Light Part II

This story will be published in three to five parts (I'm not sure yet as they're not written yet). Toward the end it will get extremely graphic. Most people will find some passages difficult to read. Some will stop reading altogether.

If such content will bother or offend you, please do not read 'Light'.

Part I

Light

written by
Alan Green
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Part II


On the way home I almost ran a red light. Stared at it until I was just about in the intersection. Had to stand on the brakes. Kept staring, through the rainy windshield, wipers going back and forth, until it turned green.

My hands trembled so bad trying to unlock the front door I had to take a deep breath before I could make the key go in. Drop the ice cream on the counter and head straight for the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, I couldn't see a spot in the middle of my forehead. No red dot. I rubbed my forehead in case there were tiny bits of dirt or something covering the dot, stood on tiptoes to get closer to the light fixture, leaned toward the mirror. My eyes were almost crossed I was so close. Nothing.

Go back to the kitchen. The ice cream was soft. Just the way I like it. Put it in the freezer. Sweet wasn't what I was looking for anymore. I wanted something with kick. Needed it.

My favorite is bourbon. It's got backbone. I crack a bottle of Jefferson's Reserve. Fifteen year old smooth-ass liquor. Pour a slug into a juice glass (I'm not at the stage in life where you own shot glasses) and shuffle to the living room, downing half before I plop on the couch. Even across the tongue, sharp in the back of the throat, toasty all the way down. Backbone.

Fire up the laptop. Do a web search for 'third eye'. Got nothing I didn't already know. Psychic center, place you concentrate on when meditating, one of the chakras. Et cetera. The reference to it as a 'doorway to the consciousness' stopped me. That creeped me out. Was the dot a doorway? Did it allow me to see into people's souls? I was filled with questions. Couldn't think. I shut the laptop.

The 'Alien' anthology. Forgot about that. No thanks. The thought of watching a movie about a monster growing inside you was a bad joke at this point. I pulled the quilt off the back of the couch, got wrapped up. Sat there, in the dark, drinking. Thinking. Asking. The same questions over and over. Got no answers.

I woke up. Didn't know what time it was. Glass of water. Kitchen clock says three. Go to bed. The next day I get ready for the appointment with my neurologist. He's a nice guy. We chat sometimes. He tells me what the squiggles on the PET or CT mean. Smart.

Should I tell him? I wonder while getting dressed (compulsively checking my forehead every time I look in the mirror). I could have put my jeans on backwards and wouldn't have noticed. But, I watched my face like a hawk.

I decided to tell Neal. That's my neurologist. Don't know his last name. But, what if it leads to some kind of psych eval? A write-up. That's all I needed. Could mean I wouldn't qualify to participate in the protocol anymore. They'd cut me loose.

Maybe I did need help, though. You know? Maybe I could do with some therapy. But, what would I tell the therapist? 'I'm seeing red dots in people's heads?' It's not like he would have any way of dealing with that, or any experience with it. They'd think I was nuts. Decide to keep the idea on the back burner for now and head out the door.

Neal is in his sixties. Married, grown kids. Still, though, he flirts with me. In a nice way. Not ham-fisted like most younger guys. Subtle. I like it. Makes you wonder where it might go. He stares at the PET imagery. 'How do you feel?' he says.

'What?' I'm a little stunned, eyes too wide. Was he seeing something weird in the scan? Was there a blob of emitted positrons that screamed 'This chick is crazy! Put her in a lock down!' He looks at me. 'Good,' I say. 'Why? Something wrong?'

'No. Looks great,' he says. I exhale. 'You know,' he says, 'researchers around the world are following this. Your progress, I mean. The results are almost too good. Two months and no seizures. That's a record, huh.'

'Totally. I can't remember the last time I went two months without a spill.' I flash a big fake smile.

'If this works -- I mean, it looks like it will -- you'll be famous. A lot of people will be helped. Millions' He pauses for effect, then, dramatically, but in a cool way, 'A cure for epilepsy. Just think.' His smile is beautiful, reassuring.

I couldn't tell him. Couldn't. A cure for epilepsy... No way I could jeopardize that. Meant too much. "Millions," he had said. Way too important. I don't say a thing about the dots.

