperius' guilty look aggravated it. Robert looked suddenly back to the houses in their quiet semi circle, and spotted the forlorn figure of blanket man, hunched on his porch, swaddled in his quilt.
Robert pointed back to him, staring fiercely at Doctor Hesperius.
"Is that why they're all like..."

Doctor Hesperius shook his head.
"No Robert. We're aren't sure why the earlier residents reacted the way they did, shutting down and closing themselves off from the world. They were older though, we thought they'd be more balanced, a little more mature and accepting."

"Instead we think the idea that so much of their lives where lost, and so little of it was left before them caused them to give up, if you like. Too much lost. They're all suffering from severe depression, Robert. We keep them heavily sedated. it's why we chose to go with someone young the next time."

"You mean me?"

"Yes. We repaired the damaged areas with pre adapted stem cells and encouraged the formation of new connection with a variety of techniques, but mostly using patterning routines whilst you where in REM sleep - your absorbtion of knowledge at this point was around the same as when you where three years old. We were able to correct the deficiencies in your general education remarkably quickly at this point."

"Why can't I rememember any of this?"

Doctor Hesperius chuckled.
"Do you remember being born, Robert? You were still undergoing a variety of therapies, and we've been able to block certain memories being formed thanks to the development of wonderfully specific synthetic neurotransmitters. We wanted your 'first' to be only of waking up here."

"As I said Robert, a clean slate, in every way. It's why we went to such lengths to remove any traces of your old life. We removed tattoos, piercings, and even employed a plastic surgeon in case we've had to remove particulary prominent scars. We even changed your name, just in case it caused any latent memories we'd missed to resurface."

"My name isn't Robert?"

Doctor Hesperius looked uncomfortable.
"No, It is Robert. The procedures you've been under raise difficult questions about Identity. The only similarity you share with your... predecessor is a remarkable physical resemblance, and even that is tenuous. Your posture is much better."

"I interviewed your predecessor several times, and sat in on many of the sessions in which we mapped his personality. I am entirely convinced that you're a completely seperate entity. At the moment, this project operates under the strictest secrecy. The politician's are trying to think of the best way to spin what'll happen here if they decide to adopt our methods."

"Ethically, it's something of a minefield. But a lot depends on how you do on this program. How you fare will determine whether or not this gamble pays off. Maybe you see why I'm trusting you with this infomation. I felt you should know."

Robert nodded his head.

"What should I say to Julia? Do you think she should know or..."

Doctor Hesperius held up his hand, to silence Robert and his shellshocked voice.

"That's for you to decide Robert. the responsibility is yours, but perhaps if you had a clearer idea of why you're here, you might be able to form a better picture of where you will go."

Robert nodded.
Doctor Hesperius made his farewell and left, short legs making their quick little steps as he busied himself up the path, heading back beyond the fences.

___

Later, Robert sat on the beach, letting sand fall through his fingers. He'd carved 'his' name into the beach with a bone light piece of drift wood. Big curving loops of letters that he cut deep into the damp sand.

He felt the sand trickle and fall between his fingers and thumb in soft tickling streams, whilst the waves folded on top of and through themselves as they pushed over the sand in a static rush, until his name started to melt and fade way to nothing.

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