Researches into the nature of the brain mean that a scientist must make a decision for his partner who is suffering from lesions. What will these new technologies do to that partner? Will an augmented brain mean a different person within?
“To be perfectly blunt, when performing early tests on mice, it was hard to tell if they were in pain, or going crazy. It didn’t appear that way, though.”
Doctor Thurman spoke at the front of the class, a laser pointer emphasizing his diagrams on damaged mice brains undergoing organoid implantation.
The course consisted of 30 biomedical engineering students with a 25-student limit. This was the first semester of Ethics of Organoid Research (ENG BE 547), and everyone had heard about the World Health Organization’s and CDC’s collaborative efforts to regulate cortical cell grafting. Dr. Thurman was the only person in the world who had the firsthand experience to discuss why it was so important. And, it was his first semester teaching in over two decades.
“To say we were the only group performing these tests, in spite of moral ambiguity, would be more than untrue. Organoid research was, you all know, increasingly popular in research centers around the world in the 2020s,” Dr. Thurman continued. “Taking stem cells and developing them to reflect organ cell functionality––repairing damaged and diseased cells––was too ripe an avenue. Medicine would be changed forever. Everyone was testing on mice, some on chimps.
“But it was Boston University where the research made such incredible strides in cortical organoids. Or as we called them, ‘mini brains.’ While some faculty developed and grew organoids and assembloids, it was others, such as myself, who put them to use in mice. Can anyone tell me what the first successful case of cell replacement in mice was?”
A brief silence came over the room. It used to be a good way to weed out potential graduate researchers in Dr. Thurman’s lab. Now, it was anxiety inducing. Eventually, a hand raised––an undergraduate named Bella. “Parkinson’s disease?” she said.
Dr. Thurman smiled. “Don’t sound so unsure, Ms. Peña. You’re exactly right.” He flipped over to the next slide. “What we were grafting, essentially, were miniature brains that assimilated to the larger organ. The very name, organoids, suggests replicating organ function. So, the most complex organ would be the hardest to perfect.
“One such issue was the capacity for tumor growth, among general failure for the natural cells to capitulate. All cells follow a path of decay––apoptosis, so on. When introducing what were basically infantile cells with an influx of morphogens, and putting them into an already functioning system, we were opening more pathways in their development. In other words, the increased chance for tumor growth, or rather, more doorways for tumors to appear, led to many issues. Why?”
Another hand raised. A boy that Dr. Thurman had yet to nail down the name of, and didn’t have time to glance at the seating chart for. “Professor Thurman, does any of this have to do with your, um, ex?” he asked. There was a shuffle of agreement in the room. “Sorry for the intrusion, Professor. I just… The ethics of organoid use has to do a lot with Patrick Osmond, doesn’t it? The… ‘Reconstructed Man?’”
“Yes, that is correct,” Dr. Thurman began. “But first, we––”
“And you were together, weren’t you?”
Thurman gazed out at the sea of eyes. He saw the awe. Back in the day, it was over what could be done. Now it was over what he had done. The glazed-over looks of elective-course students were a thing of the past.
He checked of his watch: forty-five minutes left of class, but what the hell? Thurman flicked through seven or eight slides until he reached the one that got the creak of adjusted seats he’d expected: Major Human Trials.
“Yes, well, true enough. I suppose you should know the history of organoids by now, through coursework or… being alive the last couple of decades.” A small chuckle echoed across the room. That was something. They didn’t hate him yet. “After almost two decades of mice and even basic human trials, we reached a point where we could approach human neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental subjects on a large scale. In my case, it was with Patrick Osmond, who I was seeing at the time. He had epilepsy––one of the more confounding neurological disorders, because…”
Thurman stifled a chuckle. Becorze. Patrick always teased him for his light German accent, especially heard in his constant use of the word. Something caught his throat, and for a moment, the doctor forgot he was surrounded by young adults awaiting a tragedy. That slid to the forefront, as ever, quickly.
