Information, The Kinetic Image

This is dedicated to Bruno

[Gratuitous apologies for the length, but this was my final piece of my prose fiction portfolio that I actually managed to finish. So this is for anyone with mad concentration/procrastination skills. I would appreciate comments, but I understand if you're all too busy to read such a headfull :P and as a note on commenting: sorry for not being able to lately but check back to your old posts by next week and I should be caught up!! :)]

The brain was sitting there, beside him, in a pool of its own viscous fluids.

Kyle had just walked languidly down the endless escalators to the belly of metro Namur, and had sat on one of the orange benches feeling mindless and dizzy-sick from a bad mixture of beer and rum and cokes and a half a joint. He’d taken out his phone to check the time and had been about to text a friend when he saw it in the corner of his eye. He glanced over, assigned it the offhand subject of a lost hat, and turned to his phone again. On seeing a void of service bars in the top left hand corner of his KRZR, he snapped the phone closed, frustrated, so that it echoed around the tunnel. He shook his man-bangs out of his eyes, and as his head turned, his attention fell once more on the hat-brain.

A moment of blind numbness ensued in which Kyle was too drunk to truly see what was in front of him. He squinted his eyes, certain his contacts had scratched or, with his drunken logic, decided they must have somehow fogged. He was positive his high had been overpowered by the alcohol, so he was fairly certain he wasn’t hallucinating because of that. The weed his friends got wasn’t exactly laced with acid or anything else either. He was pretty sure.

His brain sludged a few stupored moments computing the odds of this possibility before he realized how silly his paranoia was. The corner of his mouth sagged in a smile at the irrationality of his imagination. He would have to tell his friends as soon as he got out of the metro and they could laugh at his stupidity – although not too hard; just thinking of laughing was making him nauseous. As was the fact that the brain wasn’t disappearing. Its continuing presence was making his foot tap in nervousness, as though the seconds going by were actually hands turning a wind-up toy in preparation to let it loose and go berserk. The faster his foot twitched, the more he needed to know.

In an inebriated process of common sense, he decided that the only way he was going to believe it was there was to touch it. He formed a weak fist and protruded his index finger, sailing his hand toward the foreign object like a sloop ship to a new world. The uncoordinated momentum resulted in a kamikaze finger dive-bombing into what was unmistakably a genuine jelly-rough texture. In a heavy clunk of realization, he was forced to come to the very obvious conclusion that he wasn’t so wildly drunk that he had started seeing things.

His first thought, on accepting that the brain existed, was, of course, that it must be fake.

A second later, however, he noticed the smell. Nothing on earth could fake that, he was certain. Not that he knew what rotting brains smelled like, the tang of their slow decay in being exposed to humid subterranean air. But, like when he encountered spaceships and yetis and ghosts (and he had), he knew the real thing when he saw it; it wasn’t some imaginary force taking hold of his thoughts and perverting them into crazed fantasies. This brain was real.

The next thought was nearly obliterated by revulsion and horror. Something out there was dead. This brain was the functioning organ of a living thing and it was here, beside him, leaking and oozing white matter onto the mid-80’s style tiled floor, stuck all over his finger from where he’d touched it. He felt the gray matter and dead skin cells creeping under his fingernail and seeping into his pores, infecting his body with secondhand death, racing up his veins so fast it felt like everything within him was rushing to his head in a mad clamber-dash to escape the repulsion that was now infiltrating his insides so –

He vomited.

His body bucked and released curdled-looking liquid all over the floor. Sixty bucks just to spew, he thought as his esophagus burned, and remembered why he hated going out to drink.

The next thought, which he immediately realized should have been his first thought, was where was the body?

As if it would manifest at this presumption, Kyle looked around with mad-wide eyes, wiping his mouth and sweat-droplet nose on his hoodie’s sleeves. No one was there. He hadn’t even seen the corpse-eyed nightshift STM employee in the ticket booth when he’d passed by. He’d assumed that had been in protest of working, though, because there was so much red paint thrown at the plexiglass window to the point that you could barely see in or out anymore.

The metro was dark and musty. It was a quarter after one in the morning; he was catching the last train. The stairs led upwards ominously toward lightly glowing geodesic domes defying gravity that cast square shadows like he was caught in a cubist version of reality. His heart beat in rapid smashing knocks shouting the mantra Get out! Not safe! Get out! Not safe! He tried to calm it by wrapping one arm around his stomach and one hand around his throat. It was his version of fetal position.

