#i don't know if i'll survive the next year of yearning

[enragedmuffins]

If you know what's good for you the next few weeks, if you are uninterested in being flooded with The Hunger Games content, I'd filter the name gang. We are in for a rough one.

[woodpengu]

Personal Story: feel free to skip. But I wonder if anyone can relate to having a parent that expressed their trauma as love projected onto their children in a way that disregarded what was most important to said child. Read on if you're curious. Might be triggering for those who've suffered passive (or active) neglect.

My mother romanticized the gift-giving aspect of Christmas to unhealthy degrees. Don't ask why - her trauma isn't my story to tell nor her mind mine to comprehend. She just wouldn't accept anyone being okay with not receiving anything. "No" was not in her vocabulary (we'll save the lesson in consent and boundaries for another day).

My last year speaking or interacting with her directly, she had grown to keeping her eyes peeled all year round for gifts to bestow at Christmas. My sister and I were the number one priority even though both of us had told her "One is enough if you must give us a thing at all". And there was something far more important to me that happened every year between one Christmas and the next: my birthday.

I value this day above other special occasions as a benchmark of survival. I lasted another year. I held fast for another circle of the Earth. I gave myself 365 days more of opportunities for good memories and reasons to keep going. Living another year is much more important. Things aren't necessary for the occasion, but I would like acknowledgment. I'd like to think a parent would find their child that they love being alive and well is more important to them than a holiday that's been turned into a capitalist-driven drain on sanity, safety, and good manners.

But this last time, she forgot my birthday. Until a couple days ahead of it, my mother had been collecting gifts for a holiday that wouldn't happen for another four months that I didn't want a pile of things I'd throw out, donate, or shelve (she tended to get me things she wanted for herself just in case I didn't care for them or couldn't use them... nothing was ever just for me). She told me herself that she forgot what the date was, and pulled something random out of the pile, avoiding the "big important gifts" she didn't want me to have until Christmas.

This is a woman who prides herself on her wrapping skills and being covert with surprises and gifts. She made no effort with it. "Here, have a pretty ramen bowl with this cool gimmick that traditional ramen bowls don't have." It was, in fact, a pretty bowl... that I did not in any way hint at wanting, needing, or yearning for in any capacity. I had two ramen bowls at the time that I loved and was very happy with and did not want another, nor did I have the space for one, which I informed her of when she asked. Unwrapped. No ceremony. Just handed over with an apology about forgetting and "I'll take you somewhere to make up for it". Which she did...

She took me to a place she wanted to go to... while the air was thick with smoke from the wildfires. If you have or know someone with PTSD or CPTSD, activates lizard brain (survival mode) at the drop of a hat, and the one thing we can lose resistance to is the smell of smoke (which for animals turns on the flight response and is how they know to get the heck out of dodge). Of course, I'd explained this to her. CPTSD was the reason for being in therapy, and why COVID hit me harder than most - I was isolated with my worst and most constant abusers who were keyed up and agitated more than usual by circumstances (another story). But... to her, I was throwing a tantrum and being ungrateful.

All she had to do was acknowledge the important part: I was alive and still trying to live. If all she gave me was a hug and a "thank you for being here", that would have been the most meaningful gift and the best birthday of my life. But... she made it about her, her efforts, her compromises, her gifting ability... My day was about her. That's like a relative going to a wedding and giving the bride hell for not putting [relative] on a pedestal. Integrity, please.

Point being... [takes a moment to heave a big ol sigh] (part two of my gifting rambles, here) If a person is important to you, then make the effort to acknowledge what's important to them. It's not about you "being a good friend/relative/companion" in the "I give gifts because I love you" sense. It's about showing real love through acknowledgment of their truths.

[monpalace]

hi so completely unrelated anon here— i’ve been stalking this whole thread on athena, aphrodite, songbird, atalanta, etc. mayhaps, can i have the lion thoughts about atalanta? thoughts, perhaps, involving the whole century long situation? the yearning!! the longing!!

hey anon! i saw your other ask and dw abt it! i'll take any opportunity to spill my thoughts, but i kinda held off since atalanta is more 🧚🏽‍♀️'s creation and i didn't wanna like,, shoehorn (???) it-- but at the same time, like i said, if i'm prompted i will ramble and make no sense whatsoever. so.

in atalanta's original story, she was turned into a lion by artemis/zeus because she lost her virginity/having sex in his sanctuary (respectively), right? i'd imagine that [name] was turned into an animal by ganondorf because she had relations (either romantic or sexual, both would be good enough reason for him) with wild/flora

(keeping in mind that [name] is gerudo and i'd imagine that ganondorf wouldn't take kindly to any of them (the gerudo) having relations with his enemies-- especially the ones that are his sworn, eternity-long enemies that kill him almost every single lifetime)

(she likely didn't even know he was the link or recognize that flora was the princess. they were just two foreigners she took a liking to and ganondorf wanted to be safe and assure nothing came from it)

(but on that note, i like to ignore most of what botw/totk say lorewise when it comes to each race/species. i like to imagine that even though the gerudo supposedly turned ganondorf away from them, they're still 🤞🏽 with him because being in cahoots with him put them in a lot of danger)

i imagine that ganondorf wouldn't turn [name] into an animal like a lion, but rather a monster of sorts? maybe a unique lynel that's not white, blue, golden, or silver-maned? either that or an animal that can only survive in the desert (to lessen the chances of link finding her) that's mystical like a blupee?

(i also think that ganondorf planned to turn her back after a certain amount of time (not a century) but got caught up with his battle with zelda in the castle and was perpetually like "wtf am i forgetting")

it wouldn't take long for rumors surrounding [name]'s sudden transformation to spread among the gerudo and news of a mythical creature to reach outside the deserts.

the gerudo know better than to approach [name] with malicious intentions not only because she's still their sister regardless of her form, but because the monsters that are always surrounding her act like bodyguards (more assurance. they aren't aggressive to gerudo). her tale is a required story for (gerudo) mothers to tell their (gerudo) daughters as both a cautionary tale to be careful of who they choose as lovers and so they're aware that she (and her monsters) are friend rather than foe.

(the monsters are like the hippomenes to her atalanta, just platonically)

[name]'s tale isn't known outside anyone gerudo. it's to both keep her safe from hunters looking for their next animal to mount or sell and because they don't want to go through the very long process of gaslighting/jailing anyone who saw her out in the desert.

with only monsters for companions as you go throughout a seemingly endless desert with the occasional (seldom) visitor from someone you have to watch age as you stay the same is both lonely and disheartening, especially since you're essentially trapped in said desert with no chance to interact with anyone outside of it.

i'd figure that the gerudo would take [name] (and, by association, the monsters) back to the main city for festivities and celebrations so they're able to remind her that she still has a place with them, as well as make it so she's not just in the empty desert, by herself, with only monsters for company a few days/weeks out of the year.

uhmmmm,, talking about the pining/longing from atalanta during the 100 years (it is Not my strong suit), i personally think it'd be more like "there is no way i let this manlet rizz me into being cursed," and blaming herself?

like, yeah, part of her longs to be with wild/flora again because,,,,, woah,,,, she'd never been so infatuated with someone like she has been with them, but the other part is screaming "if i get out of this i'm becoming celibate," and it's a constant battle of that until she's eventually like "i'm never getting out of this. why would i stay stuck on someone who's probably dead now," because word travels fast and it wouldn't take long for her to find out wild/flora is dead/hasn't been seen for a while.

so now she's over them. supposedly. after maybe 5-12 years because she wasn't gonna spend the rest of her (possibly endless) existence hung over someone she'd never see again.

(and it wasn't even getting over them? it was more like repressing any and all feelings by calling them mean names and recognizing their flaws-- but then overtime it's like "damn. i kinda miss the way he would frog blink at someone when they talked a little to long," or "huh. the way she side-eyed anyone who came at her wrong was kinda cute" and suddenly repressed emotions have come back tenfold)

anyways 🧍🏽‍♂️ like i said longing isn't my strongsuit so i dont think i have many thoughts on that? it's mostly centered around her transformation, possible events that happened while she was the creature, and her getting out of it?-- but i also like the idea of [name] keeping some of her creature-features when she's turned back (by either flora post-ganon battle or wild) (wild turning her back are separate thoughts), so post totk, she and [totk spoilers] [totk spoilers] [totk spoilers] and wild gets to have fun with that.

idk i'll have to write [name]'s experience with the century in a drabble or smth

[an-sceal]

I don't know if it's a cyclical, clinical depression thing or just a Me thing. There's a point where I determine that I'm going to Get It Together(tm) and that's when I finally see how much I've let It spiral out since I headed down Depression Highway.

Sometimes these moments are a rest stop. I might even know I'm not staying-- that I'm just there to stretch my legs and take a breather, but there's still more road ahead. They're necessary, but a bit overwhelming. Seeing the mess you're making and realizing you're going to have to clean it up sooner or later is hard when you can't even imagine when the next rest stop will be, much less the end of this trip.

Sometimes though, sometimes you're pulling back into your driveway. And you've been away, busy, making sure you got to come home again, but you can see all the work that needs doing. The lawn needs mowing, there's trash in the bins, the windows are filthy and hardly letting in any light.

So you see that. You do. And it's a lot, but you just got home. You have time to take care of things.

But first you have to rearrange your furniture.

Y'all, my bedroom has been in a state of "almost clean except for the parts that aren't" for over a year. I mentioned that my office and art studio are currently more of a computer desk/pile of art supplies. You'd think this peek into my house would motivate me to finally move the t-shirt stacks in my closet, or put away the yule projects I never made, or SOMETHING that would start fixing the mess.

But instead I'm going to rearrange my office furniture, and move the chair in my bedroom, and once things LOOK different, I will feel different.

This was easier way back when I lived alone in my cottage, because I could drag my sofa around at 3am without bugging anybody else. Also, I could rearrange the living room without bugging anybody else, period. I'm not yearning for the solo living experience again or anything, but there was something to be said for being the sole decorating manager.

Moving furniture feels like it's uprooting all the shadows and forcing light and air back into all the corners I had to ignore for my own self-preservation while I was Getting Through. I'm excited about it! I'm imagining how the space will feel, how I'll feel and be different in the room once it changes. And the best part is that once you move furniture, you're not cleaning up after survival mode anymore. You're organizing and tossing and moving your things so you can see the stuff that makes you happiest again. Sometimes that's changed since you looked at it last. Sometimes your eyes hit the same landmarks every day and you don't even see them for what they are anymore until you pick them up and put them somewhere else.

Sometimes you just need to move the furniture.

[steamishot]

T-22 days

8/18: plans changed -> hung out with just SC at her place

8/19: WFH together with LG at a cafe (my first time ever WFH at a cafe)

8/20: watch didi with matt

8/21: carbone lunch with matt

8/22: rubirosa and comedy cellar with matt

8/25: othership with T

8/26: switzerland

9/6: last dinner with T

9/7: last brunch with S&I

9/8: last hot pot dinner with LG

S & i decided to take a rain check on sunday. the initial plan was to go to A's place to visit her and her baby. however, because the commute is an hour long (includes train, bus, walking), i didn't want to risk being in a storm on the way home. there was 50% chance of rain during the day and the heavy storm was scheduled to start in the evening/night.

instead, we hung out at her apartment. got to use the pool, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room. i'm feeling lighter about the move, so it was really nice to have girl time. i hope we have more opportunities for 1:1 time in the future, instead of only with our SOs.

LG cooked me a fantastic italian dinner on friday. it was probably the most "romantic" gesture someone has ever done for me in the kitchen LOL. she had just returned from italy and made zucchini pasta with freshly grated cheese, and two types of crostinis. i was surprised by the amount of effort she put in, given that we've only really seen each other <10x. however, she seems overall like a high effort type of person. i was impressed by how well she maintained her apartment despite only being in NYC half the time. and at age 40, she started ceramics, signed up for swimming lessons at the YMCA, and just told me she's also doing a local spanish language learning class. i have admiration for her and definitely think "i wanna be like her when i'm 40".

i'm now feeling like a visitor on an extended vacation. i'm grateful to share these special moments with new(-ish) friends. a lot of the times while i was here, i really yearned for the comfort of old friends/family. however, now that i'm leaving, i know i will sort-of miss being uncomfortable LOL. i think i'll definitely incorporate some of my NYC lifestyle into my new LA lifestyle (i.e. putting myself out there more instead of staying in my comfort zone). i'm happy to have made 3 solid friendships (S, T, K) during my time here, and hopefully LG and i continue to keep in touch.

matt's work: he just completed his last day (night) at work last night! he's been in a much happier mood recently. things have been less chaotic and calmer since the job search ended. he'll have the next 1.5 months off before starting his new gig. i don't love that we'll most likely be together 24/7 from now until moving back, like literally <10 ft apart. but it is the last hurrah of surviving in a studio together for 4 years!

my work: work hasn't been overly busy, but has been constant. i may be PMSing but i fear that i've been coming off mean/condescending to A who i am still training. i'm trying my best to not let my frustration spill out in my emails and to continue giving her grace. sometimes i question if i'm expecting too much from someone new. this gave me a taste of what being in management may look like.

ceramics: i considered making more bowls and asking the studio or LG to ship it to me in LA if they aren't fired in time. i tried throwing on saturday and my mojo is gone. i decided i won't make any more things, but can go in and practice (maybe). i plan on buying one ceramics piece made by someone else in the studio as a souvenir.

fridge cleaning: we're keeping the contents in the fridge to a minimum and cleaning out the freezer. yesterday, i made an oxtail beef noodle soup. today, i'm making fish congee with the leftover frozen rice.

grocery stores: i used to always go to TJ, but have recently transitioned away from it. there would always be so many people (3 lines) and the process just became completely over stimulating to me. my fav grocery stores now are mr. beet and whole foods. i really like mr. beet for no frills produce. it's about a 20 min walk so it's an excuse to get steps in. i'm a fan of whole foods now for seafood and certain fruits/cheeses!

[blogfromthedead]

June 22nd, 2024

Hi, Evie here. Today comes with a bit of oddness I think. I am in a strange state of melancholy and yearning. For the first time (in a very, very long time) Friday I... didn't want to kill myself? I know this sounds silly. I know this is a small pebble in the pond of peoples day to day, but... I experienced (even for a small moment) relief. I felt that hey, maybe things really will work out. I've most certainly come down from that high, but it was such a foreign and freeing feeling. I miss it. Truthfully, while I am giving this year my all in order to 'live without regret' before killing myself next June, I wonder if there is some part of fighting desperately to survive. I find comfort in both of these parts of me, I think. I don't feel damned if I do damned if I don't. I think as long as I am trying my best, I'll be okay if I die now or if I die 5 years from now. I also met with a psychologist this week in order to have a psyche evaluation. I have been cleared for not having DID which is sort of a relief. I have been diagnosed with severe anxiety, depression, and PTSD which albeit no brainers, is a start in this lengthy journey I think. I am looking unlikely to have Bipolar syndrome. Although I do experience moments of mania and psychosis, these apparently can still be attached to generalized anxiety and depression so I am unlikely to get a diagnosis until we try and medicate those two. I am looking like a candidate for BPD and ADHD which isn't totally a surprise to be honest. Hopefully I can get confirmation on this soon. I am uneducated in what things to look out for so that I can better communicate certainty to the doctors in whether I have these mental disorders or not but I think that will become clearer to me given time. I came out to my aunt who I lived with and was very close with in my childhood. She was... completely ecstatic. Supportive and so, so incredibly sweet. So much joy swelled within my heart to be accepted so readily by family that wasn't my mom. Soon I'll be telling my cousin who is really like a sibling. I am excited to break the news, I think he'll be just as excited if not more. Tomorrow, there is a pop up venue for trans bipoc goths (of course they welcome everyone, but this is their intended audience) at a local bar in center city. I think I'm going to try and go, see if I can meet and mingle with people although this will both be my first time alone at a venue, and my first time at a bar so I feel quite intimidated and scared. I wonder if my persecution complex has garnered into some form of agoraphobia. Regardless, I think I am going to try and make it. Wish me luck! Overall, I think its been a really good week for me and there is more on the horizon to look forward to. I might be excited? I'd like to think so, at least.