“Because we still, to this day, are unsure of the direct cause, cellularly, for certain patients. It is a widely varying phenotype that requires a number of different treatments, none of which are guaranteed to work ad infinitum. Patrick was one such patient. I had been recently prepared for the next human trial on Parkinson’s treatment in what would be the largest section of brain cells replaced with cortical organoids to date––just below an eighth of the total organ mass. The morning we were set to meet, Patrick had…had a very intense seizure.”
𖡹
The world always drew in on itself. Patrick didn’t know how to describe it any better than that. Not really.
He was standing on the platform at Kenmore, ready to ride the Green Line trolley to Government Center, when the world drew in on itself like it often did. When he returned, there were five or six strangers standing over him, looking down with concern and confusion.
Welcome to the fucking club, he wanted to say, but his head was swimming and his jaw felt like it was glued to the concrete. His limbs tingled at the digits the way they often did after a seizure, and he felt similarly to when he might wake up from a particularly heavy nap. And God, but he felt like he could use one now.
Something in his leg was itching. His phone? Must be. James must have gotten the notification that Patrick was having a seizure, and was now trying to call him. That meant the EMTs were definitely on the way.
“Are you hurt?” a young man––mid-twenties, around Michael’s age, maybe––asked him, noticing he was awake. For a second, Patrick was sure that it was Michael, and he was ready to playfully ask where the hell his younger brother had been the last few months (California. He’s in California for a fresh start. His name is Michael Alexander Osmond and my name is Patrick Alexander Osmond and I’m 31 years old and I live in Boston and I just had a concussion, and the year is––
“Patrick!” James’s voice cut through Patrick’s regularly scheduled brain exercise. It was important to check for any permanent brain damage––any seizure could do it. This was a small assurance that meant he was still wholly himself. That James came running out in his pajamas and slippers was the only reason Patrick wasn’t miffed about cutting it short.
“Hi,” Patrick said, trying on a smile. His jaw still felt like it weighed a metric ton––why was that?
“Oh God…!” James covered his mouth with his hand, and immediately pulled his robe off, revealing the slight round belly beneath his folded-over tank top. It was warmly attractive. Whatever that meant. “You’re bleeding,” James said, wiping at Patrick’s face. “Is your head bleeding? Did he cut his head open?!”
“He bit his tongue, we think,” an older woman said. The others nodded. A few had already stepped back now that James was here––now that the professional had arrived. Wasn’t that the story of their fucking lives. The professional scientist and his hot piece of grant-administration-working ass. Not that Patrick really minded being said piece.
But what was being said? The conversation had ebbed, maybe for a while, and Patrick was struggling to keep tabs on everything.
He’d bitten his tongue––that added up, now that he thought it over; copper flooded his tastebuds, and the heaviness to his jaw was more like stickiness and a dull ache. It sounds like he barely missed the yellow strip of the platform, which was good, since a trolley stopped there just a minute later, and thank God nobody moved him or he might have suffered more damage, and no, yes, thank you, no thank you, no he’s everything to me, I don’t know what I, oh, yes, right, yeah I hear the sirens too, okay let’s get him up, and could you help me, and Patrick, Patrick…
“Patrick?” James cupped his partner’s face in one hand, the coarseness of his bristled chin rubbing against James’s hand with a sensation Patrick found himself fixating on. His head still hurt. “Are you with me, hase?”
“I’m with you,” Patrick said. He tried to step down, prove he could walk himself to the ambulance, and found it increasingly difficult as they were already inside, and he was laying on the gurney. “Sorry. I’m still a little dazed.”
“It’s okay,” the EMT said on his other side. He turned to look at him and felt his head swimming. So maybe there was a concussion in there. “Just relax, Mr. Osmond. We’re headed to the Boston Medical Center.”
“Easy commute for you then,” Patrick said to James, who was staring at him humorlessly. “What?” Patrick asked.
