Brainwashing: My Heart is Open, But My Head Remembers

Eleanor, close to the end of the novel: They want to reprogram me. It’s sort of like brainwashing, except you get to keep everything, the old stuff and the new stuff, good and bad. They just want you to direct your thinking a new direction. I am wondering about the brainwashing, though, because maybe I’d like my brain washed, and cleaned, and the memories removed. I want to see everything as though I’ve never seen it before. Like the clouds, or a grassy lawn, or a sidewalk that’s been pushed out of shape from tree roots. The roots have broken it, changed it, but it’s still a sidewalk, see, because people are still walking over it (watch your step, don’t trip!). Maybe I’m more like that kind of sidewalk than anything else. I don’t know what the tree roots are, though. I guess the roots are all of my nasty stuff trying to climb out from deep inside of me, to get to the surface of me. So, you see, reprogramming me isn’t going to work. You need to wash my brain and scrub it clean. The nasty roots won’t have anything on me then, because I’ll just look at them and go, Huh? What are you, anyway? I'm not saying, who. I'm saying what. In case you didn't notice. Anyhow, about the tree roots -- I’ll step right over then, and be on my way.

Listen to me! (she screams at her Biographer): My heart is open, but my head remembers. Does yours? (The last two words are spoken in a whisper.)