My plastic smile was beginning to hurt. I shake hands with Neal, then, for the first time, he hugs me. 'See you next week,' he says. You betcha.

I saw three more people with red dots on the way home. Was glad to get inside and lock the door. Collapsed on the couch. What if a by-product of the procedure was insanity? I laughed. "Good news! You're cured of epilepsy, but now you're crazy!" I notice I've finished my first shot of bourbon. Didn't remember pouring it.

But, I didn't feel insane. It wasn't a 'crazy' feeling thing. It was real. It felt real. I know. That's exactly what crazy people say. Well, not all of them. Some schizophrenics know the voices in their heads are an illusion. Delusion. They know it. They want help. Some don't, but some do. A lot do. Most do. Right?

That got me nowhere. Was I one of the ones that knew they were nuts? Or, one of the ones that didn't? No help.

But, seeing the dots was just a new ability. That's all. To sense...things. An enhancement. Not crazy. 

I stayed home as much as possible over the next few days. Finally, I grew a pair and came to a decision. If I was going to tell someone I had to know what I was dealing with, and, if I wasn't going to tell anyone I needed to know what I was dealing with. So, I went to the mall for some people/dot-watching. To get a handle on it.

I sat by the fountain near the food court. Around seven out of ten people had a red dot. Seventy percent. Just like that. I looked for patterns. What kind of people were they? How did they dress? Did they look affluent, educated, trashy? No. Average. Couldn't be more average. One guy wearing sweat pants and a tee-shirt. A thirty-something chick with super high-maintenance hair, a cashmere sweater, and killer pumps. An old lady (her husband didn't have one). No pattern I could find.

Just when I was coming to terms with it, starting to feel a little at ease, getting a grip, this one red dot, a youngish guy who looked like he was always in a hurry, changed direction all the sudden and came toward me, walking real fast. When he passed I tensed up, felt rushed. What the hell. Why would I be tense? What was I in a rush for?

A man with greasy hair whose clothes might have come from the lost and found at a laundromat passes. I feel -- the best word I can think of is -- lazy. Maybe, that's not right. Maybe adrift is better. Like my life is pointless. Then, his body odor hits and snaps me out of it.

I couldn't believe it. Now, not only was I seeing dots, but I was feeling things. Emotions. I was sensing what these people were about. A fat guy makes me want to eat. A fifty-something woman with a droopy face wearing her dress crooked makes me feel edgy, anxious. A little boy passes, dragging his mom in tow. I follow his gaze to the toy store. I want to go in and buy a bunch of toys and play all day.

Great. Just. Fucking. Great.

One second I'd be pissed, the next nervous, ill at ease. Pudgy guy with a silly comb-over -- I'm insecure about my looks, wonder what people think of me. Nice trim dude in a tailored suit strides by -- I'm all about making money. It went like that. One after another. I could sense them. What their lives were about. How they carry themselves inside. I hold others in contempt, want to have sex, feel tired, skittish, sad, mad, glad. You name it. I sat there for a couple more hours until I couldn't take it anymore.

Back at home, looking in the mirror, I couldn't see anything in my forehead. I even tried looking through a magnifying glass. Didn't work. Made me feel stupid, not to mention look like an idiot.

Wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, all the lights off, I'd flash a crazy smile thinking of it. Just when I had started to come to terms with seeing lights, I begin to feel other people's stuff, emotions. As far as tackling my new, let's call it "a condition", I was back to square one. My thought process was circular. The questions were new, but pretty much the same as before. The answers were pretty much shit, which was pretty much what they were before. I pour another drink. (A bottle was by my side a lot of the time now).

If this was happening there were two choices: I was crazy, or, it was a special (I hated to think in terms of 'magic') thing that I should learn about. Embrace. So, which was it? If I was crazy I wasn't aware of it and wasn't likely to become aware of it. If it was some new ability, a new sense that enabled me to perceive things in people, then, to hell with it, my life had changed, for better or worse, like it or not. Like I said -- I was back to square one.

So. Do nothing or embrace it? I went to bed. Had to get an early start the next day.