How long had the brain been here? What if the killer-mutilator was hidden at the other end of the track – on the tracks, ready to spring up with a giant bone saw and eyes crazed from a fresh kill? The blood had barely begun to dry and it had felt somewhat warm when he’d touched it.

For a painful few seconds, in which his heart suddenly grew spikes and began to violently swing around his chest cavity like a mace, he thought that the zombie invasion was finally here. He jumped up (or rather staggered to a troglodyte stance), wondering why he’d put off buying a chainsaw for so long.

Then he shook his head. No, he told himself in a desperate, enforced calm, zombies would have eaten the brain. Yes, that was true. He closed his eyes and breathed out, laughing a nervous laugh at how he clearly was getting ahead of himself. Not only that, but the murderer was without a doubt gone, had likely caught the metro he’d seen pulling away just as he’d scanned his Opus card and slouched uncoordinatedly down the stairs, unable to run for it. There was no one here – unless you counted the person trapped in the convolution of cell structure, locked in the no longer functioning organ beside him.

Unless…was it still functioning? He frowned at the brain, squinting his eyes and giving it a suspicious sidelong glance. Was there a person still in there? More mind sludges considered this prospect. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed there had to be someone in there. Dormant and maybe writhing silently in pain, but beyond-a-doubt-bound to this hunk of flesh, scurrying, scuttling along electrode neuropathways.

He began to feel sick again, and leaned back to let his stomach stretch out. What he needed was to distract himself from the nausea. He looked back at the brain and tried to imagine what kind of person it had belonged to. What was its name – was it male or female? It was a pretty big brain, so he figured it was male, but he imagined one of his feminist friends slapping him and decided to be diplomatic and give it one that was gender neutral. He tried to think of the names that he’d happily escaped as a helpless infant when his parents were bent on giving him one that was old-made-modern and could go either way. Constantine (shudder). Jessie (meh). Emerson (maybe).

He paused, pressed his lips together and ground his teeth in thought. Emerson was good – inferior to the name “Kyle”, but he’d always felt a twinge of jealousy whenever he’d met someone named Emerson. He looked at the brain, like God, and saw that it was good.

“HeyyyEmerson,” he slurred (smelling his stink of post-puke breath in the process).

Emerson just sat there, stewing and growing continually more fetid.

“Thassssokay. I don’t talk mucheeither.” Kyle listened for the metro coming in the distance, but there was only the insect buzz of the florescent lights, so he tried to think of something else to say. His stomach was settling slightly; he had to keep talking for a few more minutes and then he knew he’d be fine.

He wondered what the last thought in this brain might have been before it had left its body.

“I wonder iffffyou ‘member whatchoo were thinkin’ of,” he said. “Musta been scared.”

He thought about the scene that might have taken place. There must have been running and screaming and blood, so much blood. Fear, pumping away in an adrenaline rush through the veins, making up for the fact that life was about to end by giving you an extra dose of vitality. Then that life had rushed out of those veins, spilling on some alleyway, or backseat of a car, or cruddy apartment in some basement of a building. Blood, blood, so much blood.

His head was spinning again. His stomach unsettled once more as the Leviathan of sickness stirred in his belly, breaching its dormant waters and prickling up his throat. He didn’t want to throw up again, and threw himself in an almost entirely reclined position against the wall and the seat, gripping the edge with one hand and putting a clamp-like hand across his eyes to squeeze each temple. Black. He needed blackness and numbness. Anyone who says it’s fun being drunk is retarded, he thought. Why do I do this to myself?

Just as he’d started to achieve that transcended space of quiet, the sound of hollow chimes suddenly rung out in the air.

“Attention,” said a clear and extremely precise-speaking female voice. “Un accident cause un ralentissement de service sur la ligne – ” (ever so slight microsecond pause just enough to get his hopes up) “ – orange – ” (Damnit, he thought) “en direction – ” (another fraction of a pause as he once again puffed with hope) “ – Montmorency – ”

He slunk even lower in his seat, both hands dragging in frustration down his face, accidentally ripping his new snakebites in the process. The taste of blood was exactly what he couldn’t handle right now, and he vomited again, finishing just in time to hear the woman calmly say, “ – Merci pour votre comprehension. D’autres messages suivront.”