That's all for today I think.

Thanks for stopping by if you see this, and I hope things are going well for you.

Have a great day. Have a great night.

[melancholycatastrophe]

I'm too lazy to write out an actual fic (maybe one day) but (this is all /dsmp and /rp):

Dream having one last thing to do after his confrontation with Tommy and Sapnap, and its the reason why he takes the effort to walk through wild forests and rough terrains when his injuries aren't fully healed, bandaids trailing behind him and blood droplets staining the ground, until he finds a little cabin far away from everyone else. And it's almost midnight so he picklocks the door and carefully moves inside the house. He's silent, that's how he learned to survive. So Dream makes his way upstairs to a small room filled with a small bed, crayon drawings scribbled on the wall and toys clustered near one wall. He watches the figure in the bed sleep for a moment before leaning over to gently stroke his white hair.

And then the door opens and the lights turn on and Fundy is leaning against the doorframe, an annoyed but not surprised look on his face. "Am I next on your reign of terror?" He asks.

"I'm not here for you," Dream says, fingers flexing at his sides, one hand still stroking Yogurt's hair. "I'll leave soon. Don't worry about me."

"I'm not worried about you, I'm worried about my son."

"Our son."

Because at one point Fundy loved Dream, and Dream loved him back, and they were planning on getting married and being happy when Dream suddenly left. When Dream declared that he didn't have any attachments anymore. When Dream stopped looking Fundy in the eyes. When Dream lied to the entire server and himself. When Dream knew Fundy was pregnant and left anyway. And then he was thrown in prison before he could meet Yogurt properly.

"He doesn't know that," Fundy says. "For all he knows, his other dad is dead. You being here would confuse him."

"You never talked about me?"

"Why would I? What would I say? That his father is in prison, or was, anyway? That his father never met him? That his father left his daddy on the day of their wedding because he got cold feet, and then ignored him for weeks afterwards? What do I tell him, Dream, that won't devastate him?"

And Dream doesn't say anything for a moment. He's calculating but Yogurt is sighing softly in his bed and a part of him yearns to be with his son, make up for the year he wasn't there, hold him close, like a shield away from all the terrible things in the world. He's glad he's wearing his mask. It hides the scars on his face, the wild expression in his eyes, a face not suitable to raise a child. Dream knew, when he realized pushing people away was the only way to accomplish his goals, that Yogurt would be one of them. He wishes he wasn't.

"Have you been taking care of yourself?" Dream asks. He's deflecting, Fundy knows this. He's tired of whatever mind games he's playing. He already had to deal with the prison outbreak and Quackity raising hell once he found out, he couldn't deal with this emotionally taxing encounter.

"You smell like shit, go shower," Fundy instructs. "And then leave. I don't care where you go, I won't tell anyone. I just want to sleep."

And Dream hesitates. Opens his mouth. Says nothing. He nods. When Fundy turns around, he blurts out, "Why are you trusting me?"

Fundy sighs. "I don't trust you. I don't know if I ever can anymore. But you're the only one I trust around him." He leaves before Dream can ask for an explanation.

Dream looks back at Yogurt, stares at him with something that looks like regret, something even he doesn't have the words for. He leans down and presses a gentle kiss on his forehead. Yogurt stirs lightly but he doesn't wake up. "I miss you," he whispers, so quietly no one would be able to hear him. "I'm sorry I can't stay."

Fundy does hear it, waiting outside the door, his ears twitching. He clenches his jaw and walks away. Dream knows the way out.

[wordsnwhiskey]

Hello and welcome to my masterlist! I'm B and captain of the crazy below. My inbox is open for drabbles, HC's, etc. (Just know that I reserve the right to refuse.)

This blog is 18+ only, there will be smut and mature content below. If you feel something is missing a tag or warning, please let me know and I'll get to that as soon as possible! If you'd like to be added to my taglist just head on over here! [AO3]

Your Reblogs & Comments are what keep me going! If you like my writing and want to send me a little extra support hop on over to my ko-fi. Thank you for reading!

Series & One Shots

As It Should Be Series Masterlist - [Whiskey x F!Reader x Frankie] [Ongoing]

Rated: Explicit

Summary:  Everything is upended when you unexpectedly reunite with Frankie while undercover with Whiskey at a gala; the happy reunion ends in a hail of bullets and an even more pressing dilemma. A spark of hope for what could be is ignited in the three of you but there’s trouble brewing in the last place Frankie wants to go back to and he desperately hopes that spark will survive the mission. - Contains A Chapter With Sex Pollen

Broken Promise - [Whiskey x G/N Reader] [Oneshot]

Rated: T for language

Summary: Jack wishes he’d never met you. - Angst, Death, Alcohol

This was put together for Maggie’s @221bshrlocked​ writing challenge and it’s really just me throwing some angst down on one Jack “Whiskey” Daniels who never properly processed the death of the love of his life the first time and now has to do it for a second time.

Hey Pumpkin - [Whiskey & Daughter!Reader] [Oneshot]

Rated: T mostly for the Angst

Summary: You get an envelope the day after your 18th birthday from your dad, who you’ve never met. - Angst, Major character death (not shown or described)

This is unbeta’d and the product of me rewatching Avengers End Game.

Brass Tacks - [Whiskey x F!Reader] [Oneshot]

Rated: Explicit

Summary: After a long week you decide to stop by your favorite bar and have a drink to unwind. It just so happens that a certain cowboy with a taste for Whiskey, saddles up to the bar next to you.

Y’all, I'm coming out of my unintentional hiatus because of school to drop this. This whole fic came about because I went out to a bar, had a drink (Brass Tacks) and this was all I could think of while I was drinking it. Self-Indulgent as all hell. Don't look at me. Unbeta’d

Ride, Baby Girl, Ride

Rated: Explicit

Summary: You rent the mother-in-law suite/apartment on Jack’s property. Over time the two of you grow closer and fall into a relationship. After exams, you’re exhausted, stressed and need some time to not think. Jack knows just how to help.

I’ve been yearning for Daddy Whiskey, can’t you tell? Shout out to @pascalslittlebrat for brainstorming these shenanigans with me! Unbeta’d.

Meddling with Mistletoe Masterlist [Whiskey x F!Reader] [Short Series]

Rated: Explicit [for final chapter, otherwise T, eventual E]

Summary: It’s been two years since you left your home state and after your neighbor, and friend, Jack, saves the day more than once during your mom and abuela's visit in early December, your grandma insists on inviting Jack to your family Christmas celebration back home in the Midwest.

Once there, family holiday chaos ensues and your abuela tries to help you and Jack acknowledge the feelings you have for each other through the strategic use of mistletoe. and once there, your grandma uses the strategic placement of mistletoe to try to help you and Jack acknowledge the feelings you have for each other.

Holiday idiots in love/friends to lovers fluff with Whiskey

Headcanons & Others - NSFW Marked With *

How Does Jack Feel About Being Teased?*

Series & One Shots

As It Should Be Series Masterlist - [Whiskey x F!Reader x Frankie] [Ongoing]

Rated: Explicit

Summary:  Everything is upended when you unexpectedly reunite with Frankie while undercover with Whiskey at a gala; the happy reunion ends in a hail of bullets and an even more pressing dilemma. A spark of hope for what could be is ignited in the three of you but there’s trouble brewing in the last place Frankie wants to go back to and he desperately hopes that spark will survive the mission. - Contains A Chapter With Sex Pollen

A Wound Deeper Than Shrapnel - [Vietnam War!AU] [Frankie x Nurse!OFC] [Oneshot]

Playlist Rated: M

Prompt from @pedroboys-headcanons

Summary: "The click of a pressure plate buried in the dirt is somehow resounding in the midst of gunfire and shouts across the battlefield." In the blink of an eye, Tom is gone and Frankie's life is upended forever. He's heading home but home is a battlefield he hadn't been prepared for and while his days are filled with recovering, his nights are haunted by chilling nightmares. - ANGST, mind the warnings.

Nos Vemos - [Frankie x Reader & Santiago] [Oneshot]

Summary: You and Frankie are out to dinner when you get the worst news you could ever imagine. - ANGST.

I'm processing some stuff, not beta'd

TBD

Series & Oneshots

Is It Living If You've Left Your Life Behind? [Dave York & GN!Reader] [Oneshot]

Summary: Thanks to you, Dave escaped the showdown with McCall. You planned to take him to a safehouse on the other side of the country where he could recover and get started on living a new life. In order to do that though, he has to leave his wife, his daughters and his life behind. He can't help but wonder, is it really living if he has to leave his life behind? - Mild Angst

Rating: T for Language I guess

Contingency Plan - Coming Soon [Dave York x Assassin F!Reader]

Dave had taken McCall's teachings to heart: always have a contingency plan. You were an impossibility, not even a variable on his radar and yet, there you were, staring down at him through the scope of your rifle, getting cheeky with him. He always had a contingency plan, but he had never planned on you. - Mild Angst, Canon Typical Violence, Smut

TBD

[kylosgenesis]

Teardrops on Fire

Synopsis:

Steve Rogers is the last Alpha of the an almost extinct Lycan pack. With only less than 100 members left. Steve must produce an heir to ensure the species survival and reduce the chance of attacks from others. Omegas are rare, and betas have a hard time producing children. Steves reality is finally setting in as his obligation of producing an heir faces a major set back.

Reader is the last suitable omega to mate with Steve, due to the fear of her daughters fate in the pack, her mother kept her hidden from the pack after her own exile. Only her mother, and Bucky's family know of her existence. Bucky is Steve's right hand man, and the packs best warrior! He and the reader developed a friendship and bond over the years, but age forced them to become distant.

What happens when she presents and her first heat cycle comes? Her body is in excruciating pain and a strong fever quickly overcomes her body. Facing the fear of her daughters possible death, her mom calls on the only person who can save her at this point, Alpha Steve! Bucky and the alphas friendship will be tested. The reader will be faced with her love for Bucky or her duty to the pack.

Chapter warnings : descriptions of death, abuse, blood, and mentions of miscarriage.

Chapter 2: Honey I tried

“When did it start?” Bucky was holding on to the edge of his kitchen table.He felt nauseated with the thought of her, sick and yearning, He couldn't even picture what she had grown up to look like, A part of him was scared of his own emotions.

“It hasn’t yet!”

“ At least not as of this morning.” her mother was breaking apart! Bucky could tell she was very scared and exhausted! He knew that her daughter's well being must've weighed heavily on her, he could see the physical manifestation of her pain. In just a few hours her nails had been bit to the core, and her tears streaks had left vivid and raw tracks around her cheeks.

“Buck! I know this is a lot to ask, but you have to tell Steve! Were worried she wouldn't make it otherwise. This will be her first heat”

He’d almost forgotten his mothers presence in the room, cause he turned around and met her eyes, tears streaming down her face. She'd grown fond of her friend's daughter over the years. After her own kids had left to form their own lives, she could still go to her and relive some memories of her little ones' younger days.

“I know! I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I know what I have to do” agitation surrounded his voice. He didn't know when his heart started to feel like it wanted to jump out of his chest or when he gripped the glass of water that was left on the table so hard it shattered, but it was evident that he wasn't going to be getting any rest that day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bucky parked his pickup in front of Steve's house. It was the largest house in the village, it wasn't Steve's choice, but he'd inherited it from his father, and his father had inherited it from his father before him. Being the house farthest away from the city limits, but right in the middle of the village meant Steve was protected, but could also be easily accessed.

Looking back at his passenger seat he saw Winnifred with her mom cradled upon her shoulder, comforting her best friend through the probably the second hardest day of her life.

“You should stay here Ma, I'll go get Steve” I know he’ll be happy to see you, but I still don't know how he'll react to her'' He opened his tool box on the bed of his truck and pulled out a large fleece blanket. Neatly folded he handed it over to his mother.

“Just keep her company till I come back”

The lights in Steve's house were on, but Buck could hear the sound of wood being shopped and Steve's grunts coming from the back of the property. As he reached his best friend's view, he took a deep breath. It was all gonna be different now, for all of them.

Steve had a large pair of headphones in, and was clearly a few songs deep into his playlist because when Bucky came around the corner; Steve almost lost a hold of the axe he was holding! Lookin at Buck he lowered his bulky headphones and stabbed the axe to the soft moody ground next to the small uncut piece of wood he was about to turn into lumber.

Steve's hair was not as long as Bucky's, and he had taken a liking to a neatly kept beard.

He grew it out as a joke at first! Clint dared him to grow it for a month, and after a month he'd grown fond of the style.So for the past year now, Steve looked less like a young soldier, and more like those lumberjacks from the cheesy romance novel covers his sister Rebecca loved to read.

“Hey Buck, didn't expect you around so late” Steve combed his hair back with his fingers. A nervous habit Bucky had noticed since childhood, especially when he had a lot on his mind.

“Couldn't sleep?”

Bucky was concerned for his friend, momentarily forgetting the reason for his sudden visit.

“ Banner called! Wanda was there earlier today, she wasn't feeling well. Turns out she was pregnant, and didn't know it!

“Steves that's awesome, when is she due ? we need to celebra…” as he looked into his best friend's eyes he saw the pain behind his look.

“She was miscarrying at the same time she found out she was pregnant, Buck. That's the third pup we've lost this year.I don't know how we're gonna get through this, It's getting harder and harder to keep everyone safe, and pretend we're not gonna be extinct in 50 years”

“Steve…” Steve's gaze was filled with a mixture of tears and rage. He took everyone's pain personally. And hearing about Wanda had awoken an unease within his soul. He couldn't fight the problem! How could a man used to protecting and fighting, deal with a problem that didn't require a fight?

“There’s an omega! She presented this morning!

“Who is she?”

“Remember Katerina? She … uhh … after she was exiled from the pack, she had a daughter!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 20 years ago

“We can't just let him die! We have to take him outside the walls! Someone out there can help him”

Joseph was the second in command to Benjamin Rogers. Two of the strongest alphas the entire western district had ever known. Both feared together, but explosive apart.

Benjamin had fathered a son 7 years earlier, a frail boy. He was often sickly and his future wasn’t promised! He wasn't meant to live much longer, the boy had once again woken up sick. A high fever overcoming his small body.

Benjamin had changed after his wife's death, he blamed the boy for Sarah’s death. A man that was once kind, and dedicated to his family, now lived like a wandering dark shadow inflicting cruelty against anyone that disagreed and crossed his path. His pack was strong! But there was no harmony, only fear.

Sarah had been a beautiful alpha as well as Benjamin. She had a hard time carrying Steve to term, at 7 months she fell bedridden and two weeks later, she had a seizure that compromised her pregnancy. Benjamin himself had to cut the boy out of his dying wife. That choice, as his wife laid there lifeless , covered in blood, and cut open like an animal awoke a demon in Benjamin. He saw death in his son's eyes, that is why he could never love him. He could never care!

Katerina took care of his young baby like her own, she had struggled to have a baby of her own so when Joseph came home holding a still bloody wailing baby, she fell madly in love with the small bundle in his arms.

