Feed Them Silence

by Lee Mandelo

Sean found a therapist’s business card on her desk the following morning with a short note reading, make an appointment.

Aside from the wildly prohibitive costs to the uninsured, Sean had a feeling being trapped in a sensory void while a machine reprogrammed your brain’s chemical functions might be traumatic enough on its own.

Only in the emptiness could Sean, edgy and nauseous, admit to herself, I’m about to pipe another brain into my brain. She would become the researcher-subject, the every(wo)man scientist hero, unless the first attempt scrambled her gray matter bad enough to sink the whole project.

A terrible, wounded desire to slip into Riya’s skull and observe her emotions, chase her thoughts while she chewed her asparagus, overtook Sean; instead of being locked away from her insides, coasting across the surface in words and deeds, she wished she could reach secretly into the deepest parts of her. Maybe she’d understand her better from there.