James was biting his fist as he stared. He was never one for poker. Patrick knew James was nervous, but more than that, he was curious. He was thinking, the same way he did whenever he was working on one of his organoid projects as they’d made a breakthrough.
I’m Patrick Osmond, he thought in the back of his mind. Usually, that was front and center by now. Concussion for sure, but… was there more damage? My name is Patrick Osmond, he thought as concretely as he could, but the thought was surrounded by fuzz. The year is… Fuck me… the year… the year is…?
“Patrick,” James said. Patrick looked over at him. No, that wasn’t right. He was already looking at him. He just… returned to focus. James reached over and wiped a finger across his lips. “You’re drooling.”
“Oh, I…” I’m sorry. It wouldn’t come out. “I’m’s… I’m s-s-so…!”
“Patrick?!” James’s eyes lit up. He flicked a gaze at the EMT Patrick could barely stand to remember was there. “Take it slow. Slowly, mein Hase.”
“I’m s-s-s-sorry,” Patrick said. He was crying now––or for a while, maybe. His emotional dial felt like it was dialed up to eleven, and spread across a broadband of anger, anxiety, and ecstasy. “I-I-I… sor-rry.”
“The concussion must be severe,” a voice somewhere in the fucking ether said. The EMT, Patrick told himself, but it felt like the thought came from another room.
James swore, or shouted, or something. A loud noise that made Patrick’s head ache and made James put a hand on his, apologizing. “It’s brain damage,” he said. “He’s suffering post-epileptic brain damage. His cortical pyramidal cells are dying.” His voice shook. “Drive faster.”
Patrick wanted to tell him it would be alright, that he could remember and feel and see and hear… but it was so hard to get anything out. The best he did was grab his partner’s hand and squeeze. Squeeze, and for the life of him, try to remember what year, what day, what time it was.
𖡹
“After discussing the potential ramifications, we decided the risk to pursue Patrick over the prior patient was worth it for Patrick’s current well-being. Following several in vivo scans, we determined his hippocampus and cerebral cortex were the two most damaged areas, with over half of both brain sections rendered ‘mal-’ or ‘nonfunctioning.’ He was healed within a matter of weeks.”
A hand raised. Darnell Brown. Thurman pointed to him with a sinking feeling in his stomach. “But doesn’t it take months for the organoid cells to, like, adapt and basically reconstruct the damaged cells?”
“In most cases, yes. As I’ve mentioned, however, here at BU, we had a surplus of biomaterials––boosters––to simulate prenatal development. Within two months of said development, fetal brains typically grow out in their front, mid, and hind sections. In the case of Patrick, we only needed to redevelop two areas.
“It was a gamble to use such an influx of organoids and biomaterials. Several of my colleagues were, shall we say, less than thrilled, because we used the majority of the university’s supplies. I ended up contacting sister sites in California, because they generated as many organoids as we did with less use for application, and things began to stabilize within a few months.
“There was the fear that Patrick may develop tumors on his brain. We were lucky that it did not happen. Although in some respects, I suppose we were unlucky, because it only pushed me to further my research. The cerebral cortex and hippocampus were showing an infantile newness. No wear-and-tear, yet all the lived-in experience of his thirty years.”
“So, like a brand new brain?” Darnell asked.
Thurman nodded. “In essence, yes. A brand new brain. So why not, I asked, seek to cure the brain of epilepsy entirely?”
𖡹
“Um, because for one thing, we don’t know precisely the cause of my epilepsy,” Patrick said. “That’s why not.”
They sat on the balcony of their apartment, looking out at the Boston Common. Funny, but Patrick had very little memory of the whole ordeal. He knew what had happened, of course, in some way. He was there for it. But with the new section of his brain––new and improved, James would joke––it felt like there had never been an issue to begin with.