The boy was small, but smart! He picked up words as young as a few months, and as a toddler he was incredibly gifted. Steve excelled in art, and even knees bit of music. Katerina loved to sit down and play piano! A young Steve would lean into her side and follow suit to her fingers on the side of the pano with his small hands. Joseph and Katerina watched him grow up, and took care of him.

Steve got sick often, but nothing too serious!

One day as she prepared breakfast she had a feeling of dread on the pit of her stomach, she ran upstairs to check on Steve and found him comatose on the bed!she wailed as she held her adopted infant son to her chest. Joseph came running to her after hearing her screams. He picked up the boy from her hands and loaded him into the car, with Katerina at his side he headed to Benjamin's house.

That was the first time Benjamin had seen his son since his wife died, his son himself nearly dead!

"Please Ben! He needs help! There's another pack two hours away, they have a doctor that can help him. She can heal him for good, please open up the walls so we can go to her! They both pleaded with Ben for hours, but to no avail!

The man was already covered in anger and reeking of alcohol, “Don't you dare challenge your alpha Joe! If I find out you defied me and left this territory you will never be allowed back”

Katerina couldn't let her boy die! With that warning in heart, she and her husband plotted to get little Stevie outside the pack territory, and to that doctor.

Behind Ben’s back, and knowing the consequences in his heart Joe called the Alpha from the neighboring pack, the other alpha had the resources ready for them to arrive in the morning. His doctor, a witch, was ready to give little Steve the life he deserved.

In the early morning of the night they sped their way through the woods. Once they reached the border a car awaited Rina, a beta from the fury pack was ready to take them to their pack.

Ben had closed the pack off to treaties when his wife died, he believed the world was dangerous and the pack was better off without interruptions, he couldn't even save his wife! His pack did not deserve to be mercied, they didn't deserve to live if she couldn't. So Ben slowly watched his pack become secluded and lost.

In the morning Ben, even drunker than the night before, had shown up at Joe's doorstep demanding to see the boy. Fully convinced he'd be dead by now, when Joe failed to produce an explanation as to why his wife was gone and so was Steve.

Ben lost it!

He called a pack meeting on which he publicly executed Joe, whether it was a display of power or just pure psychopathic joy. Joe’s death left the town broken, when Katerina came back with a healed Steve, she found herself widowed and exiled.

As a last sick jab into Joe’s heart even after his death, Ben took Steve!

As the years went by Steve forgot his early years, he forgot Joe and Katerina!

Steve remembered stories of his betrayal, her exile! How their actions forever changed a pack. He grew up kind, giving, and strong! Even if Steve didn't experience or know much love from his father, he was full of it!

And thanks to that witch both Katerina’s little growing heartbeat and Steve were stronger than ever!

Tags:

@austynparksandpizza @exposition-belongs-somewhere

[merci-bitch]

My Sweet Little One part II

Rose The Hat x fem!reader

Warning(s): swearing, slight abuse, PDA? 

Words: 2,5k

A/N: It has been quite a while. Hasn’t it? Haha. Well there might be a part 3 to this. It’s not as long as the first part which is 8k, and I have no idea how to make links so sadly I can’t link it here. ;/ . Hopefully there will more stories coming soon!

I made Y/N mine, alright. And everyone knew it, for sure. The next night she laid in my bed, I made her scream my name until her vocal chords were raw and made sweat crack across her place physiognomy.

No one could have her body the way I do, specially that loathsome rube. But he doesn't matter now.' I told myself. Though I wanted to make him pay. Rip his heart out and eat it on a silver platter after making him after making him suffer. Who the hell does he think he is? Laying his hands on my Y/n. They might both be steamy but he should see me. Oh yes, I am a cathedral compared to his small amount of steam.

"Rosie?" Y/n's voice pulled me out of my self induced trance. "Yes love?" I hummed. "You were zoning off again. Is something the matter?" I loved hearing the sweetness in her voice. It was like music to my ears.

"No darling, I'm quite alright." I smiled and placed my lips against hers and gave her a soft kiss. 'If only she knew though.' I thought to myself but shoved that aside for the moment. I could feel her soft hands gently caressing my bare skin and moved closer to her. Normally I preferred being the big spoon but on this moment, I didn't quite mind. She was home now and has been for quite a few weeks but still, I missed her.

"You're sure?" I nodded and ran my hands through Y/n's hair. "You're so pretty. You know that right?" She nodded and I smirked. "There is no one quite like you." Y/n's cheeks flushed cherry red and I chuckled. "No shame, darling. I only speak the truth."

"I know." She gave me a small smile that made me swell up inside. "Have you thought about my offer?" Y/n let out a sigh and I sat up. "I have but-"

"But what?" I tried my hardest not to sound angry. "When you stabbed me before, you told me it was for steam?" I nodded cordially. "Is that...what you guys eat?"

"Does it matter?" I expected to have her argue with me a little bit but surprisingly she didn't. Which I was thankful for. I took Y/n's hands gently in my own and kissed them. "Look, I know it's hard for you to wrap your head around but their pain is our gain. Don't you want to have a life with me? Unconditional bliss?"

She looked down as she slowly sat up and started fumbling with her hands. I wanted to say things, but I didn't want her to run away again. I didn't want to lose her again. She was mine, and only mine.

—— You don't know what it's like, not knowing who you are. To have lived in the shadows and to have travelled this far. Now I've seen a flashes of fire and echos of screams. But I still have faith, faith that someday my memories will come back.

In my dreams, it's all real. And my heart has so much to reveal. And my dreams seems to say, 'don't be afraid to go on, don't give up hope, come what may.' I know it will all come back! One day!

In my dreams shadows call. There's a light at the end a hall. Then my dreams fade away, but I know it will all come back one day. I just remember, rain against the windows. Sheets upon a bed. Terrifying nurses whispering overhead.

It was all strange. Rose, everyone. They say I was found on the side of the road. It had recently rained. In the darkness and cold with the wind in the trees. A girl with no name, and no memories but these above. I don't know a thing before that. Traveling the back roads, sleeping in the wood. I was always taking what I needed, working when I could. Keeping up my courage, foolish as it seems.

In my dreams I've always dreamed of a city. I dream of a city beyond all compare. Is it Paris? Paris... A beautiful river, a bridge by a scare and I hear a simple voice whisper, 'I'll meet you right there in Paris.' Paris.

Dancing bears, painted wings. Things I almost remember, and a song someone sings. It's almost December. Once upon a December. Someone holds me safe and warm. Horses prance through a silver storm. Figures dancing gracefully and across my memory.

Far away, long ago. Glowing dim as an ember and things my heart used to know and things it yearns to remember. And a song someone used to sing.

Heart don't fail me now and courage don't desert me. Don't turn back now that we're here. People have always said, life is full of choices and they aren't wrong but they never mentioned fear. Or how the world can seem so vast. On a simple journey to the past.

Somewhere down this road. I know someone true is waiting. Years of dreams just can't be wrong! Someone's arms will open wide and I'll be safe and wanted. Finally a place where I belong. Well, starting now I'm learning fast! On my journey to my past.

Home, love and family. There has to be a time where I had them too. I wouldn't be complete until I find you. But always one step at a time. One hope, then another. Who knows where this road may go? I wanna go back to who I was. On to find my future. There are things my heart still needs to know. Yes! Let this be some kind of sign and let this road be mine. Let it lead me to my past, and bring me home. At last!

—

"So, when the fuck was you gonna tell me."

"Hm? Tell you what my dear."

"Cut the sweet act Rose."

"What's wrong with you? Did they tease you again? You want tea?"

"Oh fuck you."

"Watch it."

"Watch it?! You have some fucking nerve Rose."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. The fuck did you think was gonna happen?"

"Seriously, what do you mean Y/N."

"Did you think I was gonna forget your words? Think I was gonna forget how useless and worthless you called me?"

"Y/N, I-"

"Shut it. I know exactly what you said, I'm not stupid or will I ever fall for some cover up you're calling this. I was happy without you!"

"You would never survive without me!"

"I did perfectly well for 10 fucking years Rose!"

"You call that happy?! With that Danny? You call that happy Y/N?"

"He loved me! He took care of me! More then you'd ever done, he took me for what I was. He picked up the pieces you broke."

"You better watch it. I don't mind killing you myself."

"See, this is exactly where you and I are different. I spend years not fitting in but thinking it was fine. Cause you were 'there' and cuddled me. Did you ever really love me? Cause you're blaming me for everything here, when it actually was you who fucked it up."

"I fucked it up?! You were the one who was so fucking ungrateful!"

"Ungrateful?! I have a fucking soul!"

"No, you don't! Cause you fucking sold it to the devil. You're not human. We turned you Y/N!"

"Excuse me what?"

"What?"

"No, don't change subject. What did you say?"

"Nothing."

"Did you fucking turn me without me saying you could?! Rose what the fuck!"

"What, you're mine. Just had to claim you. You'll be fine."

"Fine?! I don't wanna feed of dead kids Rosie!"

"They're actually quite delicious."

"You're fucking sick."

"Didn't stop you from fucking me."

"I didn't really have a choice."

"I didn't fucking rape you."

"Nah, it felt like it."

"You screamed my name out of pleasure."

"How come you were so sure of that?"

"I saw it, I saw your mind."

"What if that was just for play?"

"Oh, fuck you."

"I'd kill you if you tried."

"Oh, sweetheart. I'd like to see you try."

"Come at me."

"You can't be serious."

"Come kill me Rose."

"No."

"Coward."

"You're a bitch. A fucking bitch."

"Yet you put up with me for years. Took me back in when I was vulnerable. Loved me, well. Kind of. You held me close to you. Favorited me. So technically, I was your bitch."

"Exactly. You're my bitch."

"I was, not anymore."

"You'll always be my bitch. You're so weak for me, nothing will change that."

"Rose-"

"Begging already? Hm. Get on your knees."

"What?"

"Now!"

"Never."

"Get on your fucking knees before I make you."

"Make me then."

"You're playing with fire Y/N. I fucking hate you."

"Yeah, yeah. We've all heard that. How about something new?"

Before I knew it, her hand was wrapped around my throat. Holding me up in the air. Not a single piece of happiness or softness in her eyes. It was just dark. Her whole face was filled with anger. The veins in her throat showed as she strained. Her jaw clenched. Her hand squeezing harder around my throat. More and more air was ripped from my throat.

"You'll learn your fucking place. You disgraceful little piece of shit."

Her fingernails started to dig into the skin of my neck and my vision started to blacken out. Clawing at her hand. Choking on whatever air that was left in my lungs.

"R-Rosie-"

"Hm? Can't really hear you, my dear."

Her hand tightened even more and I felt my limbs go lump. Everything going dark.

-

"I don't know Abra. She's been gone for so long. She was missing when I came back from the bathroom at the cinema. You haven't seen anything?"

"No, I've been trying. It's like Rose is cutting her off from us."

"I just hope she's alright. She doesn't deserve all this."

"I know, but we'll find her."

—

"Sweetheart? Hey, wake up."

I felt someone slap my cheek. Groaning in pain, moving my head away. Slowly opening my eyes.

"Rose?"

"Yes, I'm right here."

"What happened?"

"My dear child, you passed out. You had a nightmare from sleeping and got up and started crying. Then you just dropped."

"Really? I don't remember."

"Oh, don't worry. I've got you."

Rose put her arms around me and pulled the covers over us, giving my forehead a kiss. I couldn't put my thought to it. Was that really what happened? I shook my head and snuggles close to Rose. Breathing in her scent. Relaxing. Smiling softly and looking up at her.

"What? What are you smiling about."

"Nothing."

"Come on, I can see there's something."

"I just -"

"Yes?"

"I love you, Rosie."

"I love you too Y/N."

—

"Rose? Is this really how it has to go?"

"Yes, my dear. Now come on. Stab her."

"I-I don't know, it's just a child."

"What have I told you before?"

"I-, their pain, our gain."

"That's it. Now come, feed your family."

Rose's hands were on my waist, her nose brushing against the back of my neck. I slowly raised the knife in the air. Feeling a sort of deja vu. Had I done this before? I couldn't have. Despite the child's cries, pleas and begging Rose was right. Their pain was our gain. I had to do this to feed the family. The true knot was my family.

Muttering a soft 'sorry' before stabbing the child. Stabbing it over and over again. Hearing both Rose's and Crow's laughter behind me. I felt angry for some reason, the child in front of me was the beat for my anger. The piece to take out all the unknown anger. Again and again. Until there was nothing left. Dropping the knife, shaking.

"You did so great, look at all that steam! Well last for weeks! If not even months. Good girl."

Rose gave me a wet kiss and stroked my cheek.

"Rosie?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Have I done this before?"

"What? Stabbing a child?"

"Yeah, I got like a deja vu."

"Well, haven't we all wished to kill children?"

Her carefree laughter filled the air. It didn't make any sense, but it had to.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Don't be so sad now, poppet. You did well."

"It just feels weird. I was a child too once."

"We all were. But now we are adults, we are the true knot. We live as more powerful then pathetic rubes. You said so yourself."

"I did?"

"Right you did."

"Oh, I can't remember much."

Rose stroked my cheek again and pulled me against her. Rubbing my back and watched the moonlight with me. It was silent. Was it nice? Was it confusing? Was it awkward?

"I just, this doesn't feel right."

"What do you mean?"

"It's like I've been walking, but with my face turned to the sun. This weight on my shoulders. And I feel as if I need to run. I do what I can to please you and the others, I just feel like an outsider."

"This is your home, can't you hear freedom calling? Calling you to stay. Don't you feel it in your bones? You belong here."

"In the morning before the sun starts shining, we gotta start moving again, can I drive with you?"

"Always."

—

"So I'm gonna stand up, and take my people with me. Together we are going to our brand new home. Far across the river. Do you hear freedom calling? Calling you to answer their prayer."

"That's what you got?"

"Yes, it was all I could find out."

"It's not really helpful."

"I know, I don't know what's going on. Before it was so easy to track her."

—

"I go to prepare a place for you."

Rose watched you sleep. She knew it wouldn't be long until your memories would come back. Her and Crow had been talking about what to do with you. She didn't want to kill you. She did love you, but if she had to she would kill you. You were steamy but she didn't know if it was that good. She had only tasted it once, but it was only little bit.

It had tasted like flowers. For some reason each time Rose would think about it. She would feel this, this heavy feeling in her chest. She didn't know what it was. It couldn't be guilt, could it? No. Of course not. Rose The Hat never had guilt. She was a strong a confident woman. Powerful. The queen bitch of castle hell.

Rose O'Hara knew guilt, knee pain and specially weakness. Rose The Hat could never dream of getting on her knees for anyone.

If she had to kill the one thing she loved. She fucking would.

[sapphic-sails]

Promptly ignoring several assignment deadlines, I bring you:

@spop-palentines 's

Day 24: Teams and Alliances

TITLE: IN THE NAME OF THE REBELLION

"You coming?"

Start hesitated, looking at her sister's outstretched hand. She didn't know what to say. It'd been years since she last smelled her home.

"Not really," she said, recoiling. Glory screeched sadly on her shoulders. She turned to look at the magical owl, who was easier to face than the expected impatience in Tallstar's face and spoke, "I want to be ready. I want to go home. But I... I'm scared."

"It's okay," Jewelstar said, coming up from behind having turned off the ship. "We're all a little afraid. But we promised we'd fight for our planet, our home. We're in this together."

He placed a comforting hand on his little sister's shoulder. Glory gave a squawk of approval and gently nipped at Starla's ear. She looked affectionately at her brother and took Tallstar's hand.

They'd landed on the outskirts of their village, right outside the woods. They'd expected to find it secluded except for the tall, camouflaging trees, the slippery insects slithering about, the occasional wild predators that Glory would signal to them about. But the forest grounds looked devastated and withered. Long green pipes ran the entire ground forming a labyrinth for the non-existent insects. There was not a squeak, nor a wail, no distant snarling of predators. Glory's mood seemed affected by the forest's disdain and wouldn't light up in the darkness.

