THE BRAIN SCREW UP
by Marian Huyck © 2007
Three years ago, October 31, 1812 to be precise, I reported in The Dump Observer about two brothers, Peter and Paul, who were joined at the brain, yet born eighteen months apart. The brothers caused a lot of pain and suffering for their mother, Lock, as one can only imagine.
When Paul finally pushed his way through his mother's birth canal, the brothers greeted each other with a swift bang of their heads; much like a rubber band had popped them together. Eventually their stretched skin reduced in size and they were closer together, being head to head one might say. They were nearly the same size even though Peter had been out of the womb much earlier than his brother.
Their mother passed out as soon as the final birthing process took place and was sedated.
Peter was able to use the temporal lobe controlling his speech; and Paul was able to use the occipital lobe controlling his limbs. Both brothers shared the frontal lobes and the parietal lobe and to some extent all lobes.
Wore, their father, had become a Doctor of Sedation and kept his wife sedated most of the time. He never hung a shingle outside his small home practice because, as he said, “I've never experienced shingles and understand they are very painful. I don't like pain.”
Frankly, I thought he was daft, but I did my job as a reporter.
***
As Wore watched his sons he noticed something very peculiar about them.
The brothers got along well together; Paul writing on anything he could grab within his reach. On the other hand Peter was a chatterbox, never shutting up for a minute, driving their already sedated mother into intense sedated insanity.
Very brilliant when born, Paul wrote on paper as though lightening had hit his hand as it sped across the pages, line after line. He filled pages of transcripts in an effort to keep up with his brother's constant talking.
***
During the interview Peter told me all about what happened to Lock on a day she was taken away. His talking was non-stop and I could hear the pencils being tossed aside and another grabbed as Paul continued writing. Without Paul writing, Peter could not speak.
“When father pulled Mama out of the small cellar where he kept her, she looked like she had aged at least fifty years; alas, it had only been six months since we last saw her.”
The brothers looked at one another and a single tear ran down each face, as they shook their heads in unison.
“He began dragging her up the stairs, her body thumping on the steps as she followed behind lying down, unable to walk. Each thump lessened the effect of her sedation.”
“Mother began screaming, ‘Wore! You! You! Wore! Give me some ‘shrooms. I need some now. The same kind you have been giving me! You earned your masters degree in sedation and horticultural perfection. You! You bastard! You have been giving me injections of the blue mushroom you genetically altered.' Mama Lock was out of her mind. She had no idea what she was saying.”
“With that, Papa took a small vial out of his pocket and filling a syringe, jabbed it into the small amount of flesh Mama had left on her arm.” Peter shuddered at his remembrance of the day their father took Lock away.
“We don't know where he took our mother, but he never abandoned us, not for an instant.” With that the boys gave each other's hands a smack of approval.
“Even when he took mother away he put us into the carriage and blind-folded us, saying we could get carriage-sick if we saw the roads. It didn't matter to us; it was fun playing in the dark.” Peter said as Paul wrote.
He continued, “After the carriage stopped we heard Papa dragging something behind him. We thought it was Mama, but we couldn't be sure. Then we heard the sound of something metal hitting the hard dirt and heard Papa grunting the kind of noise he always made when he was working hard. A thump echoed in our ears and the metal thing began making the noise of loose dirt being thrown. We did not know what was happening.”
“We rode home in the back of the carriage with our eyes still covered, yet we could hear Papa panting and emitting an odd smell, much like the smell of the rotting roots from the tree in our yard.”
***
Peter and Paul were the first co-joined at temporal and occipital lobes of the brain children to have an attempt performed to separate them so they could become individuals. Although the procedure would have been world wide news, no one was to know for it would be performed with the utmost secrecy.
At the rising of the full moon, their father put them in the carriage for the long ride to their destination; again, they were blind-folded. Wore whipped his steeds so fast and hard they were frothing at the mouth and foam was enveloping their black hides in their useless attempt to escape the burning whip. Yet, try as they may they could not loosen the harness which kept them attached to the carriage.
Upon reaching the destination, the two stallions were let loose and reared up on their hind legs where they morphed into odd looking beings with two web-like fingers in the place of their front hooves. After they were given drinks, which no one knew contained the juice of the translucent blue mushroom grown in the hothouses of Wore, surgical gloves and gowns were put on them. They were to be assistants in the procedure about to begin. The mushroom juice they drank made them able to do what was demanded of them.
***
The lawn was well manicured; the scent of flowers danced in the night air, the moon and a thousand eyes began floating through the night sky were to be used as lanterns during the following hours.
It is said the lyrical sentence, “And the night has a thousand eyes,” came from the night of the boys reckoning.
Their father and a single man draped in a black hood and cape covering his entire body took Peter and Paul out of the carriage.
The two men carried the brothers to the cemetery where the operation would be performed. The crisp chill in the night air combined with the silence of the night was a perfect setting for they would not be bothered.
Peter and Paul had their heads placed upon a huge headstone at exactly 1:01 AM, the time of their birth, 18 months apart
Draped in cloths of dark purple, Peter and Paul were given a stiff drink of embalming fluid in case the surgery failed I wondered how much pain the brothers could tolerate, but Wore answered my hidden thought when he injected them with serum of blue ‘shrooms. Soon they were so euphoric the process would be a breeze.
