My New Brain

I quickly stepped up to the counter to get my supplies for the game. The others had already departed on the boats and I did not want to miss the starting gun.

 

A woman wearing a white lab coat appeared in the doorway behind the counter and explained to me the procedure that would be required before I would be allowed to participate. She told me that it was safe, despite sounding, admittedly, a little scary. They would put me under a general anesthesia, remove my head by sawing through my neck, remove my brain, and replace it with one more suited to the tournaments. They would save my old brain in a jar for reinstallation at the end of the games.

 

I wondered what the scar would look like.

 

They did the procedure right there at the counter, which I thought was a little strange but not for long, as the stuff they gave me really knocked me out fast. I awoke to a terrible pain in my neck and a supreme headache.

 

The games were fun, I think, but very strange. Large boats with two engines each: one to propel them and the other to power the four vacuum nozzles that the rules specified. And there was a tall slab of foam I had to carry with me, the one that projected a blue light all around to indicate my team affiliation. I wondered if the foam board would still work ok if I broke it in half, since it was most cumbersome and got in the way of the vacuum controls. I snapped it in half and looked around to see if the light still shone blue.

 

It didn't. As a result, I ended up being targeted by the vacuums of both teams. Even the dopes in my own boat with me.

 

After the games had ended my boat pulled into the dock. I saw Brian there, climbing off Red Boat #4. He freaked out a little when he saw my neck, which hurt really bad and oozed some kind of fluid. "Aww Damn!" I think he said. The stitches made it look worse than it probably should have.

 

I noticed that Brian didn't have the same neck scar and asked him how come. He told me that nobody else required any kind of operation to get in the games and that the lab coat woman probably just didn't know what she was talking about.

 

We were heading home when I remembered that the lab still had my birth brain, but I had gotten used to the new one and I really didn't want to submit to that operation again, so I just kept going.

 

***

 

I have a new pillow that sort of gives me a sore neck when I sleep.