It had been a radical move by James, and Patrick knew it had invoked some anger within his circle of researchers. It was unethical, dangerous, and completely untested to use fake little organs to infest sections of his brain with healthy copies; more or less alien symbiotic shit. Patrick agreed with them, frankly.
But it had worked. Patrick was better. And now, James was being named a Damon DeVille scholar––some retired faculty member from the Medical school––and science magazines across the country were silently reaching out to get the first big scoop from him. He was raking in enough money for them to move from Kenmore Square to an apartment by the Common. It was an intoxicating feeling, for no one more than James.
That look in his eye was unwavering, unending. Curiosity at the next big step. Patrick would have hated it if it weren’t so endearing on him.
“Yes, but that is precisely my point,” he said, dragging on his cigarette. “Take this for example,” he said, waving the nicotine stick through the cloud of smoke he wisped off the balcony. “We don’t know how it will affect my lungs. Only that it will.”
“So stop smoking,” Patrick said.
James feigned ignorance. “I could live to my nineties, and we would never know for sure how badly it had affected things. I could contract lung cancer by forty, or ninety-three, or never. Beyond that, my lungs will cease to properly function with age as it is. Marginal differences, maybe, but it will happen, because we are mortal things.”
“Becorze,” Patrick mindlessly mimicked.
“Imagine if we could make respiratory and conductory organoids to replace them before it was even a problem? Wouldn’t you want that for me?”
“Immortality,” Patrick said. “It sounds like you’re talking about immortality, bunny.”
James shrugged. He took another drag from the cigarette before flicking it onto the sidewalk below. The sun set to the west and he gazed at it. A vintage Victrola hummed inside the apartment. The smell of barbecued meats and veggies wafted from a food truck on the corner.
Patrick looked at James. To see him live forever wouldn’t be so bad, maybe––not if they did it together. He didn’t believe that was possible, but what was a few extra years, maybe decades, if the epilepsy was run out by stem cells like an exterminator to roaches?
There were risks. Things that ought to be said but weren’t, maybe didn’t need to be. James was a careful man, and doubly-so as a scientist. It would take years, not months, to complete, and would require more funding than any project before or likely after. But right now, James had a leg up. He had the attention of the scientific community. He had, in some manner or other, shown that a longer lifespan was possible not only for the disabled, but everyone. At least, as far as Patrick could tell, he had. After all, he was the evidence.
There were no signs of tumor growth. No unexpected symptoms. His seizures still occurred, and he was still on medication for it, but Christ only knew how well it worked. It would be a permanent fix. Who knew how many epileptics before him had wished for the same thing? But a voice in the back of his head wondered the same thing. Like a tidal wave of worry, the words danced across his brain as synapses. Would?
Would?
Would I…?
Would I still?
Would I still be?
Would I still be me?
“Would I still be me?” Patrick muttered. He wasn’t sure if he wanted James to hear him
––wasn’t even sure he wanted to speak the words––but he did. The fact that he did left him uneasy. But James, looking at the sunset, took Patrick’s hand and squeezed. Patrick was then sure he wanted to go on. “Would it still be my brain? The me that I feel like I am?”
“The mice we’ve tested on,” James began. Patrick scoffed, but he went on. “They’ve not shown signs of new behaviors, unstable behaviors. They’re more or less the same.”
“What a comfort,” Patrick said. “You told me you couldn’t even tell if they were crazy or not.”
“Well, no. We can’t,” James confessed, turning back to Patrick. “Because they are mice. But they appear the same, in all ways we can see. Not crazy. No more so than you.”
They laughed. Kissed. Made love later that evening and fell asleep by each other’s side. Before their kiss goodnight, James asked if Patrick would please consider the treatment. For himself, if not for each other.
And Patrick, feeling a longing, an eagerness, said yes. If not eager for James, then for the chance to never worry again if the music was too loud, if he was feeling too stressed, if he was just having a headache or experiencing an aura. To live like everyone else did. To drive, to drink, to smoke. To live.
Oh, to live.
Oh, to live.