***
The flash of steel blazed as it was passed across the webbed finger-hooves of the morphed creatures and the two others surrounding the brothers. The clip of scissors went through the same line for they were practicing their speed perfection. There was a bit of a hold up as the game of “Rock, paper, scissors,” began. Blood was soon dripping from the hands of those not deft enough at the passing of the surgical instruments to be used.
Peter and Paul had their eyes taped shut and their hands taped together. Peter was quiet for he could not speak. Not having a hand to guide his words he was struck speechless without Paul.
***
The night eyes gathered all around and the full moon illuminated the headstone where young Paul and Paul's heads rested.
The headstone epitaph read: “May the puzzling son-of-a-bitch who moved my table never rest in his pieces.” The name of the person who lay entombed beneath the earth was not etched in the shiny black marble; in its place were the words, “To You with Happiness, Mary Jigsaw.”
***
Since I had to watch the entire procedure I took an extra hit of an opiate I had garnered along my travels as a reporter.
I set up my camera, making sure the three-legged tripod was securely pushed into the grass covered soil. I adjusted my camera, putting in a slide and then draped the black cloth over my head to begin recording via photos this first experimental procedure.
They placed a coffin for two on the grass; there they laid the tools about to be used: clamps, scissors, saws, needles, thread, screws, drills, and tape measures. I was beginning to get nauseous, for although the opiate was a fine one, it did not take me far enough out of reality and it was too late to take more.
The young boys were in a deep sleep and felt nothing as the draped “surgeons and assistants” began their procedure.
The sound of a “thwack” made me cringe as I pushed the shutter on my camera, emitting a blast of light and smoke into the air, starting the morphed beings. The two others were so involved in watching the beginning of a separation of two boys.
I wondered if the boys were successfully separated would Peter still be able to speak and not ever write. And would Paul be only able to write? I knew I was jumping the gun, but my curiosity was now piqued.
Wore held a long string like piece of flesh that seemed to be throbbing. I realized it was the main blood vessel feeding each boy. They tied off the blood vessel in two places, much like a tourniquet, and swiftly cut the area between. Blood spurted out, splashed onto top of the headstone and slowly dripped down the marble, pooling up in the inscribed words on the headstone front. They deftly stopped the flow of blood with sutures. I took another picture which created the same reactions from the morphed beings.
Continuing on their quest to separate the boys, they proceeded to cut the bone connecting the youngsters.
Using a measuring ruler they determined the amount of bone from head to head they needed to cut through. Silently a saw, much like the ones used to cut trees, was placed in the hands of their father. Slowly he began grinding back and forth through bone. Chips of bone scattered about.
With wry humor Wore said, “These young fellows of mine are going to have one hell of a headache when they wake up. It's a good thing I'm a Doctor of Sedation.” A few insincere chuckles were heard and the sawing continued.
A final snap and the bones separated. After suturing the slit skin on top of their individual heads closed; tape and clean strips of cloth were passed to Wore. He rapidly wrapped each head and secured cloth and tape to the boy's heads. It wasn't long before all that was exposed were the helpless boy's mouths and noses.
They were now separated, and each had to be held in place for they were sliding off the headstone in separate directions.
I couldn't get slides into my camera as fast as I wanted to. I figured one day I would invent a camera which would be fast and accurate. Right then I had more photos to take.
***
The soil began erupting and a body lifted out of the hole in the ground. It was Lock. She had survived the smothering damp, soft soil. She realized she was fortunate in that her not-so-brilliant husband had left air pockets in the soil while throwing it into the grave on top of her. She thought to herself in her now lucid state that he should have tamped the soil as he went along. She smiled.
With one last heave she pulled herself up and lay on the rancid smelling soil. After regaining a good amount of energy from the mushrooms nearly flushed out of her body, she began a trek to unknown places. She didn't know where she was.
After a long walk, she saw in the distance lights and several people. Why, it was the cemetery. She said aloud, “What are people and bright lights from the night sky doing here at night?”
Creeping through the cemetery unheard, she reached a headstone close to the one where the people stood.
Her eyes grew large; her blood began to erupt in fierce thrusts throughout her body. Those were her sons! Two of them! Individual boys no longer joined at their heads, yet they appeared so helpless and lifeless.
Her filthy flesh and clothing didn't matter to her. She walked up to the group, surprising Wore. He passed out cold and she took over for him. Donning a cloak and gloves, she cradled a son in each arm as she sang to them. They began to awaken and groggily asked, “Mama?” They fell back into a lingering drug induced sleep.
I was taking photos of this phenomenon and knew no one would believe what I saw with my own eyes.
Handing her sons to the two web- fingered assistants, she looked at the remaining third assistant and said, “Help me please.”
They wrapped Wore's body in cloth from head to foot and taped him head to foot. Then they lifted him and placed his body, now coming to life into the coffin, which was certainly wide enough for his rotund body.
Lock then commanded her helper to begin digging a hole next to the black marble headstone. It didn't take long at all for the six foot deep hole to be dug as the lawn was wet from the night dew and the moisture kept the soil damp. The coffin was placed into the hole and covered and tamped, covered and tamped, layer by layer until it was fully covered. With sod placed over the top she added a final touch to his grave.
Three blue mushrooms, one each for her and her two sons.
***
I have now taken leave of my duties and met the boys who are normal youngsters. The family moved to another home and burned the old one to the ground, killing all remaining memories of horror that occurred in the house.
A single blue mushroom lay dead on the ground; the remnant of a man deserving of all he received in the end. I wonder how long it took him to die.
Surely he has mummified by now.