Son of a bitch STM lady, he thought, squeezing heave-tears away from his eyelashes with his knuckles and feeling chunks in his throat. He forced himself to swallow them down.

It took him a few minutes to recover, in which no messages suivront-ed. He stared straight ahead and sighed, feeling slightly better in any case.

“WelllEmerson,” he said after a bit, “lookssslike it’s just you ‘n me.”

He looked over at the silent brain, head rolling against the wall to fall on his shoulder. Here was this intricate train of cells bound together into the most complex organ of existence. Information through organics. Images stored in coils and ready to spring to life with a spark of kinetic energy. The same thing was in his brain.

It occurred to him that all this mind’s memories were stuck inside this jelly hunk of cellular matter with absolutely no means to communicate them. The person inside Emerson was helpless. He himself would be helpless one day, cut apart from his mouth. He could be this brain – Emerson 2.0 – if the killer still did happen to be lurking somewhere close by. (He looked nonchalantly underneath his seat just to make sure that he wasn’t. Safe.)

Still – he thought about his life and how it was bound up in intricate electrical impulses. If no one heard what his life was about, then he was left with nothing. He would be nothing. He would be an empty, lonely brain waiting for a metro that may or may not come.

Kyle no longer felt afraid of the brain, or even all that nauseated. He wanted to do something for it, but he didn’t know what.

When he was young and stayed home from school sick, or tripped over his rebel shoelaces in the playground and got woodchip splinters in his knees, his mother would put him in bed, bandaged or medicated, and not know what to do either. She probably shouldn’t have ever had kids – at least not so young – because she just sat awkwardly by his bedside, flipping through magazines and reading him gossip magazine articles she’d find that were of moderate interest, skipping over the inappropriate-for-four-year-olds parts so none of it even made coherent sense.

Kyle didn’t know what to do for a brain either, so he followed his mother’s example and began to tell Emerson stories. He only had ones about himself, and he didn’t have the energy to edit, so he just started to talk.

“WhennI went to an art ex’bition once, I jacked offffffin front of a painting.” He chuckle-breathed through his nose. “’Twasssa private show sssssso no one saw. I came onto the painting, but it looked like a Pollock and no one noticed, theyyyall thought it was part of it.”

He looked over at Emerson. “Dooonnn’t get judgmental,” he said to the silent brain. “The artisssst was a sunuvabitch. He thrrrrewa rock at me once and said it wasssart. Bastard. Had to get three sssstichessss on my chin.”

Kyle tried to run his finger along his half-inch scar, but missed and poked himself in the eye.

“Thissssother time,” he said, wiping his streaming eye on his sleeve, “I wassssso drunk I decided I really wanted one of those tatoooossss on your stomach, of a monkey’s asss, with the assssshole where the bellybutton is, that I actually asked my frrrriends to shave off all the hair on my chesssst ssssooo we could go to Adrenaline and getit done.” He absently stuck his hand up his shirt to play with his naval. “’Course, I jusssst happened to be with girls that night, ssso they thought it’d be smarterrr to wax. Fucking Chrisssst that fucking killed. Then we gottttooo Adrenaline aannnd they were all, ‘We dooonnn’t tattoooo drunk people’.” He patted his untainted and not-quite-so-queasy-anymore belly, and sighed. “Thank God. I would’ve killed mysssselffff.”

Emerson’s quiet made him think twice about what he said.

“Oh – ssssorrry Emerson, I wouldn’t’ve reallyyy killed myssselff.” He ran his tongue over his lips, mouth feeling extremely dry. “Ssssuckssss that you’re dead.” He made a face that he hoped was sympathetic. He couldn’t quite feel his jaw so he figured the expression didn’t look like much of anything. At least Emerson didn’t have eyes to see him fail.

