My Brains!!! ep. 2

It was another mystery, right along with the fact I wasn't supposed to be at home at all. I checked my watch. Three-oh-seven. I should be at work right now, tacking away at a technical manual for Bright and Tucker Manufacturing.

Sure, technically (no pun intended) it was still writing. But I didn't enjoy it. Back when I was a real writer I considered the prospect of technical writing on my to-do list after slitting my wrists. I'd done that, so I promptly applied for a position after getting out the hospital.

I was going to need a checklist.

I almost turned back for a pen, but I couldn't trust myself to write. So I didn't keep pens on or in my desk.

I was going to have to do this by memory. But that was probably just as dangerous considering that had to be done with my brain.

"1) Throw away bag, 2) phone in prescription, 3) call work, 4) pick up child," I said, though I wasn't entirely sure about the numbers. Things were already seeming wrong.

I'd start with step two. I reached to my hip for my cell phone, but it wasn't there. Something my brain did to keep my from making a call. Probably.

The bag bumped down each step as I dragged it downstairs. I opened the trunk to put it in, but there was no room. My cell phone was there, though. I took it and put the bag in the back seat.

I got in the driver's seat, ready to make a call when my cell rang.

"Hello?"

"I need your help." It was Trenton. He always had some philosophical emergency or other. "The visible world is a coin. On its front surface is the world we see. On half its knurled edge is what's there that we can't see. On the other half of the edge is what isn't there that we can see." He paused a long moment. "What's on the other face?"

I thought about this for a long moment. "What isn't there that we can't see."

Another long pause, then there was a sound, not unlike a tea kettle just as it begins to whistle. It rose and rose until the sound of Trenton's screaming was over modulated through the phone. I didn't know if I'd given him the right answer or not, but I hung up and started the car.

Wait. The list.

"1) Throw away bag, 2) phone in prescription, 3) call work, 4) pick up child." I speed-dialed the pharmacy. I thumbed the Rx number in at the prompt and hung up. "I ain't got time for confirmation codes," I mumbled and threw the car in reverse.

Had to find a place to dump the bag. There had to be somewhere where I wouldn't feel like people were looking at me, but I felt like this off my pills. My brain could have been giving me a hyper awareness and there really could have been someone watching me.

I kept checking my rearview mirror for a car—any car—that looked to be following. It would probably have men in black suits who wore sunglasses all the time. They'd followed me in the first few months after I'd been released from the hospital.

I got a bright idea. I'd take the bag to work—throw it away in the company dumpster. But what if… what if that was exactly where my brain wanted me to go?

I made an abrupt left turn from the right hand lane as the traffic light turned amber and stomped on the gas. There didn't seem to be anyone I'd left behind trying to follow, but that didn't mean anything.

My thoughts went back to the prescription. What if I'd entered the wrong number? What if my brain made me enter the wrong number? It didn't control my actions directly, but it could influence them.