"Where is everybody?" Jewelstar wondered aloud.

"Are we too late?" Tallstar said, her voice wavering.

Starla didn't speak. Her attention was on Glory who sat perched on her shoulder, her feathers drooping, her head bent low.

"Maybe we'll find them in the village," Jewelstar suggested. But Starla knew her people. They loved the open moonlights, the soft-blue light cast down through the canopy of leaves. The children carried their sleeping bags on the edge of the forest and lie down counting stars till they fall asleep. She used to be one of them, passing out under the little twinkling lights every summer night.

But it couldn't hurt to check.

"Let's go, then," she said, softly, for the sake of a sleeping Glory.

"Wait."

Tallstar stepped into the woods. Starla and Jewelstar watched in confusion as she trudged on and followed once she began to get swallowed by the darkness. Glory, still fast asleep, did not offer any light.

The siblings went on ahead, unpleasantly amazed at the silence of the woods except for the chirping of a few night insects occasionally heightening over the dim but not going on for long. Starla followed Tallstar from behind while Jewelstar brought up the rear, turning his head in every direction for his good eye to get a better look.

Tallstar stopped in the middle of nowhere. She raised her mechanical arm and extended it to reach the canopy high above. A little rustle and a burst of bright moon light escaped into the clearing where Tallstar stood, gazing up with satisfaction. The moon itself was not visible but it's beam could brighten up an entire corridor of Horde Prime's ship.

"Remember what they used to say?" Tallstar said, withdrawing her arm.

"Look for the brightest moon beam under the leaves," Jewelstar answered, quietly.

Finally, Starla remembered their elders story. Horde Prime wasn't the first to attack their home. Every time, the people escaped to this secluded spot within the woods where they'd form an alliance and rebel against their oppressors. But Starla thought it was all fictitious since she could never imagine anyone hurting their planet.

"It's that tree," Jewelstar said, standing beside Tallstar. Glory snorted a little. Starla walked ahead and stood beside her siblings, right under the moon light, bathing Glory in the brightness. She woke up with a tiny hoot, vigorously shook her head and sent a tremble down her tail through her feathers. With a joyous screech, she lighted up and flew overhead, circling the canopy that surrounded the moon light.

"Let's go," Tallstar said and stepped closer to the giant tree with the big hollow,big enough to fit in a sizeable predator, enveloping an infinite darkness. Glory flew down and sat on the edge of the hole, screeching in beckoning.

"I'll go first," Tallstar said. Glory hooted in agreement and flew inside. Starla's heard lurched a bit inside her ribcage now that her companion had been swallowed by apparent nothingness.

Starla followed her sister. Once inside, she felt an incline in front of her. "Slide down!" Tallstar's voice echoed from somewhere below.

And so she did.

Glory didn't need to glow bright any longer. Starla had landed in a vast underground cave, nearly the size of the mine they'd been stranded in in search for Thulite, that comprised of less than fifty of her people, scattered about in all the corners, all snuggling close to someone. A bonfire cackled in the middle. Children drew with sticks on the muddy floor. Everyone seemed peacefully but miserable.

"The Star Siblings," and elderly woman said, walking close towards them. "You've come at last."

Starla brushed the dust off her clothes as she stood up, but was once again showered with more as her brother landed behind her.

"What happened here?" Tallstar inquired, her eyes scanning the population. Starla knew what she was going to ask next and she feared to know the answer. "Are they all that's left?"

"Its been years, my child," the old woman answered with an quivering voice. "Wouldn't you be more surprised that even these survived?"

Jewelstar had walked up to stand beside their sister. "We're here to help," he said, resting a hand on Tallstar's shoulder. "We're here to fight for our home."

"And where were you when the fight had dissipated within our people?"

Jewelstar began to reply but Starla interjected. She strode forward and planted herself in front of her siblings. "Yes, we escaped," she said, her voice surprisingly steady."But so did so many others. We came back to fight the Horde. We know what makes Prime weak."

She'd the attention of the entire cave now. They looked at her, some pitiful, some intrigued, most sympathetic. She knew what they were thinking. This was the exact way she and her siblings greeted the Etherians. She knew the feeling of hopelessness and the yearning for all of this to end, the only light in the moments brought by the company of her brother and sister.

"Look, we have been to numerous planets, most of them overtaken by the Horde," she went on. Glory comfortingly perched on her shoulder. "And we thought it was hopeless too. That we'd never stand a chance against the Armada. But we also met with people who gave us hope. Horde Prime doesn't like resistance. He'll do anything to quench it. But what he doesn't know is his Armada of deadpan clones can face only much. They've no wit or mind. We can overtake them!"

"And did you think we never tried?" one of the youths snarled at her. "Do you think we gave up without a fight? Not all of us escaped to find an alternate home. We stayed behind and fought back. Look what that got us!" They gestured around them, at the ghostly faces of the only people left on the planet.

"But we cannot give up," Jewelstar said, coming forward. Glory squawked and shook her wings. "We have to keep fighting. It's the only way."

"My dearies," the old lady once again spoke, "the people are tired. They have lost hope. Unless you can give them that, they'll not fight back."

Starla buried herself behind her brother's shoulder to conceal her watery eyes. She didn't know what she'd expected. Did she think that the people she'd left behind would rally behind them to fight a lost cause?

"There's not much you can do, darlings," the old lady continued. "If you seek my advice, I'd tell you to remain here. In safety."

"No," Starla growled, hot tears streaming down her face. "No, we spent years stranded on a planet. I'm not going to sit and wait for the end anymore."

She rushed out of the cave, climbing up the slide through which she came down. Glory lit up the hollow passage. She heard her siblings calling out to her, but she kept on climbing till she felt the ledge of the hollow. Glory waited outside, still glowing.

"Starla, get back here!" Tallstar cried out.

Starla pushed her leg over the ledge and climbed out, bathing herself in the moonlight, the stars above the canopy blurred for the endless crocodile tears that seemed to overflow out of her eyes.

Glory screeched nervously and flapped her wings in panic. Starla sunk to her knees and let the pain of failure overwhelm her. She sobbed relentlessly while Glory kept screeching warning.

Tallstar fumed at her brother for not letting her follow their sister. Now, as she held Starla's knives in her hands and watched a panicked Glory screeching and circling above them, she couldn't imagine any worse possible punishment for Jewelstar than the one he was receiving now.

"I am such an idiot," he growled, smacking his head against a branch. "How could I have let her be alone?"

"Yes, you're an idiot, but what can we accomplish by beating ourselves up, right now?" Tallstar challenged. "We need to go find her."

"How will we do that?" Jewelstar roared, punching his fist against a tree bark. "We don't know anything about the Horde or their ships, or if she- if she's even alive!"

As much as Tallstar feared so herself, she wouldn't let it show. "We'll get her back Jewel," she said, soothingly. "I promise. Even if we have to burn every ship of the Armada to smoke her out."

"We might have an idea where she might be."

The siblings looked up. It was the same youth who'd snapped at Starla earlier. Tallstar got a clear look at him. He seemed about the same age as Starla, sappy green hair in a tangled mess, scratches covering his arms, each an incomplete arc. His face was pleasantly dark, the colour of firewood, and several piercings sprouted from his ears and lips, a particularly large one on his chin.

"The giant Spire, that was the beginning of their conquest," he continued. "Its the most heavily guarded region. You wouldn't be able to step foot in the vicinity before getting vaporized"

"Well, we have to try," Tallstar said. "We will not leave her alone. Jewel, get your axe."

"Wait!"

Tallstar jumped at the collective command and turned to the tree hollow. Every single person, elders and youths and children, had climbed out, looking determined.

"We'll come with you," another young girl said. She was the one snuggling close to the boy with the piercings. "We know a few tricks to distract them, handy when we steal their rations. Besides, we won't leave one of us behind."

Tallstar received agreeing nods from the rest of the people. This was exactly what Starla had hoped for.

"Thank you," she said, softly. "Thank you so much."

Jewelstar raised his axe above his head. "In the name of the Rebellion!" he called.

After a brief hesitancy, the others raised their fists or weapons and echoed his call.

[shinsoups]

— Natsukashii • 懐かしい

pairing: iwaizumi hajime x reader

genre: soulmate one shot; angst

word count: 941

brown = a love enveloped in safety and quiet confidence. it emanates a solid and natural comfort for lovers who yearns to grow old together

"Maybe one day..." he held your hands, tears glistened his eyes as it threatens to spill if he ever continued what he was about to say. He choked back, biting his trembling lips.

You tried to swallow the lump forming on your throat. Digging the palm of your hands, you blink back the tears in your eyes while forcing a tiny hopeful smile on your pale lips. One of you has to be brave, and this time it has to be you. It was always him, the brave and collected one. But seeing your husband break down in front of you, you steeled your heart and force yourself to be the stronger one. Even just once, just for him this time.

With all the strength you have, you tried to squeeze Iwaizumi's hands, urging him to continue what he was about to say.

With silent tears now falling in his eyes, he smiled "One day...I'll reminisce about everything and it will make me happy to remember every single thing about you." His grip tightened around your hands. You tried to conceal the pain away even when you saw that there was still a hint of caution and confusion in his eyes.

Yet he remembers when you two first met, how the way your eyes widen finding out that you were each other's soulmate. The way your coffee drowned his notes on the ground and how he tried to save your head from hitting the pavement. It was just like those romantic clichéd scenes, when everything went in slow motion. But the funny thing was you both hated romantic cheesy movies. You still gag whenever you remember about it and laugh at yourself afterwards.

He remembers how your nose bumped into his muscular chest, holding your head instead of thinking about himself as both of you rolled down the ground due to the collision. Grumbling about your wasted coffee and being late to class.

Iwaizumi should be the one who's mad about the whole situation. Yet the way those tiny brown paper hearts bloomed on the bridge of your nose matching his, like freckles mapping each of your faces down to your arms startled the both of you.

The bittersweet memories were flooding his head. You screaming at him all confused, "This is—This is not 'it'. Right?" you tried to fool yourself, but destiny had other plans.

"Hey guys, everyone — can everyone see this?" you flail your hands pointing at the blooming tiny hearts emerging from the both of you. But the people passing by just looked at you like you're some sort of crazed person who needs to chill and maybe calm down.

Iwaizumi was stunned as well. So this is how soulmates work huh? He mused to himself. His notes on the ground already forgotten. He smiled as he recount how you always runaway from him after bumping into each other at campus, at the gym, at your favorite local coffee shop. Everywhere you go, he was there.

"Remember when you accused me of being a stalker?" he told you fondly, adjusting the pillow on his back offering some comfort in the growing pain he was experiencing. Pulling off some tissue you wiped away the tears from his swollen eyes, trying your best not to break your heart once more.

You nodded at him, recollecting how foolish you were and how you hated the fact that meeting your soulmate would mean you saying goodbye to your reckless flings and love affairs. Rejecting the idea of being tied down after meeting each other, that scared you. But guess who's the fool who actually agreed to destiny's red string of fate?

Five years later, who would have thought that you'll be standing face to face with him saying the words "I Do" and promising the words through sickness and in health, till death do you part.

"Was it worth it?" you pulled away against his body.

Iwaizumi looked at you momentarily confused. His eyebrows knitting together at your question.

"Was it worth it marrying someone like me?" you don't want to hurt him anymore but a little assurance sometimes can help you get a grip of your current situation.

"y/n, you are always worth it. I would trade anything just to meet you again in my next life," Iwaizumi's hand found himself tucking a loose lock of hair behind your ears.

He closed his eyes, feeling a sudden wave of pain coming. Asking the gods why now? Why does it have to be him? It was just so unfair. Seeing himself reflected in your eyes, he tried to smile but he can't. How could he? When tomorrow he'll forget about you all over again. You'll turn into a stranger, he's going to hurt you with his words over and over.

What if the time comes when he won't be able to remember you? It scared him. Waves of paranoia flood his mind, he gripped his hair trying to pull the pain away.

You watched as your heart shatter in pieces once more in front of you. This has become your everyday routine ever since the accident. So you calmly pushed the red button above Hajime's bed to call for a nurse. Pushing a sedative to calm him down you waited until the nurse leaves the confines of the room.

It was always hard to say goodbye. But you have to be strong. Stronger. No matter what happens, you and him will survive this through thick and thin.

"Uhmm" he looks up at you eyes bleary and disoriented.

"Hi!" you beamed at him.

"I'm Iwaizumi Hajime...d-do we know each other?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

a/n: colors of love is a soulmate oneshot series about the different colors associated with what kind of love and what will timeskip hq!!boys will have in the relationship. mostly the oneshots are first meetings (coz ur girl is a sucker for first meeting soulmate au hehe)

2 consecutive au about amnesia i know 👉🏻👈🏻 but i think i wrote these drafts after watching 50 first dates with my cousin last month 😔 forgive me iwa-chan

⚘ · read the other colors here ·⚘

[oisaaac]

“ Six feet under ”

Pairing: Crowley x Reader

Summary: Crowley decides to pay a little visit to his one and only love.

Warnings: angst, character death, sad boi crowley

Notes: English isn't my native language, so sorry for any mistakes this hasn't been proofread either.

This is very out of the blue and maybe a little cliché idk, but i hope some of you enjoy it nonetheless <3

kinda off from the original show plot but try to bare with me uwu

inspired from billie eilish's song 'six feet under'

Help, I lost myself again

But I remember you

Thick heavy grey clouds shrouded above the cemetery as if it read Crowley's mood. It was the same heavy weight he felt everyime he decides to pay you a visit. The same weight that seems to get heavier as time ticks by.

It had been a year since you died. A year that seems to be dreadfully longer than the time Crowley stayed above earth.

It was always a reminder for him how different his celestial form is from a human being like you. You always joked around that he had to see you die at some point—with grey hair and wrinkling skin while he didn't age even a bit, yet look where he is now.

He didn't expect it to come too soon, too fast, too sudden and too painful. It made him think what was really God's ineffable plan? He couldn't even ask it himself. Besides it was ineffable after all.

He should've seen this coming though. A demon falling in love with a human? Both of you knew things can't get normal. For one he was an immortal under a lot of circumstances and you on the other hand was—fragile. The moment you saw the bright light when you were brought to this world you were already hanging on a thin thread. Surviving for only a small barrowed time. Crowley always thought it was some kind of inside joke made by God, a very cruel joke.

Small droplets started to fall down from the sky as Crowley stood looking at the flowers he have in his hands.

You would've loved this. He thought to himself kneeling down on the moist grass, not bothered by the uncomfortable feeling of the contact with his jeans before staring at your grave stone.

It still feels unreal for him, seeing your name precisely carved on the stone which made his heart wrenched.

Retrace my lips

Erase your touch

It's all too much for me

But Crowley knew he would rather feel the pain in his chest over and over again rather than forget about you even if he could never be the same when he was with you.

His closest friend Aziraphale felt pity for the demon, but loving someone always has a cost to pay and he could only give much reassurance to his dear friend. Besides, he was somehow at fault considering you died in his shop trying to help him. Crowley didn't blame the angel though, knowingly you wouldn't either, but that didn't stop him from blaming himself and giving the silent treatment to the angel (which Aziraphale understood where he was coming from) for months. You would have opposed to if you knew, knowing their friendship was one of the strongest bonds you had ever seen. Luckily they were good now yet Crowley still needed more time to mourn.