Oh, to live.
Oh, to live.
Oh, to live.
𖡹
“It took several years before we began to notice any serious changes,” Dr. Thurman said. He’d never seen a class so engaged. It would be fulfilling if it weren’t so anxiety inducing. “We were able to put into practice intriguing methods of study on Patrick’s brain. Every week, he was scanned for tumor growth, and every couple of months, we would swap epileptic treatments. We wanted to see if there were any major improvements to his condition following a brain section being transplanted with organoids. Because all we felt sure of was the epilepsy’s neurological basis.
“As I said, we did not know if the mice were in any pain or going crazy. With humans––with Patrick––it was different. Where the ethics of this experiment come into play, among other aspects, is because of my insistence to continue, despite his saying something was wrong.
“According to our readings, everything was going smoothly. With more funding and resources than any other institution in the world, the Boston Medical Center was giving me carte blanche to offload as many organoids and biomaterials into Patrick’s brain as I wanted. By the time we had replaced his temporal cortex and Broca area, the epilepsy had seemed to cease. Patrick had… suggested we stop there. But this far in, the unimplanted sections of the brain were performing at a lower level than the rest of the organ, which I feared could cause an imbalance of chemical function and mental stability. And… I suppose, I wanted to finish what I had started.”
Thurman allowed himself a moment to breathe. The class was quieter. Engaged, maybe. But he could sense the judgment coming from their eyes, their upturned chins, their frowns. He took a swig of water before continuing.
“Patrick described… He said he was hearing things. I ran tests checking for signs of schizophrenia, but nothing came up. All we could see were standard brain waves.
“So I kept going.”
𖡹
The world stopped closing in on itself. Now it opened. Always it opened like
a like a budding flower
like an asshole
like the petals in spring
like something that opens.
like a pickle jar
like a rose
and it never closed. He was layers upon layers, all seeing the same thing, experiencing the same experience. All thinking in their respective function.
Patrick wasn’t himself anymore. Not only himself. But there was no one else in there. So why did he have such a hard time keeping things straight? Frankly, it was really
hard
difficult
fucking scary
hearing all those voices. Thoughts. Whatever they were. Having limited control over his muscle movements, his speech, his emotions. Everything felt like it was determined by a hivemind that had fallen out of sync. A hundred-thousand-million ants crawling inside his skull, each one chittering, giving commands; many of them succeeding.
James ran dozens of tests on Patrick over the last several years, each time with a larger and more eager team of researchers. It became colder, more scientific, with each new face. Patrick was the mouse. And the scans showed nothing wrong.
Despite the tremors, the appendage jerks, the eye twitch, there was no sign of Parkinson’s. Despite the constant verbalization of things Patrick had no intention of saying, sometimes hadn’t even thought loud enough to hear, no sign of Tourette’s. He still had no tumors. He hadn’t had a seizure in over three years. He was perfectly healthy.
But something was wrong.
“Nothing is wrong, mein Hase,” James insisted.
They were in the kitchen, and they were supposed to be having dinner. Patrick was meant to be cooking, but he couldn’t. Every time he tried to pick up a pot or pan or fucking fork, his fingers would twitch. Every time he thought of what to cook, he’d decide on pasta, but also grilled cheese, but also pork loins.
“Something is wrong, James!” Patrick cried. He tried to say it again, but got caught on “is” and gave up on it, his jaw already sore. He was stressed, and worse, he knew he was stressed. The overlapping anxiety was ingrained in him from the epilepsy. He hated feeling this way. To feel it a hundred times over was enough to make him curl into the fetal position by the fridge. “You refuse to believe me! It’s
science
pride
envy
medical
menial
nothing
n-n-nothing to you but nerves! You’re being interviewed by news outlets around the world. All the glory and n-none of the cons… none of the conse…consequences.”
“Don’t make it about that,” James said. He was leaning against the kitchen island. “Anyway, you, yourself have gotten interviewed.”
