The Brain Patron

I am a brain patron. It’s an easy job if you have a beating heart and aren’t too squeamish about needles and the state of your own brain. The pay isn’t amazing but it leaves me plenty of time to read or to write or just take a nice nap in the quiet, dim room.

I’m really just a blood bag for hire, you see. Some rich or important fellow sustains a massive injury or illness, one that the body can’t survive, and I get a call. I drop whatever I’m up to, hop on a shuttle, and they take me into the hospital through a special entrance. They wheel me into where the poor fool is wrestling with death, give his brain my blood supply, and scoop it out. They take us, the now inseparable duo, and I cozy up in one of the tiny apartments with my slippers and a good book with my new friend, the brain. We stay together for a few days while they print the guy up a new body and put the old, pink motherboard back in.

People ask me if I’ve ever had any famous folk’s brain blood pass through me. It’s true- I’ve patronized rock stars, actors, CEOs of big tech companies, and plenty of people rich enough to build their own hospital on top of this one. But the best story is when I accompanied the brain of the president himself.

You might be thinking that I’m talking out of my ass here. The president never underwent a body transplant, right? Where that’s where you’d be wrong. I don’t blame you; they went to incredible lengths to make sure the public never found out. After all, when are we more disadvantaged as a colony than when our leader is literally a brain in a jar? The real story, as much as I gleaned anyway, was that an explosive was placed on the underground shuttle car he was to take after a public address. It was placed under what was supposed to be his seat. But, as luck would have it, the chief had some bad motion sickness from the drive to the station and so they had him sit closer to the front of the car. This had him just far enough away from the explosion that the flames and shrapnel tore his body to bits while his brain survived.

They city shut down the whole shuttle network and smuggled the man up through the cargo loading bays beneath the hospital. As soon as a decision was made, my phone rang. I paused my movie, poured the rest of my coffee back in the carafe, and found a private taxi waiting just outside my door.

This time was already much stranger than all of my other patron experiences. Normally they took me in through a side door just because it was easier to bypass the processing at the front desk. This time, though, my escort of three figures in black suits took me on a detour through the loading tunnels and brought me inside under cover of darkness. I was immediately subjected to a scan and a search that robbed me of even the pen I had forgotten in my pocket.

The rest of the process was mostly the same, taking my vitals and sticking my veins before putting me on a bed and wheeling me away. That day, though, the entirety of the wing was empty. No other patients, no personnel milling about. It was a small wing but its vacancy was haunting.

The OR had another small squad of emotionless, be-suited guards who exchanged glances with my escort. It was difficult to see through all of the chaos of masked surgeons tending to the body, but I had to take a peek. He was a burned and gory mess, the president was. But the face, the strong cheekbones and jaw that had graced many a campaign poster, still remained the same behind the scarring. But the operation was a success and the entire room heaved a heavy sigh of relief. In a few short moments, the two of us were taken away as one to a much different room.

Yes, if you can believe it, another contingent of security was waiting for us here in a part of the hospital that seemed like it had scarcely ever been used. This room was not nearly as cushy as those I was used to. No windows, no stack of books and magazines, no TV, nothing. Just a plain recliner and the necessary machines to be hooked up to both me and him. It was only when they all left that I felt the watchful eye of two cameras on me.

I’ve wondered a lot about what goes on in the brain when it’s severed from its body. For the incredible intimacy of sharing a blood supply with someone, I’ve never been allowed to talk to brains once they’ve been put back in their bodies. It’s such an oddly impersonal job I have.

But do they know where they are? If they were conscious for the event that destroyed their body, they must have some idea. Maybe they think they’re in the afterlife. After all, they just went through a traumatic event, were sent to the ER, and are now wondering, thinking, worrying with nothing, not even darkness, to put them at ease. If they weren’t conscious, do they only think they’re dreaming? Or perhaps in some sort of sensory deprivation chamber? They have no input to tell them one way or the other.

But now, looking upon one of the few most valuable brains in the world suspended in fluid, I could only marvel at its naked fragility. It looked no different than any other. Just like any relic, it is just an object until you learn it’s history, of its implications. But what secrets lived inside those folds? There was information in there to topple planets, to ruin lives, to change worlds. There were plans shared only in silent, fortified rooms. There were images of things and places that are legends to common folk like me.

And here it sat, alone with only me and my healthy supply of blood for company. The needle in my arm was the only thing between normalcy and a sudden shift in history. I could pull it out right now, subtly, and hope the cameras didn’t catch it in time. All of those plans, images, and memories would dissipate into useless brain matter. The world would be in uproar and the history books would recount how he died as merely a disembodied brain thanks to some underpaid nobody’s foolish curiosity.

I didn’t do it, of course. But now every time I get that call, and don’t tell anyone this, I do a little digging on the person whose brain I’m patronizing. Secretly I hope some truly wicked mind will join me in the ward. Then maybe I’ll pull the needle and see what happens.