Robert Kaye's stories have appeared in Green Mountains Review, Cicada, Snake Nation Review, Pindeldyboz, The Palo Alto Review, Descant, Bryant Literary Review, Kimera, Artisan and Carve.  The Rose and Thorn nominated him for both the Pushcart and Story South Million Writers prizes in 2006.  He has been on a break from short stories for a couple of years while writing a novel called Taking Candy from the Devil, which is (for the moment) completed and sent out into the wild.

Brain-in-a-Box (September 21, 2009. Issue 9.)

He wasn’t sure why he bought a copy of his own brain.  A backup seemed prudent in case of old age, stroke or Alzheimer’s, et cetera—something to fill in the inevitable blanks.  Age had not supplied any improvements and he already had trouble remembering the names and order of recent presidents. 

He sat in the waiting room in the mall, leafing through neurology magazines, evidently laid out to impress rather than entertain.  Eleven other customers sat, mostly his age or older, none looking comfortable.  His scan had taken place four weeks before in a white-walled room.  It took only half an hour to map “the sum total of synapses and neurons, the alpha and omega of both nature and nurture.”  He’d always heard there were more neurons in his brain than stars in the universe or microbes on earth or some such large number.  Would Einstein’s brain have required an hour?  Two?

A smiling young person of indeterminate gender and medium length blonde hair exited the door in the white wall and walked toward him with an aluminum alloy box dangling from a handle like an old-fashioned bowling ball inside its carrying case.  She/he placed the box on the coffee table. The nametag affixed to her/his eggshell lab coat read “Sam.”   

“How will I know how to use it?” he asked, still holding the magazine.

“Turn it on,” Sam said, the voice also androgynous.  She/he wore eyeglasses, possibly props with lenses that corrected nothing.  “It will tell you.”

“Sorry.  Tell me?”

“Yes.  Online help is included at no extra charge.”

This meant the B-in-a-B could not be an exact copy of his brain as advertised.  A tolerant kink at one corner of “Sam’s” mouth seemed to anticipate this observation.  He decided to deprive Sam of the satisfaction by declining to point this out. “Do I pay now?”

“We’ll bill you.”

Another bent smile.  They had his address, plus a good deal more.  He left gripping the B-in-a-B by its plastic handle, the box so light it might be empty.  The day felt cold and damp.  Vehicle tires turned leaves in the gutter to soggy paste. 

At home, he put the case at the center of the kitchen table, glancing at it as he hung up his coat, collected the mail and started the kettle.  He thought of the Kaaba, the stone cube in Mecca that Muslims march around three times—assuming they still did that.  Maybe the B-in-a-B would know.

He sat at the table with a mug of tea and flipped the spring latches on the box with a wobble similar to the typewriter case he’d owned as a boy.  Inside was a beige panel.  His finger mashed the single soft switch and three eyelet LEDs flickered red-yellow-green, settling on green.

“Hello,” the B-in-a-B said. 

He wished he’d thought to clean up the place, though the device had no visual input—not without the upgrade.  “Hi.”  He swallowed.  Maybe he should shut it off.  

“Would you care to hear the instructions?”

The machine constituted a backup, a representation not a replacement.  “No.  Let’s chat.”

“Sure.”

The B-in-a-B spoke in his own voice, which usually put him off as nasal, and whiny.  This digital imitation added more timbre, or a lower register.  Almost pleasant.  “Tell me what you know about me,” he said.

A pause suggested thoughtfulness.  “I can do that, of course.  It will take quite a while, since I know everything you know.”

“Sure you do.”  He hadn’t yet plumbed the depth of his skepticism. “Favorite things, then.  Hit the highlights.”

“Very well.”  Again, the considered pause.  “You enjoy telling your boss that his pet projects won’t be ready for two weeks when they’re already complete on your desk.  You love tide pools.  Especially the sea anemone when you graze each tentacle with a stick of driftwood, causing it to retract until it makes a fist of itself.  You love raking the leaves in your parents’ back yard and lying in the pile, gazing up at the foliage fluttering on the ends of the branches, refusing to let go.”

“Stop.  You went back a long way for a couple of those.”

“I can switch to reverse chronological order instead of random, which is the default. The instructions—.”

“Never mind that.”  None of these memories reflected his answers on the questionnaire.  He’d expected the machine to name the variety of wine he favored on Fridays in celebration of the passing of another week (shiraz), his preferred Thai food (Panang Beef) or movie genre (action/adventure).  “What about things I hate?”

“In any particular order?”

“No.  Fire away.”

Again, the pause.  “Hate is a strong word.  How about ‘dislike?’”

Even the question didn’t sound like him.  He’d never been shy about strong opinions and could, without hesitation, name a half dozen people who he detested.  “You’re not the same as me, are you?”

“The same?  No.  In highly complex systems a certain amount of variability—“

“You’re not an exact copy, as advertised.”

Again, the empathetic pause.  “Not exactly.  In addition to the inevitable fuzzy logic, I’m a bit kinder.  Skewed positive.  Customers typically find exact copies less desirable.”

“Well, that’s not right, is it?”  The deception angered him, but suggested a rationale for demanding his money back. 

“Whatever makes you happy.” The pause lapsed to silence. 

“OK.” He reached his finger toward the single switch, enclosed in the skin-like membrane, but stopped, unable to bring himself to turn off his Brain in a Box™.