BRAIN OF FLESH

While he was awake he became painfully aware of the fleshiness of his brain.

He became obsessed with the idea that his brain was really no more than flesh and blood, subject to pain, fatigue, and disease. The fact that it was capable of thought at all seemed a joke in the worst possible taste.

In fact, he thought it far more likely that this brain of a few simple parts was merely some sort of receiver, tuned to some distant channel, and that his every thought originated elsewhere, that his life was simply the sum total of idle ruminations haphazardly received from some anonymous thinker.

How did the brain smell when it died? Was it like some handful of spoiled meet? He'd known people who were losing their minds and they did have some sort of foul fragrance about them.

Some nights before he went to sleep he'd make an effort to turn his brain into something more, into a transmitter of thoughts, of pleadings back to the hidden source of all his inspirations.

Who are you? he sent, with the darkness closing in. I must see your face. Where am I going? And will I go there alone?

—Steve Rasnic Tem

Steve Rasnic Tem Website

All rights to this poem belong to its author.

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