You were always so kind and gentle, one of the traits Crowley loved about you. Good or bad you seem to look surpass every label knowing it was more than just what they perceive. To you Crowley isn't just the demon who had fallen to spread evil, he was your Crowley; your sassy kind hearted loving demon. He never wanted to have such vulnerability, but he let himself otherwise.

Of course he didn't regret any of it. He would need to die first before he ever regrets choosing a path with you in it. Even if he knew the moment you walked in Aziraphale's bookshop clumsily waltzing in his life only to bring this kind of pain he was currently feeling he would never choose of you not being a part of him. If only he could have had more time just one more second to see you smile, to feel your soft touch, to look directly into your loving eyes that made him feel like he was home. It sometimes brought Crowley anxiety with the thought that he didn't deserve what he was feeling with you—the joy, appreciation and love, yet you always said that he did, he did deserve happiness but the tragedy that comes with it had come unforeseen.

Blow away

Like smoke in air

How can you die carelessly?

Why did you have to go inside? Why didn't you just wait for me. You were human afterall. You weren't built to withstand heavy flames and thick smokes. You've always been so reckless for the sake of others. You knew it was dangerous, but you risked your life nonetheless.

Crowley laid the flowers near your headstone before he caressed the letters of your name closing his eyes trying to remember every detail of your face.

"Just for a second. If you're really listening to everyone's prayer then bid mine. Just for a second. Look at me you've foresaken me and let me fall into the pit yet here I am calling out for you." He looked up calling out to somebody, something or someone who was listening to his mantra. "Please!" He choked through the verge of tears. "I love her. I'll always will. If this is my sin then punish me for eternity, but let me see her just for a second." The only response a low rumble of thunder and finally the heavy clouds opened its gates letting the rain freely fall from the heavens camouflaging Crowley's tears.

They're playin' our sound

Layin' us down tonight

And all of these clouds

Crying us back to life

But you're cold as a night

It was no use. You're gone. The pain settled in his chest eating his insides. It was his punishment after all.

Crowley was soaked by the time he was snapped out of his small trance. He fixed the flowers on your grave before putting the individual red rose in the middle remembering how much you loved that red flower then grabbing the old ones to dispose them before standing up and taking one last glance of you until his next visit.

He whispered his promise that he would come back over and over for the rest of his eternity, he had all the time in his hands anyways.

Six feet under

I can't help but wonder

If our grave was watered by the rain

Bloom

Bloom

Again

Crowley turned around to head over his bentley only to be met by your e/c eyes. He didn't even realized his grip on the flowers loosened as he blinked once, twice, more than enough to make sure he wasn't seeing things while raining and there you were like an epiphany standing on your red dress drenched in rain smiling like an idiot at him. You took deliberate steps closing in the gap between the two of you while you kept your eyes locked on his yellow serpent eyes that you grew to love.

"Y/n," Crowley whispered still trying to figure out how.

"Crowley," You put your hand on his cheeks caressing his wet skin with your thumb. You didn't even understood how, but you were happy. You missed him so much that you didn't say another word and just leaned in connecting your lips with his he didn't respond at first, but slowly he recognized you. It was really you, his beloved y/n. He had so many questions hanging on the back of his head, but he didn't dare to utter any of them. He didn't want to let you go and waste whatever miracle it was that brought you here.

All the muscles in each of your bodies molded into one. You and Crowley were in sync like a melody that you both practiced over and over again. Your hands made its way on the back of his neck tangling your fingers on his wet ginger locks, Crowley's hands gripped you tight yet at the same time gently trying not to break you under his touch. The intensity of yearning and all the other emotions that comes with it all swirled into one.

Out of breath you both parted staring at eachothers eyes. "I love you too." You softly spoke your truth.

Maybe whatever was up there was really listening. Either way Crowley held on you to the very last second of your borrowed time.

"We'll be together again someday." You reassured him while you smiled. Crowley just studied your face and for the first time in a while genuinely smiled and was happy. And it was enough as goodbye for the both of you... for now.

Help, I lost myself again

But I remember you

Kinda long A/N: honestly idk what to feel about this if its good or not in my 19 years of existence i always wrote fanfics imagines and stuffs but usually i usually put it up then delete it later because i dont have any confidence of my work but im trying again. this is my first time posting in tumblr though.i hope this is good, like it gave you feels because it did when i wrote it. please don't kill me that i made crowley straight oof 🥺 sorry for any mistakes again! thank you for taking time on reading this and if you reblog and press the heart thingy thank you so much i will love you forever 💕

[andya-j]