“Hardly,” Patrick replied. “They’re more interested in hearing the artist speak than the painting.”
James sighed, rubbing his face in his hand. Watching him, Patrick’s hand began to raise to his own face and do the same. He yanked it down with a panic. He hadn’t thought to do that. Not all of him. Just some part wanting to mimic.
He’d had stopped going into work. He thought these surgeries would mean he could go in full-time again. But he’d traded the seizures for… this.
“I want to stop with the treatment,” Patrick said, deliberately enunciating each word. Making sure they were all the ones he wanted. “I want… Is there any w-way we can re…re…reverse it?”
James looked terrified. Or hurt. Angry? Fuck’s sake, but it was hard to tell anymore. “You can’t––Patrick, no that’s not possible. And to stop now would… the rest of your brain would––”
“Be the exact s-same as it was bef…f…fore!” Patrick shouted. It was louder than he meant it to be. Surprise, surprise. “Whatever you’ve done, the seizures are g-gone, James. It’s already replaced the part of my brain that caused the epilepsy. Thank you––NO! Not thank you. Fuck! James, you’re so focused on recreating a brain, do you even know which part of my brain caused the f-f-f-fucking epilepsy?”
𖡹
“I did, but not in the moment,” Dr. Thurman said. “It was a bad time to forget, but we were taking copious notes over the last several years, and he called me out in an impassioned moment. To Patrick, it seemed like I didn’t care. Candidly, I’ve never been good at expressing these things. My limbic system is… faulty, I suppose.”
No laughter. No questions. They were all waiting for the moment more publicized than any major human achievement since the moon landing. More stunning than the first captured image of a black hole.
“I left the apartment that night and returned to the office. Our fight was not particularly noteworthy. There was no slamming of doors, no thrown cutlery. Hardly an insult given. You will have to take me on my word at this, I suppose, because there is no other way to take it. It was a fight like any couple has, albeit the subject matter was… more delicate.
“You must also believe me that there was no indication of Patrick’s described symptoms. All tests showed nominal brain behavior. If anything, it was improved brain behavior. You must also understand we were not literally replacing his brain. We were implanting organoids in each section and promoting growth and stimulation with the preexisting cells. Like repairing a worn engine.
“Now, a tumor may press on the brain, such as on the amygdala, and affect the regulation of anxiety and depression. Now imagine…imagine the pressure of having new cells and their morphogens spreading across your brain and growing. Across each function. And worst of all, to not be able to see it. But as with many things, just because you cannot see something, that does not mean it isn’t there.”
𖡹
Of course, Patrick had considered how to deal with things on his own, should it come to that. He did it the day after he agreed to let James overwrite his fucking brain. That involved making contacts. Contacts like Dr. David.
Doctor David was one of the lowest rated neurologists on Web M.D. in the area––given that he didn’t even share a last name, it wasn’t hard to believe. Patrick didn’t care. After James returned to the office, Patrick was left with his million other selves. And all of them were panicking. All of them trying to come up with a way to get rid of everyone else. He wasn’t even certain that it was his idea to call the doctor.
He went to Southie by trolley, and then on foot. His left leg kept twitching, jolting like it would the moment before falling asleep. It made him look like a drug addict.
On a street beneath an overpass, lined with crowded two-floor apartments, a neon sign on the window of 364 Harnois Ave. declared itself “Dr. David’s Office.” The good doctor opened the door before Patrick could knock. He ushered him quickly in, and the operation began quickly thereafter.
Patrick was given a handful of oxycodone and a Dixie cup of water. He had a little over thirty minutes to think before his mind slipped away, nerves and anxiety and other selves and all.
He could see the pick in Dr. David’s hands. He saw it run its way up his nose, and knew it would be making its way to the frontal lobe to sever connections after breaching the ethmoid. He knew all of this like a distant memory as the thoughts flickered.