At the mall, at the fountain next to the food court, I watched dots go by. Picked up their feelings. Studied the process. Tried to acclimate myself. Find a pattern. It got kind of routine to tell the truth. One red dot after another, each person feeling regular stuff. Apathy, chronically worried, skeptical, optimistic. You know. Regular. Normal. When they walked by, got within a few feet, I felt them. Sensed their emotions. Their mental orientation. Whatever you want to call it. I knew what they were about.

I see this one guy coming. Weird looking. Chubby greasy face, off balance expression, high-waters, shirt with a hole, one shoe untied. He got close. I waited for the impression. What was this guy feeling? Nothing. I felt nothing.

I looked at his dot. It wasn't red. It was purple.

The next chapter will be posted soon

.

Light

This story will be published in three to five parts (I'm not sure yet as they're not written yet). Toward the end it will get extremely graphic. Most people will find some passages difficult to read. Some will stop reading altogether.

If such content will bother or offend you, please do not read 'Light'.

Light
.

written by
Alan Green

Part I

I'm recovering from surgery. Brain surgery. No. I'm not stupid. They didn't cut out a huge chunk. Just a tiny chunk. About the size of an eraser on the end of a pencil. But. The good news. They replaced that chunk. With a tiny sliver of a rat's brain. A sliver taken from a part of the brain, the rat's brain, responsible for controlling motor function. I forget the name. And, that gets me to my problem, my sickness. The reason I needed surgery. I had epileptic seizures. Bad ones. Really bad. The docs said I'd likely die from one within a few years. Great.

They procedure is experimental. They really didn't know what would happen. But, hey. If you're slated to die 'within a few years', why not. What they do is insert a catheter through a small hole they drill in the skull, guide the tube using realtime PET imaging (or, it might be CT, I forget that too). They worm the catheter around until the end in near the spot to be excised. Then, they snake an optical filament through the tube and fire up an RF (radio frequency) emitter on the end of the filament and ablate the offending tissue. Then, they vacuum up the goo with a really tiny hose, and insert the afore mentioned rat brain tissue, bathe it in anti-rejection and AP (assimilation promotion) drugs, and sew you up. Badda-bing, badda-boom.

Simple. Hell, I could have done it if I had good instructions.

So, here I am, the first human, the first girl (I'm twenty-six if you're interested. My name is Chloe.), to have this done. I feel fine. At my first scheduled post-surgical examination everybody was real cheerful, but it was a kinda forced. You could tell they all had their fingers crossed. But, the next day, I hadn't had a seizure, and when I went down to the fifth floor for another exam everybody had big beautiful smiles. They watched me walk across the room like I was a rock star, or something. One and a half days, no seizure. They liked that. Liked it a lot.

A couple weeks go by, still no seizures. I moved out of the hospital to my apartment. Well, it's not mine. It's provided and paid for by the university medical center -- that's where the protocol is being conducted. EP-TI-4755-001. Experimental Protocol, Tissue Implant 4755. I'm 001. (You can write your own 007 joke). Anyway, since it's a federally subsidized protocol, all the participants get a free ride -- everything is paid for. It's the law. And, as the protocol calls for the subject (me) to live very close to medical personnel and facilities, I get an apartment on campus rent free. Cable, wifi, even a stipend for food and expenses. I even get to use one of the university's cars.

What the hell. I should get that stuff paid for. Had to quit my job for this. That's another thing. I can't work for twelve months after the surgery. To keep environmental factors, like stress, and thinking a lot, to a minimum. So, In my downtime I surf the web, or watch blu-ray movies on my killer fifty-two inch plasma TV (that your tax dollars bought). Sometimes, I'll do the History Channel thing, or watch that channel that only runs biographies -- what's that called? Every now and then I'll watch a game or something. I can watch football for maybe ten minutes before I zone out. Sometimes, I read. I got a stack of books (yeah, your taxes bought those too).

That's my life. I take it easy. And, why not enjoy myself? I asked one of the nurses how much a study like this cost. She said 'millions', even 'tens of millions'. Okay. It's their dime. They dick around with my brain, I watch TV, read the latest bestsellers, eat gourmet ice cream. In exchange for all that sumptuous living, I show up for my check ups, AP injection, PET scan, almost every day. Sometimes, up to four or five hours a day. Other days, it's just a blood draw or something simple. I forget the last time I had a whole day to myself without having to go to the clinic or hospital. Whatever. It's worth it.