William Pearl did not leave a great deal of money when he died, and his will was a simple one. With the exception of a few small bequests to relatives, he left all his property to his wife. The solicitor and Mrs Pearl went over it together in the solicitor's office, and when the business was completed, the widow got up to leave. At that point, the solicitor took a sealed envelope from the folder on his desk and held it out to his client. 'I have been instructed to give you this,' he said. 'Your husband sent it to us shortly before he passed away.' The solicitor was pale and prim; and out of respect for a widow he kept his head on one side as he spoke, looking downward. 'It appears that it might be something personal, Mrs Pearl. No doubt you'd like to take it home with you and read it in privacy.' Mrs Pearl accepted the envelope and went out, into the street. She paused on the pavement, feeling the thing with her fingers. A . letter of farewell from William? Probably, yes. A formal letter. It was, bound to be formal - stiff and formal. The man was incapable of acting otherwise. He had never done anything informal in his life. My dear Mary, I trust that you will not permit my departure from this world to upset you too much, but that you will continue to observe those precepts which have guided you so well daring our partnership together. Be diligent and dignified in all things. Be thrifty with your money. Be very careful that you do not . . . et cetera, et cetera. A typical William letter. Or was it possible that he might have broken down at the last moment and written her something beautiful? Maybe this was a beautiful tender message, a sort of love letter, a lovely warm no of thanks to her for giving him thirty years of her life and for ironing a million shirts and cooking a million meals and making a million beds, something that she could read over and over again, once a day at least, and she would keep it for ever in the box on the dressing-table together with her brooches. There is no knowing what people will do when they are about to die, Mrs Pearl told herself, and she tucked the envelope under her arm and hurried home. She let herself in the front door and went straight to the livingroom and sat down on the sofa without removing her hat or coat. Then she opened the envelope and drew out the contents. These consisted, she saw, of some fifteen or twenty sheets of lined white paper, folded over once and held together at the top left-hand corner by a clip. Each sheet was covered with the small, neat, forward-sloping writing that she knew so well, but when she noticed how much of it there was, and in what a neat businesslike manner it was written, and how the first page didn't even begin in the nice way a letter should, she began to get suspicious. She looked away. She lit herself a cigarette. She took one puff and laid the cigarette in the ash-tray. If this is about what I am beginning to suspect it is about, she told herself, then I don't want to read it. Can one refuse to read a letter from the dead? . Yes. Well... She glanced over at William's empty chair on the other side of the fireplace. It was a big brown leather armchair, and there was a. depression on the seat of it, made by his buttocks over the years. Higher up, on the backrest, there was a dark oval stain on the leather where his head had rested. He uþed to sit reading in that chair and she would be opposite him on the sofa, sewing on buttons or mending socks or putting a patch on the elbow of one , of his jackets, and every now and then a pair of eyes would glance up from the book and settle on her, watchful, but strangely impersonal, as if calculating something. She had never liked those eyes. They were ice blue, cold, small, and rather close together, with two deep vertical lines of disapproval dividing them. All her life they had been watching her. And even now, after a week alone in the house, she sometimes had an uneasy feeling that they. were still there, following her around, staring at her from doorways, from empty chairs, through a window at night. Slowly she reached into her handbag and took out her spectacles and put them on. Then, holding the pages up high in front of her so that they caught the late afternoon light from the window behind, she started to read: This note, my dear Mary, is entirely for you, and will be given you shortly after I am gone. Do not be alarmed by the sight of all this writing. It is nothing but an attempt on my part to explain to you precisely what Landy is going to do to me, and why I have agreed that he should do it, and what are his theories and his hopes. You are my wife and you have a right to know these things. In fact you must know them: During the past few days I have tried very hard to speak with you about Landy, but you have steadfastly refused to give me a hearing. This, as I have already told you, is a very foolish attitude to take, and I find it not entirely an unselfish one either. It stems mostly from ignorance, and I am absolutely convinced that if only you were made aware of all the facts, you would immediately change your view. That is why I am hoping that when I am no longer with you, and your mind is less distracted, you will consent to listen to me more carefully through these pages. I swear to you that when you have read my story, your sense of antipathy will vanish, and enthusiasm will take its place. I even dare to hope that you will become a little proud of what I have done. As you read on, you must forgive me, if you will, for the coolness of my style, but this is the only way I know of getting my message over to you clearly. You see, as my time draws near, it is natural that I begin to brim with every kind of sentimentality under the sun. Each day I grow more extravagantly wistful, especially in the evenings, and unless I watch myself closely my emotions will be overflowing on to these pages. I have a wish, for example, to write something about you and what a satisfactory wife you have been to me through and I am promising myself that if there is time; and I still have the strength, I shall do that next. I have a yearning also to speak about this Oxford of mine where I have been living and teaching for the past seventeen years, to tell something about the glory of the place and to explain, if I can, a little of what it has meant to have been allowed to work in its midst. All the things and places that I loved so well keep crowding in on me now in this gloomy bedroom. They are bright and beautiful as they always were, and today, for some reason, I can see them more clearly than ever. The path around the lake in the gardens of Worcester College, where Lovelace used to walk. The gateway at Pembroke. The view westward over the town from Magdalen Tower. The great hall at Christchurch. The little rockery at St John's where I have counted more than a dozen varieties of campanula, including the rare and dainty C. Waldsteiniana. But there, you see! I haven't even begun and already I'm falling into the trap. So let me get started now, and let you read it slowly, my dear, without any of hat sense of sorrow or disapproval that might otherwise embarrass your understanding. Promise me now that you will read it slowly, and that you will put yourself in a cool and patient frame of mind before you begin. The details of the illness that struck me down so suddenly in my middles life. are known to you. I need not waste time upon them except to admit at once how foolish I was not to have gone earlier to my doctor. Cancer is one of the few remaining diseases that these modern drugs cannot cure. A surgeon can operate if it has not spread too far; but with me, not only did I leave it too late, but the thing had the effrontery to attack me in the pancreas, making both surgery and survival equally impossible. So here I was with somewhere between one and six months left to live, growing more melancholy every hour and then, all of a sudden, in comes Landy. That was six weeks ago, on a Tuesday morning, very early, long before your visiting time, and the moment he entered I knew there was some sort of madness in the wind. He didn't creep in on his toes, sheepish and embarrassed, not knowing what to say, like all my other visitors. He came in strong and smiling, and he strode up to the bed and stood there looking down at me with a wild bright glimmer in his eyes, and he said, 'William, my boy, this is perfect. You're just the one I want!' Perhaps I should explain to you here that although John Landy has 'Look,' he aid, pulling up a chair beside the bed. 'In a few weeks you're going to be dead. Correct?' Coming from Landy, the question didn't seem especially unkind. In a way it was refreshing to have a visitor brave enough to touch upon the forbidden subject. 'You're going to expire right here in this. room, and then they'll take you out and cremate you.' 'Bury me.' I said. 'That's even worse. And then what? Do you believe you'll go to heaven?' 'I doubt it,' I said, 'though it would be comforting to think so.' 'Or hell, perhaps?' . 'I don' really see why they should send me there.' 'You never know, my dear William.' 'What's all this about?' I asked. 'Well,' he said, and I could see him watching me carefully, personally, I don't believe that after you're dead you'll ever hear of yourself again unless...' - and here he paused and smiled and leaned closer- '...unless, of course, you have the sense to put yourself into my hands. Would you care to consider a proposition?' The way he was staring at me, and studying me, and appraising me with a queer kind of hungriness, I might have been a piece of prime beef on the counter and he had bought it and was waiting for them to wrap it up. 'I'm really serious about it, William. Would you care to consider a proposition?' 'I don't know what you're talking about.' 'Then listen and I'll tell you. Will you listen to me?' 'Go on then, if you like. I doubt I've got very much to lose by hearing it.' 'On the contrary, you have a great deal to gain - especially after you're dead.' I am sure he was expecting me to jump when he said this, but for some reason I was ready for it. I lay quite still, watching his face and that slow white smile of his that always revealed the gold clasp of an upper denture curled around the canine on the left side of his month. 'This is a thing, William, that I've been working on quietly for some years. one or two others here at the hospital have been helping me, especially Morrison, and we've completed a number of fairly successful trials with laboratory animals. I'm at the stage now where I'm ready to have a go with a man. It's a big idea, and it may sound a bit far-fetched at first, but from a surgical point of view there doesn't seem to be any reason why it shouldn't be more or less practicable.' Landy leaned forward and placed both hands on the edge of my bed. He has a good face, handsome in a bony sort of way, with none of the usual doctor's look about it. You know that look, most of them have it. It glimmers at you out of their eyeballs like a dull electric sign and it reads Only I can save you. But John Landy's eyes were wide and bright and little sparks of excitement were dancing in the centres of them. 'Quite a long time ago,' he said, 'I saw a short medical film that had been brought over from Russia. It was a rather gruesome thing, but interesting. It showed a dog's head completely severed from the body, but with the normal blood supply being maintained through the arteries and veins by means of an artificial heart. Now the thing is this: that dog's head, sitting there all alone on a sort of tray, was alive. The brain was functioning. They proved it by several tests. For example, when food was smeared on the dog's lips, the tongue would come out and lick it away, and the eyes would follow a person moving across the room. 'It seemed reasonable to conclude from this that the head and the brain did not need to be attached to the rest of the body in order to remain alive provided; of course, that a supply of properly oxygenated blood could be maintained. 'Now then. My own thought, which grew out of seeing this film, was to remove the brain from the skull of a human and keep it alive and functioning as an independent unit for an unlimited period after he is dead. Your brain, for example, after you are dead.' 'I don't like that,' I said. 'Don't interrupt, William. Let me finish. So far as I can tell from subsequent experiments, the brain is a peculiarly self supporting object. It manufactures its own cerebrospinal fluid. The magic processes of thought and memory which go on inside it are manifestly not impaired by the absence of limbs or trunk or even of skull, provided, as I say; that you keep pumping in the right kind of oxygenated blood under the proper conditions. 'My dear William, just think for a moment of your own brain. It is in perfect shape. It is crammed full of a lifetime of learning. It has taken you years of work to make it what it is. It is just beginning to give out some first-rate original ideas. Yet soon it is going to have to die along with the rest of your body simply because your silly little pancreas is riddled with cancer.' 'No thank you,' I said to him. 'You can stop there. It's a repulsive idea, and even if you could do it, which I doubt, it would be quite pointless. What possible use is there in keeping my brain alive if I couldn't talk or see or hear or feel? Personally, I can think of nothing more unpleasant.' 'I believe that you would be able to communicate with us,' Landy said. 'And we might even succeed in giving you a certain amount of vision. But let's take this slowly. I'll come to all that later on. The fact remains, that you're going to die fairly soon whatever happens, and my plans would not involve touching you at all until after you are dead. Come now, William. No true philosopher could object to lending his dead body to the causes of science.' 'That's not putting it quite straight' I answered. 'It seems to me' there'd be some doubts as to whether I were dead or alive by the time you'd finished with me.' 'Well,' he said, smiling a little,'I suppose you're right about that. But I don't think you ought to turn me down quite so quickly before you know a bit more about it.' 'I said I don't want to hear it.' 'Have a cigarette,' he said, holding out his case. 'I don't smoke, you know that.' He took one himself and lit it with a tiny silver lighter that was no bigger than a shilling piece. 'A present from the people who make my instruments,' he said. 'Ingenious, isn't it?' I examined the lighter, then handed it back. 'May I go on?' he asked. 'I'd rather you didn't.' 'Just lie still and listen. I think you'll find it quite interesting.' There were some blue grapes on a plate beside my bed. I put the plate on my chest and began eating the grapes. 'At the very moment of death,' Landy said, 'I should have to be standing by so that I could step in immediately and try to keep your brain alive.' 'You mean leaving it in the head?' 'To start with, yes. I'd have to.' 'And where would you put it after that?' 'If you want to know, in a sort of basin.' 'Are you really serious about this?' 'Certainly I'm serious.' 'All right. Go on.' 'I suppose you know that when the heart stops and the brain is deprived of fresh blood and oxygen, its tissues die very rapidly. Anything from four to six minutes and the whole thing's dead. Even after three minutes you may get a certain amount of damage. So I should have to work rapidly to prevent this from happening. But with the help of the machine, it should all be quite simple.' 'What machine?' 'The artificial heart. We've got a nice adaptation here of the one originally devised by Alexis Carrel and Lindbergh. It oxygenates the blood, keeps it at the right temperature, pumps it in at the right pressure, and does a number of other little necessary things. It's really not at all complicated.' 'Tell me what you would do at the moment of death,' I said. 'What is the first thing you would do?' 'Do you know anything about the vascular and venous arrangement of the brain?' 'No.' 'Then listen. It's not difficult. The blood supply to the brain is derived from two main sources, the internal carotid arteries and the vertebral arteries. There are two of each, making four arteries in all. Got that?' 'Yes.' 'And the return system is even simpler. The blood is drained away by only two large veins, the internal jugulars So you have four arteries going up they go up the neck of course and two veins coming down. Around the brain itself they naturally branch out into other channels, but those don't concern us. We never touch them.' 'All right,' I said. 'I imagine that I've just died. Now what would you do?' 'I should immediately open your neck and locate the four arteries, the carotids and the vertebrals. I should then perfuse them, which means that I'd stick a large hollow needle into each. These four needles would be connected by tubes to the artificial heart. 'Then, working quickly, I would dissect out both the left and right jugular veins and hitch these also to the heart machine to complete the circuit. Now switch on the machine, which is already primed with the right type of blood, and there you are. The circulation through your brain would be restored.' 'I'd be like that Russian dog.' 'I don't think you would. For one thing, you'd certainly lose consciousness when you died, and I very much doubt whether you would come to again for quite a long time if indeed you came to at all. But, conscious or not, you'd be in a rather interesting position, wouldn't you? You'd have a cold dead body and a living brain.' Landy paused to savour this delightful prospect. The man was so entranced and bemused by the whole idea that he evidently found it impossible to believe I might not be feeling the same way. 'We could now afford to take our time.' he said. 'And believe me, we'd need it. The first thing we'd do would be to wheel you to the operating-room, accompanied of course by the machine, which must never stop pumping. The next problem...' 'All right,' I said. 'That's enough. I don't have to hear the details.' 'Oh but you must,' he said. 'It is important that you should know precisely what is going to happen to you all the way through. You see, afterwards, when you regain consciousness, it will be much more satisfactory from your point of view if you are able to remember exactly where you are and how you came to be there. If only for your own peace of mind you should know that. You agree? I lay still on the bed, watching him. 'So the next problem would be to remove your brain, intact and undamaged, from your dead body. The body is useless. In fact it has already started to decay. The skull and the face are also useless. They are both encumbrances and I don't want them around. All I want is the brain, the clean beautiful brain, alive and perfect. So when I get you on the table I will take a saw, a small oscillating saw, and with this I shall proceed to remove the whole vault of your skull. You'd still be unconscious at that point so I wouldn't have to bother with anaesthetic.' 'Like hell you wouldn't,' I said. 'You'd be out cold, I promise you that, William. Don't forget you died just a few minutes before.' 'Nobody's sawing off the top of my skull without an anaesthetic,' I said. ' Landy shrugged his shoulders. 'It makes no difference to me,' he said. 'I'll be glad to give you a little procaine if you want it. If it will make you any happier I'll infiltrate the whole scalp with procaine, the whole head, from the neck up.' 'Thanks very much,' I said. 'You know,' he went on, 'it's extraordinary what sometimes happens. Only last week a man was brought in unconscious, and I opened his head without any anaesthetic at all and removed a small blood clot. I was still working inside the skull when he woke up and began talking. "Where am I?" he asked. "You're in hospital." "Well," he said. "Fancy that." "Tell me," I asked him, "is this bothering you, what I'm doing?" "No," he answered. "Not at all. What are you doing?" "I'm just removing a blood clot from your brain." "You are?" "Just lie still. Don't move. I'm nearly finished." "So that's the bastard who's been giving me all those headaches," the man said.' Landy paused and smiled; remembering the occasion. ''That's word. for word what the man said,' he went on, 'although the next day he couldn't even recollect the incident. It's a funny thing, the brain.' 'I'll have the procaine,' I said. 'As you wish, William. And now, as I say, I'd take a small oscillating saw and carefully remove your complete calvarium the whole vault of the skull. This would expose the top half of the brain, or rather the outer covering in which it is wrapped. You may or may not know that there are three separate coverings around the brain itself the outer one called the dura mater or dura, the middle one called the arachnoid, and the inner one called the pia mater or pia. Most laymen seem to have the idea that the brain is a naked thing floating around in fluid in your head. But it isn't. It's wrapped up neatly in these three strong coverings, and the cerebrospinal fluid actually flows within the little gap between the two coverings, known as the subarachnoid space. As I told you before, this fluid is manufactured by the brain and it drains off into the venous system by osmosis. 'I myself would leave all three coverings - don't they have lovely names; the dura, the arachnoid, and the pia? - I'd leave them all intact. There are many reasons for this, not least among them being the fact that within the dura run the venous channels that drain the blood from the brain into the jugular. 'Now,' he went on, we've got the upper half of your skull off so that the top of the brain, wrapped in its outer covering, is exposed. The next step is the really tricky one: to release the whole package so that it can be lifted cleanly away, leaving the stubs of the four supply arteries and the two veins hanging underneath ready to be reconnected to the machine. This is an immensely lengthy and complicated business involving the delicate chipping away of much bone, the severing of many nerves and the cutting and tying of numerous blood vessels. The only way I could do it with any hope of success would be by taking a rongeur and slowly biting off the rest of your skull, peeling it off downward like an orange until the sides and underneath of the brain covering are fully exposed. The problems involved are highly technical and I won't go into them, but I feel fairly sure that the work can be done. It's simply a question of surgical skill and patience. And don't forget that I'd have plenty of time, as much as I wanted, because the artificial heart would be continually pumping away alongside the operating-table, keeping the brain alive. 'Now, let's assume that I've succeeded in peeling off your skull and removing everything else that surrounds the sides of the brain. That leaves it connected to the body only at the base, mainly by the spinal column and by the two large veins arid the four arteries that are supplying it with blood. So what next? 'I would sever the spinal column just above the first cervical vertebra, taking great care not to harm the two vertebral arteries which are in that area. But you must remember that the dura or outer covering is open at this place to receive the spinal column, so I'd have to close this opening by sewing the edges of the dura together. There'd be no problem there. 'At this point, I would be ready for the final move. To one side, on a table, I'd have a basin of a special shape, .and this would be filled with what we call Ringer's Solution. That is. a special kind Of fluid we use for irrigation in neurosurgery. I would now cut the brain completely loose by severing. the supply arteries and the veins. Then I would simply pick it up in my hands and transfer 'it to the basin: 'This would be the only other time during the whole proceeding when the blood flow would be cut off; but once it was in the basin, it wouldn't take a moment to reconnect the stubs of the arteries and veins to the artificial heart. 'So there you are,' Landy said. 'Your brain is now in the basin, and still alive, and there isn't any reason why it shouldn't' stay alive for a very long time, years and years perhaps, provided we looked after the blood and the machine.' 'But would it function?' 'My dear William, how should I know? I can't even tell you whether it would regain consciousness.' 'And if it did?' 'There now! That would be fascinating!' 'Would it?' I said, and I must admit I had my doubts. 'Of course it would! Lying there with all your thinking processes working beautifully, and your memory as well...' 'And not being able to see or feel or smell or hear or talk.' I said. 'Ah!' he cried. 'I knew I'd forgotten something! I never told you about the eye. Listen. I am going to try to leave one of your optic nerves intact, as well as the eye itself. The optic nerve is a little thing about the thickness of a clinical thermometer and about two inches in length as it stretches between the brain and the eye. The beauty of it is that it's not really a nerve at all. It's an outpouching of the brain itself, and the dura or brain covering extends along it and is attached to the eyeball. The back of the eye is therefore in very close contact with the brain, and cerebrospinal fluid flows right up to it. 'All this suits my purpose very well, and makes it reasonable to suppose that I could succeed in preserving one of your eyes: I've already constructed a small plastic case to contain the eyeball, instead of your own socket, and when the brain is in, the basin, submerged in Ringer's Solution, the eyeball in its case will float on the surface of the liquid.' 'Staring at the ceiling,' I said. 'I suppose so, yes. I'm afraid there wouldn't be any muscles there to move it around. But it- might be sort of fun to lie there so quietly and comfortably peering out at the world from your basin.' 'Hilarious;' I said. 'How about leaving me an ear as well?' 'I'd rather not try an ear this time.' 'I want an ear,' I said. 'I insist upon an ear.' 'No.' 'I want to listen to Bach.' 'You don't understand how difficult it would be.' Landy said gently. 'The hearing apparatus - the cochlea, as it's called - is a far more delicate mechanism than the eye. What's more, it is encased in bone. So is a part of the auditory nerve that connects it with the brain. I couldn't possibly chisel the whole thing out intact.' 