I didn’t want this
I don’t want this
I’ll still be here when they’re gone
I’ll still be here when they’re gone
When you’re gone
When I’m gone
I want this
He’ll forgive me
He’ll understand
He’ll never forgive me
He did this to me
I want to die
I don’t want to die
I want to
I don’t want to
I want
I
I
𖡹
“The police were able to find Patrick the next morning. He’d been deposited on a park bench near the Boston Common. It was…”
Thurman saw, more than felt, his hands shaking, and rested them on the lectern. He had no idea how long he’d been quiet for until a student––Ms. Peña again––spoke up.
“Dr. Thurman? Are you alright?”
He looked up. The expressions were more mixed than he’d expected, but still as disconcerting.
He wanted to tell them how he could have been barred from further research, stripped of his doctorate, even jailed. How in so many ways, maybe all ways, his work had deemed him a Frankensteinian monster. How whatever judgment they had for him was warranted.
And yet, how his advancements had also carved the path to the extinction of chronic neurological disease. How he’d saved their parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends and the children they’d yet to have who could have suffered their whole lives from epilepsy, or Parkinson’s or dementia. Thanks to him. To Patrick.
“You don’t have to keep going,” Bella Peña said. “Doctor.”
He put up a hand, as he would in university with his friends after throwing back beers. No, no, I’m alright. I’m not about to throw up. Her face softened, and she leaned back in her seat.
Thurman glanced at his pinky finger. It was trembling against the wood. He laughed at this, and shook his head. “It is funny. Trauma is as much an illness as epilepsy. PTSD, I mean. There are even procedures being readied to assist veterans of the very disorder. I’ve never considered it, myself.”
Silence enveloped the classroom. You could hear the beating hearts of every student. The wind pressing against the building so many floors above. The earth around them shifting, adapting, growing.
Thurman cleared his throat. “I mourned him. My colleagues offered their condolences. Already, the NSF and NIH were considering naming a building, or perhaps a ward, after Patrick. No one considered what I would do next. Not even, for a time, me. Because grief, you see, is in some way or another what drives all research, and it drives from the background. Because what we do not understand can become a curiosity. What we fail to detect, or to heal, is a fuel.”
𖡹
The world was not. It did not open or close. It was not cold or warm. Not dark. It was not. And then, James’s voice was there. And stimulation. Of James, maybe. And there were hands––James’s, but also his.
His.
My name is
And there was a softness. And the softness was rebounded into existence by the toughness of what laid behind it. And there was friction in a finger––fingers, I have five fingers, no, ten––rubbing across a hand. His hand.
His.
My name…
James rubbing a thumb over a hand. The smell of
My mother used to make banana bread and I could smell the sweetness seeping from the oven and into the kitchen and there’d be music and music was like a thousand colors arranged for my ears and I have ears I have ears I do just me
The smell of rubbing alcohol. The feel of a beating heart. His heart.
His.
My
A word being repeated. Gently, in a way that defied the other, louder noises. Shouting. Busses. Car horns. Machines. Music.
Fenway Park in the summer and they all sing “Ba-Ba-Ba” and raise their hot dogs in their hands and chug their overpriced beers and I took James when we first started dating and that was before
And pain. But not a lot of pain. Just a soreness, like he’d been in a fight, but a week ago. It was around his
Head I have a head and it used to have seizures and Dad would say it was the size of a bowling ball and twice as thick but Mom would caress it in her lap and play with my hair and it was blond when I was a boy and brown by the time I turned fifteen and already graying when I met James
And James was there. James with a patchy beard and a balding hairline and the sags of skin around his cheeks and neck. The tired, wiry look he’d carried the last several years.
And me my name it’s right there I know it who am I’m someone I used to have epilepsy and it felt like I don’t know what it felt like but I told my brother once that’s right I have a brother and he’s his name is no my name it’s
“Patrick,” James cooed, wiping the tears that spilled down the sides of his face. “Patrick, Patrick…”
And he knew what James had done more than he knew him. He knew this room. The operating room he had been in for so many years. Another operation. More organoids. Because he had altered what was replaced for him. Lobotomized himself with that hack doctor.