Being seizure-free is fucking great. I'm loving it. I don't have to worry about having a spill, that's what I call them, in the middle of the mall, or wherever. One time, I was picking up some dry cleaning and fell to the floor doubled up, making these weird moaning sounds. The Korean woman behind the counter screams, eyes bulging. She called 911. By the time the EMTs got there it had passed. I was sitting against the giant plate glass window sipping Oolong and explaining to the Korean woman what had happened. She said, with a silly laugh, that in the old country (she's a transplant) an attack like that might be taken as a sign of demonic possession. Sheesh. How 'old country' can you get.

One seizure was so bad. One of my incisors got stuck on the inside the lower teeth and, when my jaw snapped to the side, the tooth was knocked right out. Okay, I was a kid and it was a loose baby tooth, but still. It hurt. I was at school at the time and the other kids thought it was cool. 'Chloe, that was so cool!', they'd say. I even earned cred with the boys. Not bad. They quit making fun of me for a while.

So. A couple months went by. After the surgery, I mean. Not one episode. The docs are talking 'preliminary success'. They're happy. Can't blame them. If this works they'll be famous. Millions would benefit. It would be a landmark event. Look good on the resume. I guess I'd be happy, too.

Anyway, one night I load up the new 'Alien' blu-ray box set. Anthology... Watch the first few minutes to see how much better the picture is. Wow. What a difference. Didn't know movies could look that good. And, the sound. So clear. Makes the movie much creepier. Didn't know sound could do that. I pause it and go to the fridge. No ice cream. Could. Not. Believe. It. I was out for a couple hours getting stocked up for tonight. That's a bad thing. You're not supposed to be out of 'the subject's assigned living quarters' for that long. In case they need to reach you, don't you know. Going out of town? Forget it. It's all in the stack of stuff you have to sign before you can take part in the...you get the picture.

I had gone to the bookstore for the latest translated Euro murder thriller. I love those. I stopped for a three-dollar latte and some people watching. (Anything to avoid going back to the apartment). Then, I swung over to the electronics store for a flash drive and the 'Alien' Anthology. Then, the grocery store for some frozen dinners (yes, I do those). Figured I had everything you need for several hours of horror movie watching. Forgot the damn ice cream. Have a frozen pizza, you say. Don't want one. Want sugar.

Back to the grocery store. Jump back in the university's car (with the dorky U logo on the side). I'm in the ice cream aisle. Butter pecan or peach? Which is right for the monster-growing-inside-you genre? I grab butter pecan and head for the check out. Then, I see her. This lady, maybe sixty, a little stooped, silver curls, but sharp eyes. I look at her as she examines an apple. When she glances at me, she smiles. I smile too, but it fades when I see the spot of light in the middle of her forehead. The tiniest red dot. I mean, it's teeny, but it glows really strong. A deep, brilliant red. She goes back to her apples. I'm still looking back at her, and almost run into a stack of bananas. Did I? No. No way. Girl, go home and watch horror movies -- you're in the mood for it. Seeing things.

It's late. There's nobody in line. I set my purchase on the belt, get my card (well, the university's card). 'How you doing?' the girl says.

I swipe my card, 'Fine, thanks.'

'Four fifty. You want a bag?'

I punch the PIN number. 'No,' I say, looking at her for the first time. There it was. Right between her eyes. A teeny tiny red dot. Glowing, with sort of a fog around it. Until she looks at me. The fog disappears and the light becomes pure, bright, shining right into my eyes, first the left, then the right.

'You said you didn't need a bag, right?' she says.

I'm slack-jawed. 'No...yes, I said that.'

She glances at the ice cream sitting there in front of me. 'Did you want something else?'

I pick it up. The cold brings me back to reality. 'Sorry,' I manage. 'Tired.'

She grins. 'That's okay. I get that way.' The light grows brighter with her emotion, hitting my eyes in quick succession. Left, right, left, right. Then, it settles, seeming to shine into the middle of my own forehead. 'Have a good night.'

'You too,' I say out of reflex, and leave.


Part II

The next chapter will be posted soon.

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