'Couldn't you leave it encased in the bone and bring the bone to the basin?' 'No,' he said firmly. 'This thing is complicated enough already. And anyway, if the eye works, it doesn't matter all that much about your hearing. We can always hold up messages for you to read. You really must leave me to decide what is possible and what isn't.' 'I haven't yet said, that I'm going to do it.' 'I know, William, I know.' 'I'm not sure I fancy the idea very much.' 'Would you rather be dead, altogether?' 'Perhaps I would. I don't know yet. I wouldn't be able to talk, would I?' 'Of course not.' 'Then how would I communicate with you? How would you know that I'm conscious?' 'It would be easy for us to know whether or not you regain consciousness,' Landy said: 'The ordinary electro-encephalograph could tell us that. We'd attach the electrodes directly to the frontal lobes of your brain, there in the basin.' 'And you could actually tell?' 'Oh, definitely. Any hospital could do that part of it.' 'But I couldn't communicate with you.' 'As a matter of fact,' Landy said, 'I believe you could, There's a man up in London called Wertheimer who's doing some interesting work on the subject of thought communication, and I've been in touch with him. You know, don't you, that the thinking brain throws off electrical and chemical discharges? And that these discharges go out in the form of waves, rather like radio waves?' 'I know a bit about it;' I said. 'Well, Wertheimer has constructed an apparatus somewhat. similar to the encephalograph, though far more sensitive, and he maintains that within certain narrow limits it can help him to interpret the actual things .that a brain is thinking. It produces a kind of graph which is apparently decipherable into words or thoughts. Would you like me to ask Wertheimer to come and see you?' 'No,' I said. Landy was already taking it for granted that I was going to go through with this business, and I resented his attitude. 'Go away now and leave me alone,' I told him. 'You won't get anywhere by trying to rush me.' He stood up at once and crossed to the door. 'One question,' I said. He paused with a hand on the doorknob. 'Yes, William?' 'Simply this. Do you yourself honestly believe that when my brain is in that basin, my mind will be able to function exactly. as it is doing at present? Do you believe that I will be able -to think and reason as I can now? And will the power of memory remain?' 'I don't see why not,' he answered. 'It's the same brain. It's alive. It's undamaged. In fact, it's completely untouched. We haven't even opened the dura. The big difference, of course, would be that we've severed every single nerve that leads into it - except for the one optic nerve - and this means that your thinking would no longer be influenced by your senses. You'd be living in an extraordinarily pure and detached world. Nothing to bother you at all, not even pain. You couldn't possibly feel pain because there wouldn't be any nerves to feel it with. In a way, it would be an almost perfect situation. No worries or fears or pains or hunger or thirst. Not even any desires. Just your memories and your. thoughts, and if the remaining eye happened to function, then you could read books as well. It all sounds rather pleasant to me. 'It does, does it?' 'Yes, William, it does. And particularly for a Doctor of Philosophy. It would be a tremendous experience. You'd be able to reflect upon the ways of the world with a detachment and a serenity that no man had ever attained before. And who knows what might not happen then! Great thoughts and solutions might come to you, great ideas that could revolutionize our way of life! Try to imagine, if you can, the degree of concentration that you'd be able to achieve!' 'And the frustration,' I said. 'Nonsense. There couldn't be any frustration. You can't have frustration without desire, and you couldn't possibly have any desire. Not physical desire, anyway.' 'I should certainly be capable of remembering my previous life in the world, and I might desire to return to it.' 'What, to this mess! Out of your comfortable basin and back into this madhouse!' 'Answer one more question,' I said. 'How long do you believe you could keep it alive' 'The brain? Who knows? Possibly for years and years. The conditions would be ideal. Most of the factors that cause deterioration would be absent, thanks to the artificial heart. The blood-pressure would remain constant at all times, an impossible condition in real life. The temperature would also be constant. The chemical composition of the blood would be near perfect There would be no impurities in it, no virus, no bacteria, nothing. Of course it's foolish to guess, but I believe that a brain might live for two or three hundred years in circumstances like these. Good-bye for now,' he said. 'I'll drop in and see you tomorrow.' He went out quickly, leaving me, as you might guess, in a fairly disturbed state of mind. My immediate reaction after he had gone was one of revulsion towards the whole business. Somehow, it wasn't at all nice. There was something basically repulsive about the idea that I myself, with all my mental faculties intact, should be reduced to a small slimy blob lying in a pool of water. It was monstrous, obscene, unholy. Another thing that bothered me was the feeling of helplessness that I was bound to expenence once Landy had got me into the basin. There could be no going back after that, no way of protesting or explairing. I would be committed for as long as they could keep me alive. And what, for example, if I could not stand it? What if it turned out to be terribly painful? What if I became hysterical? No legs to run away on. No voice to scream with. Nothing. I'd just have to grin and bear it for the next two centuries. No mouth to grin with either. At this point, a curious thought struck me, and it was this: Does not a man who has had a leg amputated often suffer from the delusion that the leg is still there? Does he not tell the nurse that the toes he doesn't have any more are itching like mad, and so on and so forth? I seemed to have heard something to that effect quite recently. Very well. On the same premise, was it not possible that my brain, lying there alone in that basin, might not suffer from a similar delusion in regard to my body? In which case, all my usual aches and pains could come flooding over me and I wouldn't even be able to take an aspirin to relieve them. One moment I might be imagining that I had the most excruciating cramp in my leg, or a violent indigestion, and a few minutes later, I might easily get the feeling that my poor bladder - you know me - was so full that if I didn't get to emptying it soon it would burst. Heaven forbid. I lay there for a long time thinking these horrid thoughts. Then quite suddenly, round about midday, my mood began to change. I became less concerned with the unpleasant aspect of the affair and found myself able to examine Landy's proposals in a more reasonable light. Was there not, after all, I asked myself, some thing a bit comforting in the thought that my brain might not necessarily have to die and disappear in a few weeks' time? There was indeed. I am rather proud of my brain. It is a sensitive, lucid, and juberous organ. It contains a prodigious store of information, and it is still capable of producing imaginative and original theories. As brains go, it is a, damn good one, though I say it myself. Whereas my body, my poor old body, the thing that Landy wants to throw away well, even you, my dear Mary, will have to agree with me that there is really nothing about that which is worth preserving any more. I was lying on my back eating a grape. Delicious it was, and there were three little seeds in it which I took out of my mouth and placed on the edge of the plate. 'I'm going to do it,' I said quietly. 'Yes, by God, I'm going to do it. When Landy comes back to see me tomorrow I shall tell him straight out that I'm going to do it.' It was as quick as that. And from then on, I began to feel very much better. 1 surprised everyone by gobbling an enormous lunch, and short after that you came in to visit me as usual. But how well I looked, you told me. How bright and well and chirpy Had anything happened? Was there some good news? Yes, I said there was. And then, if you remember, I bade you sit down and make yourself comfortable, and I began immediately to explain to you as gently as I could what was in the wind. Alas, you would have none of it. I had hardly begun telling you the barest details when you flew into a fury and said that the thing was revolting, disgusting, horrible, unthinkable, and when I tried to go on, you marched out of the room. Well, Mary, as you know, I have tried to discuss this subject with you many times since then, but you have consistently refused to give me a hearing. Hence this note, and I can only hope that you will have the good sense to permit yourself to read it. It has taken me a long time to write. Two weeks have gone since I started to scribble the first sentence, and I'm now a good. deal weaker than I was then. I doubt whether I have the strength to say much more. Certainly I won't say good-bye, because there's a chance, just a tiny chance, that if Landy succeeds in his work I may actually see you again later, that is if you can bring yourself to come and visit me. I am giving orders that these pages shall not be delivered to you until a week after I am gone. By now, therefore, as you sit reading them, seven. days have already elapsed since Landy did the deed. You yourself may even know what the outcome has been. If you don't, if you have purposely kept yourself apart and have refused to have anything to do with it - which I suspect may be the case - please change your mind now and give Landy a call to see how things went with me. That is the least you can do. I have told him that he may expect to hear from you on the seventh day. Your faithful husband, William PS. Be good when I am gone, and always remember that it is harder to be a widow than a wife. Do not drink cocktails. Do not waste money. Do not smoke cigarettes. Do not eat pastry. Do not use lipstick. Do not buy a television apparatus. Keep my rose beds and my rockery well weeded in the summers. And incidentally I suggest that you have the telephone disconnected now that I shall have no further use for it. W. Mrs Pearl laid the last page of the manuscript slowly down on the sofa beside her. Her little mouth was pursed up tight and there was a whiteness around her nostrils. But really! You would think a widow was entitled to a bit of peace after all these years. The whole thing was just too awful to think about. Beastly and awful. It gave her the shudders. She reached for her bag and found herself another cigarette. She lit it, inhaling the smoke deeply and blowing it out in clouds all over the room. Through the smoke she could see her lovely television set, brand new, lustrous, huge, crouching defiantly but also a little Self-consciously on top of what used to be William's worktable. What would he say, she wondered, if he could see that now? She paused, to remember the last time he had caught her smoking a cigarette. That was about a year ago, and she was sitting in the kitchen by the open window having a quick one before he came home from work. She'd had the radio on loud playing dance music and she had turned round to pour herself another cup of coffee and there he was standing in the doorway, huge and grim, staring down at her with those awful eyes, a little black dot of fury blazing in the centre of each. For four weeks after that, he had paid the housekeeping bills himself and given her no money at all, but of course he wasn't to know that she had over six pounds salted away in a soap-flake carton in the cupboard under the sink. 'What is it?' she had said to him once during supper. 'Are you worried about me getting lung cancer?' 'I am not,' he had answered. 'Then why can't I smoke?' 'Because I disapprove, that's why.' He had also disapproved of children, and as a result they had never had any of them either. Where was he now, this William of hers, the great disapprover? Landy would be expecting her to call up. Did she have to call Landy? Well, not really, no. She finished her cigarette, then lit another one immediately from the old stub. She looked at the telephone that was sitting on the worktable beside the television set. William had asked her to call. He had specifically requested that she telephone Landy as soon as she had read the letter. She hesitated, fighting hard now against that old ingrained sense duty that she didn't quite yet dare to shake off. Then, slowly, she got to her feet and crossed over to the phone on the worktable. She found a number in the book, dialled it, and waited. 'I want to speak to Mr Landy, please.' 'Who is calling?' 'Mrs Pearl. Mrs William Pearl.' 'One moment, please.' Almost at once, Landy was on the other end of the wire. 'Mrs Pearl?' 'This is Mrs Pearl.' There was a slight pause. 'I am so glad you called at last, Mrs Pearl. You are quite well, I hope?' The voice was quiet, unemotional, courteous. 'I wonder if you would care to come over here to the hospital? Then we can have a little chat. I expect you are very eager to know how it all came out.' She didn't answer. 'I can tell you now that everything went pretty smoothly, one way and another. Far better, in fact, than I was entitled to hope. It is not only alive, Mrs Pearl, it is conscious. It recovered consciousness on the second day. Isn't that interesting?' She waited for him to go on. 'And the eye is seeing. We are sure of that because we get an immediate change in the deflections on the encephalograph when we hold something up in front of it. And now we're giving it the newspaper to read every day.' 'Which newspaper?' Mrs Pearl asked sharply. 'The Daily Mirror. The headlines are larger.' 'He hates the Mirror. Give him The Times.' There was a pause, then the doctor said, 'Very well, Mrs Pearl. We'll give it The Times. We naturally want to do all we can to keep it happy.' 'Him,' she said. 'Not it. Him!' 'Him,' the doctor said. 'Yes, I beg your pardon. To keep him happy. That's one reason why I suggested you should come along here as soon as possible. I think it would be good for him to see you. You could indicate how delighted you were to be with him again - smile at him and blow him a kiss and all that sort of thing. It's bound to be a comfort to him to know that you are standing by.' There was a long pause. 'Well,' Mrs Pearl said at last, her voice suddenly very meek and tired. 'I suppose I had better come on over and see how he is.' 'Good. I knew you would. I'll wait here for you. Come straight up to my office on the second floor. Good-bye.' Half an hour later, Mrs Pearl was at the hospital. 'You mustn't be surprised by what he looks like,' Landy said as he walked beside her down a corridor. 'No, I won't.' 'It's bound to be a bit of a shock to you at first. He's not very prepossessing in his present state, I'm afraid.' 'I didn't marry him for his looks, Doctor.' Landy turned and stared at her. What a queer little woman this was, he thought, with her large eyes and her sullen, resentful air. Her features, which inust have been quite pleasant once, had now gone completely. The mouth was slack, the cheeks loose and flabby and the whole face gave the impression of having slowly but surely sagged to pieces through years and years of joyless married life. They walked on for a while in silence. 'Take your time when you get inside,' Landy said. 'He won't know you're in there until you place your face directly above his eye. The eye is always open, but he can't move it at all, so the field of vision is very narrow. At present we have it looking up at the ceiling. And of course he can't hear anything. We can talk together as much as we like. It's in here.' Landy opened a door and ushered her into a small square room. 'I wouldn't go too close yet,' he said, putting a hand on her arm. 'Stay back here a moment with me until you get used to it all.' There was a biggish white enamel bowl about the size of a washbasin standing on a high white table in the centre of the room, and there were half a dozen thin plastic tubes coming out of it. These tubes were connected with a whole lot of glass piping in which you could see the blood flowing to and from the heart inachine. The machine itself made a soff rhythmic pulsing sound. 'He's in there,' Landy said, pointing to the basin, which was too high for her to see into. 'Come just a little closer. Not too near.' He led her two paces forward. By stretching her neck, Mrs Pearl could now see the surface of the liquid inside the basin. It was clear and still, and on it there floated a small oval capsule, about the size of a pigeon's egg. 'That's the eye in there,' Landy said. 'Can you see it?' 'Yes.' 'So far as we can tell, it is still in perfect condition. It's his right eye, and the plastic container has a lens on it similar to the one he used in his own spectacles. At this moment he's probably seeing quite as well as he did before.' 'The ceiling isn't much to look at,' Mrs Pearl said. 'Don't worry about that. We're in the process of working out a whole programme to keep kim amused, but we don't want to go too quickly at first.' 'Give him a good book.' 'We will, we will. Are you feeling all right, Mrs Pearl?' 'Yes. 'Then we'll go forward a little more, shall we, and you'll be able to see the whole thing.' He led her forward until they were standing only a couple of yards from the table, and now she could see right down into the basin. 'There you are,' Landy said. 'That's William.' He was far larger than she had imagined he would be, and darker in colour. With all the ridges and creases running over his surface, he reminded her of nothing so much as an enormous pickled walnut. She could see the stubs of the four big arteries and the two veins coming out from the base of him and the neat way in which they were joined to the plastic tubes; and with each throb of the heart machine, all the tubes gave a little jerk in unison as the blood was pushed through them. 'You'll have to lean over,' Landy said, 'and put your pretty face right above the eye. He'll see you then, and you can srnile at him and blow him a kiss. If I were you I'd say a few nice things as well. He won't actually hear them, but I'm sure he'll get the general idea.' 'He hates people blowing kisses at him,' Mrs Pearl said. 'I'll do it my own way if you don't mind.' She stepped up to the edge of the table, leaned forward until her face was directly over the basin, and looked straight down into William's eye. 'Hallo, dear,' she whispered. 'It's me - Mary.' The eye, bright as ever, stared back at her with a peculiar, fixed intensity. 'How are you, dear?' she said. The plastic capsule was transparent all the way round so that the whole of the eyeball was visible. The optic nerve connecting the underside of it to the brain looked like a short length of grey spaghetti. 'Are you feeling all right, William?' It was a queer sensation peering into her husband's eye when there was no face to go with it. All she had to look at was the eye, and shekept staring at it, and gradually it grew bigger and bigger, in the end it was the only thing that she could see - a sort of face in itself. There was a network of tiny red veins running over the white surface of the eyeball, and in the ice-blue of the iris there were three or four rather pretty darkish streaks radiating from the pupil in the centre. The pupil was large and black, with a little spark of light reflecting from one side of it. 'I got your letter, dear, and came over at once to see how you were. Dr Landy says you are doing wonderfully well. Perhaps if I talk slowly you can understand a little of what I am saying by reading my lips.' There was no doubt that the eye was watching her. 'They are doing everything possible to take care of you, dear. This marvellous machine thing here is pumping away all the time and I'm sure it's a lot better than those silly old hearts all the rest of us have. Ours are liable to break down at any moment, but yours will go on for ever.' She was studying the eye closely, trying to discover what there was about it that gave it such an unusual appearance. 'You seem fine, dear, simply fine. Really you do.' It looked ever so much nicer, this eye, than either of his eye used to look, she told herself. There was a softness about it somewhere, a calm, kindly quality that she had never seen before. Maybe it had to do with the dot in the very centre, the pupil. William's pupils used always to be tiny black pinheads. They used to glint at you, stabbing into your brain, seeing right through you, and they always knew at once what you were up to and even what you were thinking. But this one she was looking at now was large and soft and gentle, almost cowlike. 'Are you quite sure he's conscious?' she asked, not looking up. 'Oh yes, completely,' Landy said. 'And he can see me?' 'Perfectly.' 'Isn't that marvellous? I expect he's wondering what happened.' 'Not at all. He knows perfectly well where he is and why he's there. He can't possibly have forgotten that.' 'You mean he knows he's in this basin?' 'Of course. And if only he had the power of speech, he would probably be able to carry on a perfectly normal conversation with you this very minute. So far as I can see, there should be absolutely no difference mentally between this William here and the one you used to know back home.' 'Good gracious me,' Mrs Pearl said, and she paused to consider this intriguing aspect. You know what, she told herself, looking behind the eye now and staring hard at the great grey pulpy walnut that lay so placidly under the water, I'm not at all sure that I don't prefer him as he is at present. In fact, I believe that I could live very comfortably with this kind of a William. I could cope with this one. 'Quiet, isn't he?' she said. 'Naturally he's quiet.' No arguments and criticisms, she thought, no constant admonitions, no rules to obey, no ban on smoking cigarettes, no pair of cold disapproving eyes watching me over the top of a book in the evenings, no shirts to wash and iron, no meals to cook - nothing but the throb of the heart machine, which was rather a, soothing sound anyway and certainly not loud enough to interfere with television. 'Doctor,' she said. 'I do believe I'm suddenly getting to feel the most enormous affection for him. Does that sound queer?' 'I think it's quite understandable.' 'He looks so helpless and silent lying there under the water in his little basin.' 'Yes, I know.' 'He's like a baby, that's what he's like. He's exactly like a little baby.' Landy stood still behind her, watching. 'There,' she said softly, peering into the basin. 'From now on Mary's going to look after you all by herself and you've nothing to worry about in the world. When can I have him back home, Doctor?' 'I beg your pardon?' 'I said when can I have him back - back in my own house?' 'You're joking,' Landy said. She turned her head slowly around and looked directly at him. 'Why should I joke?' she asked. Her face was bright, her eyes round and bright as two diamonds. 'He couldn't possibly be moved.' 'I don't see why not.' 'This is an experiment, Mrs Pearl.' 'It's my husband, Dr Landy.' A funny little nervous half-smile appeared on Landy's mouth. 'Well…' he said. 'It is my husband, you know.' Ihere was no anger in her voice. She spoke quietly, as though merely reminding him' of a simple fact. 'That's rather a tricky' point,' Landy said, wetting his lips. 'You're a widow now, Mrs Pearl. I think you must resign yourself to that fact.' She turned away suddenly from the table and crossed over to the window. 'I mean it,' she said, fishing in her bag for a cigarette. 'I want him back.' Landy watched her as she put the cigarette between her lips and lit it. Unless he were very much mistaken, there was something a bit odd about this woman, he thought. She seemed almost pleased to have her husband over there in the basin. He tried to imagine what his own feelings would be if it were his wife's brain lying there and her eye staring up at him out of that capsule. He wouldn't like it. 'Shall we go back to my room now?' he said. She was standing by the window, apparently quite calm and relaxed, puffing her cigarette. 'Yes, all right.' On her way past the table she stopped and leaned over the basin once more. 'Mary's leavingnow, sweetheart,' she said. 'And don't you worry about a single thing, you understand? We're going to get you right back home where, we can look after you properly just as soon as we possibly can. And listen dear...' At this point she paused and carried the cigarette to her lips, intending to take a puff. Instantly the eye flashed. She was looking straight into it at the time, and right in the centre of it she saw a tiny but brilliant flash of light, and the pupil contracted into a minute black pinpoint of absolute fury. At first she didn't move. She stood bending over the basin, holding the cigarette up to her mouth, watching the eye. Then very slowly, deliberately, she put the cigarette between her lips and took a long suck. She inhaled deeply, and she held the smoke inside her lungs for three or four seconds; then suddenly, whoosh, out it came through her nostrils in two thin jets which struck the water in the basin and billowed out over the surface in a thick blue cloud, enveloping the eye. Landy was over by the door, with his back to her, waiting. 'Come on, Mrs Pearl,' he called. 'Don't look so cross, William,' she said 'softly. 'It isn't any good looking cross.' Landy turned his head to see what she was doing. 'Not any more it isn't,' she whispered. 'Because from now on, my pet, you're going to do just exactly what Mary tells you. Do you understand that?' 'Mrs Pearl,' Land; said, moving towards her. 'So don't be a naughty boy again, will you, my precious,' she said, taking another pull at the cigarette. 'Naughty boys are liable to get punished most severely nowadays, you ought to know that.' Landy was beside her now, and he took her by the arm and began drawing her firmly but gently away from the table. 'Good-bye, darling,' she called. 'I'll be back soon.' 'That's enough, Mrs Pearl.' 'Isn't he sweet?' she cried, looking up at Landy with big bright eyes. 'Isn't he heaven? I just can't wait to get him home.'

