Crash Course in Brain Surgery
by Scott Wilson

“Look inside and you will see the words are cutting deep inside his brain.” Raven Black said to his assistant. “It's like a thunder ringing out a lightning burning, driving him insane.”

Raven Black's young assistant leaned over the pale figure strapped to the cold, hard iron bench. He peered inside the large incision running from the top of the scalp to the nape of the neck, held open with rusty clamps. He breathed heavily as his heart beat faster and faster with excitement and anticipation at the thought of the next step in the procedure that he would perform himself. Kirk Ulrich looked back up at his master and smiled uneasily. He was almost to the point of ecstasy, yet he was nervous about letting down Raven Black Raven had been a hard task master, but always willing to explain every single step in fine detail to Kirk.

“Are you ready for this my young apprentice?” Raven said to his assistant as he handed him the scalpel.

“Yes master,” Kirk replied in a quivering voice. “Thank you so much for believing in me. I won't let you down.”

“I know that you won't Kirk. You have been a most attentive pupil and I have faith in you ability to perform the extraction.”

Kirk took the scalpel from his master in his left hand, pressing down on the patient's chest with his right hand at the same time. The patient struggled to turn his head towards Kirk but an inch thick leather belt restricted any movement. Even without this restraint the patient could not move. An hour ago at the Arms Hotel, Kirk added an immobilizing agent to his scotch, rendering him completely paralysed.

“I can see the wicked words lancing his brain, master.” Kirk said as he moved the scalpel towards the exposed grey cerebral cortex.

“That's right my young apprentice, the words are fighting to conquer his life. It is our duty to remove them, neutralize them with the knife before they take hold and control his life completely.”

The patient tried to scream, no words would come out. The patient had begun crying with pain from the first incision and subsequent clamping. All of which had been performed without any anaesthetic. Every cut, every touch and movement was felt with harsh clarity. The two surgeons stopped each time the patient's eyes started to roll back in his head, or at any other sign that he might lapse into blissful unconsciousness. Part of the so called treatment was to ensure that the patient could feel each word being extracted from his thoughts and mind. If the patient didn't feel the pain the surgery was deemed a failure and had to be euthanized.