And it worked. And things were quiet.
And then James he
He must have
“Why did you bring me back?” Patrick asked. And his voice was tinny and nasally and odd. It wasn’t his voice. But it was his voice and it always had been his voice. But he didn’t recognize it. “James…! Why did you do that?!” Patrick screamed at him. He couldn’t stop. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t stop. He screamed until his throat tasted like copper and this voice that was his had gone hoarse.
“It’s okay mein Hase,” James kept saying. But Patrick wouldn’t hear it. He loved him. He did. But. But…
𖡹
“But he wasn’t him,” Dr. Thurman said. “He was, in all function and scientific understanding. But he was not. There are conversations to be had about the effects of the consciousness mind, but those are… for later in the semester.
“What we learned, what I learned, is that an influx of organoids on the human brain, while nominally successful, lead to an almost imperceptible sense of…” He lifted his hands into the air. Brought them down again. All of it, he thought, without considering the movements, the breaths, the pause in his words. An intuitiveness Patrick had lost. “And Patrick, he…”
He stopped. Breathed. He was breathing out of his mouth––he hadn’t even noticed.
“I’ve not yet gotten you all to sign the syllabus, and there are content warnings for this course. So, that will be all, for now. Next week, we will finish this story, and when we do, we will get into the real content of the course. We’ll end early today. Thank you.”
Shifting chairs and shuffling feet barely muffled their muttering. Thurman stood gripping the lectern, his head hanging, eyes looking at the wood with the intensity to set it ablaze.
When everyone was gone, Thurman left. The early September heat graced him as he stepped outside the building and made his way toward the crosswalk on Commonwealth Avenue. He saw the world pass by. No flying cars––they still weren’t even entirely electric––no peace on Earth. But it was a better world than before he came into it.
“Doctor Thurman,” a voice said. Bella Peña. She was standing beside him, and for how long? Thurman blushed, nodding at her. “I, um… I don’t mean to embarrass you, but I saw you were getting sort of shaken up at the end of class.”
“Oh, was I?” he said, feeling the sweat perspirate from temple to temple. “It has been some time since teaching.”
Bella nodded. She looked as though she was about to turn away, then bit her lower lip and turned to him again. “It’s your course,” she said. “I don’t need to tell you that. But my grandfather had Cerebral Palsy, and… this course prolonged his life. He made it to his eighties thanks to your work.”
“Oh, well,” Thurman paused. Thank you, but you aren’t aware of what I lost. What I did to achieve all this. “It’s the surgeons you should be thanking, Ms. Peña, but thank you.”
“Right,” she said. “It’s just… After you reconstructed his brain, how long did Patrick live before committing suicide?”
The word came like a bullet through the last dregs of summer air. Thurman swallowed, still looking out at the roads. “About one year later. We were separated by then.”
Bella nodded. “So, my brother committed suicide when I was in undergrad. I don’t know if this makes any sense, but I guess I just went through two similarish things to you, and I wanted to say…I wanted to say I’m just really eager to take this course. And that I’m sorry for your loss.”
Thurman looked at her. She was young. So many possibilities ahead of her. So many advancements to be made. Fields, worlds to be changed.
“Thank you. I’m sorry for your loss, too. Did––” He stopped himself, the question coming from somewhere beyond him. He decided to let it come. “Did he happen to undergo any organoid treatment?”
“No,” Bella said. “I don’t really know why he did it. I have… ideas. But I wasn’t in his head, you know? You never can be. You can’t make somebody’s decisions for them. Or, I don’t know. I guess.”
The crosswalk dinged, and a small featureless man urged them to move. Bella Peña crossed, giving Thurman a wave. He reciprocated. He waited a while longer before, with a mind of their own, his legs carried him to the other side.
END
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