“I alsssso lit ssssomething on fire once,” said Kyle. After this statement he was quieter, he and Emerson thinking solemnly and contemplating his words. “I wassssn’t sstoned ‘r anything even. I wassss just really angry. It was right after I turned ten and ssssuddenly my dad decided to pickup and leave. I ssstole his lighter and ssset the treehousssse we’d made together onfire.” He paused, then rephrased. “Nnno…actuuually, I won’t lie. It alwaysssounds cooler when I putttit like dat. Thingggis, my dad loved his lighter, so I ssstole it. Then I was hidinggin the treehouse and lightingit again andagain, but I couldn’t sssee what I wassdoing because I was – ” He paused again. “My eyes were tired, I wasssn’t paying attention. I dropped the lighter. The treehoussse littton fire.”

He recalled clambering out of the flaming wooden hideaway. Once he was back on the ground, he’d most distinctly remembered the satisfying curl of the ashes landing on his face like moths. Then his mother had run out of the house, tear streaked, running as fast as her skinny short legs could carry her and the giant fire extinguisher she brandished. She screamed at him for a week after about ‘how dare he do something so irresponsible?’ and ‘didn’t he think about anyone but himself?’ and ‘she wasn’t going to be there all the time for him to come crawling to if he fucked things up!’

Emerson waited patiently while Kyle belched loudly and satisfyingly. It made him feel a smidgeon better. “ThennnI rebuilt the treehoussse a few yearsss later. It was, like, the firssst year of high school or sssomething. I did it with my girlfriend and our bessst friend.”

Kyle paused at that point, and frowned.

“Actually, I should sssay my ex. She jusssst broke upwith me, by the way. Well. Not jusssst. Four daysssago. We were going out forrrover eight years. This weekend we were sss’posed to go camping. But shhhe ended up going with our best friend instead.” He stopped, licked his slimy lips, and scowled. “Now shhhe’s making ssweet, sssstoned love to her for a whole week with the weed I bought for usss.” He leaned down really close to Emerson to whisper, “And shhhe didn’t even have the decency to tell me shhe wasss completely lesssssbian. Apparently she’ssss bi, I’m jussst not man enough to keep her on thisssside of the heterosssexual fence. She’sss too busy wanting to sssstraddle it. Or her, in thisss case.” He burped again, glad there was no one around to feel the reverberations that emanated from it, and leaned upright again. “Y’know, come to think offffit, they were actually the onessss who got all the other girlssss to wax my chesst. Bitches. Bet they’re laughing nowwweh, Emerssson? Well we don’t need them. Lookssslike it’sssjussst you ‘n me. It’sss justyou ‘n me, buddy.”

For a second, Kyle thought that Emerson was rumbling an answer, moved so greatly by his stories that it had broken the binding shell of its skin and managed to communicate with him.

“’Merssson?” he slurred.

Then blue and white stripes shot out of the station’s tunnel led by headlights. It was exceptionally loud and bright. He winced.

“Well dasssmy metro,” he said, now feeling a slight bit awkward. How should he say goodbye to a brain? “It wassnice meeting you,” he told it. “But I guess thisssis goodbye.”

Emerson sulked, sad at being left alone. After all, Kyle had just promised they’d stick together.

“Now don’t be like that,” Kyle said. “I’ll tell you what. When I get home, I’mmma burn down that treehoussse again and thinkof you.”

The metro started to slow. He stood up in a swagger akin to a newbie pirate who would likely drown before he found his sea-legs.

“ByeeEmerson!” he waved. “Take careof yoursself!”

The metro stopped and the synchrony of dozens of doors opening echoed through the station. He lurched forward uncomfortably, trying not to slip in the pool of sick by his converse shoes, and yet desperate to make it inside the doors before they closed. It took two tries, but he made it.

The car he stepped into wasn’t, as he’d hoped, empty. Still, he was able to sprawl himself across the long seats and put his feet up on the single chair in front of him. He caught the other passengers looking suspiciously at him. One man in particular squinted at the brain, and then at him, and then back. But no one did anything. It was Montreal. No one spoke to each other, let alone after 1am, let alone in a metro car, let alone to a twenty-two-year-old with snakebites and a vomit-stenched hoodie.

As the doors shut again and the metro’s take off horn sounded almost inaudible, the STM woman’s voice came on the intercom once again.

“Attention. Service rétabli sur la ligne orange. Service rétabli – ” (Thanks, thought Kyle absently, surprised at how disappointed he was that Emerson was no longer in view. “Merci pour votre comprehension, she finished, as they rushed into the darkness between stations.