William Pearl did not leave a great deal of money when he died, and his will was a simple one. With the exception of a few small bequests to relatives, he left all his property to his wife. The solicitor and Mrs Pearl went over it together in the solicitor’s office, and when the business was completed, the widow got up to leave. At that point, the solicitor took a sealed envelope from the folder on his desk and held it out to his client. ‘I have been instructed to give you this,’ he said. ‘Your husband sent it to us shortly before he passed away.’ The solicitor was pale and prim; and out of respect for a widow he kept his head on one side as he spoke, looking downward. ‘It appears that it might be something personal, Mrs Pearl. No doubt you’d like to take it home with you and read it in privacy.’ Mrs Pearl accepted the envelope and went out, into the street. She paused on the pavement, feeling the thing with her fingers. A . letter of farewell from William? Probably, yes. A formal letter. It was, bound to be formal – stiff and formal. The man was incapable of acting otherwise. He had never done anything informal in his life. My dear Mary, I trust that you will not permit my departure from this world to upset you too much, but that you will continue to observe those precepts which have guided you so well daring our partnership together. Be diligent and dignified in all things. Be thrifty with your money. Be very careful that you do not . . . et cetera, et cetera. A typical William letter. Or was it possible that he might have broken down at the last moment and written her something beautiful? Maybe this was a beautiful tender message, a sort of love letter, a lovely warm no of thanks to her for giving him thirty years of her life and for ironing a million shirts and cooking a million meals and making a million beds, something that she could read over and over again, once a day at least, and she would keep it for ever in the box on the dressing-table together with her brooches. There is no knowing what people will do when they are about to die, Mrs Pearl told herself, and she tucked the envelope under her arm and hurried home. She let herself in the front door and went straight to the livingroom and sat down on the sofa without removing her hat or coat. Then she opened the envelope and drew out the contents. These consisted, she saw, of some fifteen or twenty sheets of lined white paper, folded over once and held together at the top left-hand corner by a clip. Each sheet was covered with the small, neat, forward-sloping writing that she knew so well, but when she noticed how much of it there was, and in what a neat businesslike manner it was written, and how the first page didn’t even begin in the nice way a letter should, she began to get suspicious. She looked away. She lit herself a cigarette. She took one puff and laid the cigarette in the ash-tray. If this is about what I am beginning to suspect it is about, she told herself, then I don’t want to read it. Can one refuse to read a letter from the dead? . Yes. Well… She glanced over at William’s empty chair on the other side of the fireplace. It was a big brown leather armchair, and there was a. depression on the seat of it, made by his buttocks over the years. Higher up, on the backrest, there was a dark oval stain on the leather where his head had rested. He uþed to sit reading in that chair and she would be opposite him on the sofa, sewing on buttons or mending socks or putting a patch on the elbow of one , of his jackets, and every now and then a pair of eyes would glance up from the book and settle on her, watchful, but strangely impersonal, as if calculating something. She had never liked those eyes. They were ice blue, cold, small, and rather close together, with two deep vertical lines of disapproval dividing them. All her life they had been watching her. And even now, after a week alone in the house, she sometimes had an uneasy feeling that they. were still there, following her around, staring at her from doorways, from empty chairs, through a window at night. Slowly she reached into her handbag and took out her spectacles and put them on. Then, holding the pages up high in front of her so that they caught the late afternoon light from the window behind, she started to read: This note, my dear Mary, is entirely for you, and will be given you shortly after I am gone. Do not be alarmed by the sight of all this writing. It is nothing but an attempt on my part to explain to you precisely what Landy is going to do to me, and why I have agreed that he should do it, and what are his theories and his hopes. You are my wife and you have a right to know these things. In fact you must know them: During the past few days I have tried very hard to speak with you about Landy, but you have steadfastly refused to give me a hearing. This, as I have already told you, is a very foolish attitude to take, and I find it not entirely an unselfish one either. It stems mostly from ignorance, and I am absolutely convinced that if only you were made aware of all the facts, you would immediately change your view. That is why I am hoping that when I am no longer with you, and your mind is less distracted, you will consent to listen to me more carefully through these pages. I swear to you that when you have read my story, your sense of antipathy will vanish, and enthusiasm will take its place. I even dare to hope that you will become a little proud of what I have done. As you read on, you must forgive me, if you will, for the coolness of my style, but this is the only way I know of getting my message over to you clearly. You see, as my time draws near, it is natural that I begin to brim with every kind of sentimentality under the sun. Each day I grow more extravagantly wistful, especially in the evenings, and unless I watch myself closely my emotions will be overflowing on to these pages. I have a wish, for example, to write something about you and what a satisfactory wife you have been to me through and I am promising myself that if there is time; and I still have the strength, I shall do that next. I have a yearning also to speak about this Oxford of mine where I have been living and teaching for the past seventeen years, to tell something about the glory of the place and to explain, if I can, a little of what it has meant to have been allowed to work in its midst. All the things and places that I loved so well keep crowding in on me now in this gloomy bedroom. They are bright and beautiful as they always were, and today, for some reason, I can see them more clearly than ever. The path around the lake in the gardens of Worcester College, where Lovelace used to walk. The gateway at Pembroke. The view westward over the town from Magdalen Tower. The great hall at Christchurch. The little rockery at St John’s where I have counted more than a dozen varieties of campanula, including the rare and dainty C. Waldsteiniana. But there, you see! I haven’t even begun and already I’m falling into the trap. So let me get started now, and let you read it slowly, my dear, without any of hat sense of sorrow or disapproval that might otherwise embarrass your understanding. Promise me now that you will read it slowly, and that you will put yourself in a cool and patient frame of mind before you begin. The details of the illness that struck me down so suddenly in my middles life. are known to you. I need not waste time upon them except to admit at once how foolish I was not to have gone earlier to my doctor. Cancer is one of the few remaining diseases that these modern drugs cannot cure. A surgeon can operate if it has not spread too far; but with me, not only did I leave it too late, but the thing had the effrontery to attack me in the pancreas, making both surgery and survival equally impossible. So here I was with somewhere between one and six months left to live, growing more melancholy every hour and then, all of a sudden, in comes Landy. That was six weeks ago, on a Tuesday morning, very early, long before your visiting time, and the moment he entered I knew there was some sort of madness in the wind. He didn’t creep in on his toes, sheepish and embarrassed, not knowing what to say, like all my other visitors. He came in strong and smiling, and he strode up to the bed and stood there looking down at me with a wild bright glimmer in his eyes, and he said, ‘William, my boy, this is perfect. You’re just the one I want!’ Perhaps I should explain to you here that although John Landy has ‘Look,’ he aid, pulling up a chair beside the bed. ‘In a few weeks you’re going to be dead. Correct?’ Coming from Landy, the question didn’t seem especially unkind. In a way it was refreshing to have a visitor brave enough to touch upon the forbidden subject. ‘You’re going to expire right here in this. room, and then they’ll take you out and cremate you.’ ‘Bury me.’ I said. ‘That’s even worse. And then what? Do you believe you’ll go to heaven?’ ‘I doubt it,’ I said, ‘though it would be comforting to think so.’ ‘Or hell, perhaps?’ . ‘I don’ really see why they should send me there.’ ‘You never know, my dear William.’ ‘What’s all this about?’ I asked. ‘Well,’ he said, and I could see him watching me carefully, personally, I don’t believe that after you’re dead you’ll ever hear of yourself again unless…’ – and here he paused and smiled and leaned closer- ‘…unless, of course, you have the sense to put yourself into my hands. Would you care to consider a proposition?’ The way he was staring at me, and studying me, and appraising me with a queer kind of hungriness, I might have been a piece of prime beef on the counter and he had bought it and was waiting for them to wrap it up. ‘I’m really serious about it, William. Would you care to consider a proposition?’ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ ‘Then listen and I’ll tell you. Will you listen to me?’ ‘Go on then, if you like. I doubt I’ve got very much to lose by hearing it.’ ‘On the contrary, you have a great deal to gain – especially after you’re dead.’ I am sure he was expecting me to jump when he said this, but for some reason I was ready for it. I lay quite still, watching his face and that slow white smile of his that always revealed the gold clasp of an upper denture curled around the canine on the left side of his month. ‘This is a thing, William, that I’ve been working on quietly for some years. one or two others here at the hospital have been helping me, especially Morrison, and we’ve completed a number of fairly successful trials with laboratory animals. I’m at the stage now where I’m ready to have a go with a man. It’s a big idea, and it may sound a bit far-fetched at first, but from a surgical point of view there doesn’t seem to be any reason why it shouldn’t be more or less practicable.’ Landy leaned forward and placed both hands on the edge of my bed. He has a good face, handsome in a bony sort of way, with none of the usual doctor’s look about it. You know that look, most of them have it. It glimmers at you out of their eyeballs like a dull electric sign and it reads Only I can save you. But John Landy’s eyes were wide and bright and little sparks of excitement were dancing in the centres of them. ‘Quite a long time ago,’ he said, ‘I saw a short medical film that had been brought over from Russia. It was a rather gruesome thing, but interesting. It showed a dog’s head completely severed from the body, but with the normal blood supply being maintained through the arteries and veins by means of an artificial heart. Now the thing is this: that dog’s head, sitting there all alone on a sort of tray, was alive. The brain was functioning. They proved it by several tests. For example, when food was smeared on the dog’s lips, the tongue would come out and lick it away, and the eyes would follow a person moving across the room. ‘It seemed reasonable to conclude from this that the head and the brain did not need to be attached to the rest of the body in order to remain alive provided; of course, that a supply of properly oxygenated blood could be maintained. ‘Now then. My own thought, which grew out of seeing this film, was to remove the brain from the skull of a human and keep it alive and functioning as an independent unit for an unlimited period after he is dead. Your brain, for example, after you are dead.’ ‘I don’t like that,’ I said. ‘Don’t interrupt, William. Let me finish. So far as I can tell from subsequent experiments, the brain is a peculiarly self supporting object. It manufactures its own cerebrospinal fluid. The magic processes of thought and memory which go on inside it are manifestly not impaired by the absence of limbs or trunk or even of skull, provided, as I say; that you keep pumping in the right kind of oxygenated blood under the proper conditions. ‘My dear William, just think for a moment of your own brain. It is in perfect shape. It is crammed full of a lifetime of learning. It has taken you years of work to make it what it is. It is just beginning to give out some first-rate original ideas. Yet soon it is going to have to die along with the rest of your body simply because your silly little pancreas is riddled with cancer.’ ‘No thank you,’ I said to him. ‘You can stop there. It’s a repulsive idea, and even if you could do it, which I doubt, it would be quite pointless. What possible use is there in keeping my brain alive if I couldn’t talk or see or hear or feel? Personally, I can think of nothing more unpleasant.’ ‘I believe that you would be able to communicate with us,’ Landy said. ‘And we might even succeed in giving you a certain amount of vision. But let’s take this slowly. I’ll come to all that later on. The fact remains, that you’re going to die fairly soon whatever happens, and my plans would not involve touching you at all until after you are dead. Come now, William. No true philosopher could object to lending his dead body to the causes of science.’ ‘That’s not putting it quite straight’ I answered. ‘It seems to me’ there’d be some doubts as to whether I were dead or alive by the time you’d finished with me.’ ‘Well,’ he said, smiling a little,’I suppose you’re right about that. But I don’t think you ought to turn me down quite so quickly before you know a bit more about it.’ ‘I said I don’t want to hear it.’ ‘Have a cigarette,’ he said, holding out his case. ‘I don’t smoke, you know that.’ He took one himself and lit it with a tiny silver lighter that was no bigger than a shilling piece. ‘A present from the people who make my instruments,’ he said. ‘Ingenious, isn’t it?’ I examined the lighter, then handed it back. ‘May I go on?’ he asked. ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’ ‘Just lie still and listen. I think you’ll find it quite interesting.’ There were some blue grapes on a plate beside my bed. I put the plate on my chest and began eating the grapes. ‘At the very moment of death,’ Landy said, ‘I should have to be standing by so that I could step in immediately and try to keep your brain alive.’ ‘You mean leaving it in the head?’ ‘To start with, yes. I’d have to.’ ‘And where would you put it after that?’ ‘If you want to know, in a sort of basin.’ ‘Are you really serious about this?’ ‘Certainly I’m serious.’ ‘All right. Go on.’ ‘I suppose you know that when the heart stops and the brain is deprived of fresh blood and oxygen, its tissues die very rapidly. Anything from four to six minutes and the whole thing’s dead. Even after three minutes you may get a certain amount of damage. So I should have to work rapidly to prevent this from happening. But with the help of the machine, it should all be quite simple.’ ‘What machine?’ ‘The artificial heart. We’ve got a nice adaptation here of the one originally devised by Alexis Carrel and Lindbergh. It oxygenates the blood, keeps it at the right temperature, pumps it in at the right pressure, and does a number of other little necessary things. It’s really not at all complicated.’ ‘Tell me what you would do at the moment of death,’ I said. ‘What is the first thing you would do?’ ‘Do you know anything about the vascular and venous arrangement of the brain?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then listen. It’s not difficult. The blood supply to the brain is derived from two main sources, the internal carotid arteries and the vertebral arteries. There are two of each, making four arteries in all. Got that?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And the return system is even simpler. The blood is drained away by only two large veins, the internal jugulars So you have four arteries going up they go up the neck of course and two veins coming down. Around the brain itself they naturally branch out into other channels, but those don’t concern us. We never touch them.’ ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I imagine that I’ve just died. Now what would you do?’ ‘I should immediately open your neck and locate the four arteries, the carotids and the vertebrals. I should then perfuse them, which means that I’d stick a large hollow needle into each. These four needles would be connected by tubes to the artificial heart. ‘Then, working quickly, I would dissect out both the left and right jugular veins and hitch these also to the heart machine to complete the circuit. Now switch on the machine, which is already primed with the right type of blood, and there you are. The circulation through your brain would be restored.’ ‘I’d be like that Russian dog.’ ‘I don’t think you would. For one thing, you’d certainly lose consciousness when you died, and I very much doubt whether you would come to again for quite a long time if indeed you came to at all. But, conscious or not, you’d be in a rather interesting position, wouldn’t you? You’d have a cold dead body and a living brain.’ Landy paused to savour this delightful prospect. The man was so entranced and bemused by the whole idea that he evidently found it impossible to believe I might not be feeling the same way. ‘We could now afford to take our time.’ he said. ‘And believe me, we’d need it. The first thing we’d do would be to wheel you to the operating-room, accompanied of course by the machine, which must never stop pumping. The next problem…’ ‘All right,’ I said. ‘That’s enough. I don’t have to hear the details.’ ‘Oh but you must,’ he said. ‘It is important that you should know precisely what is going to happen to you all the way through. You see, afterwards, when you regain consciousness, it will be much more satisfactory from your point of view if you are able to remember exactly where you are and how you came to be there. If only for your own peace of mind you should know that. You agree? I lay still on the bed, watching him. ‘So the next problem would be to remove your brain, intact and undamaged, from your dead body. The body is useless. In fact it has already started to decay. The skull and the face are also useless. They are both encumbrances and I don’t want them around. All I want is the brain, the clean beautiful brain, alive and perfect. So when I get you on the table I will take a saw, a small oscillating saw, and with this I shall proceed to remove the whole vault of your skull. You���d still be unconscious at that point so I wouldn’t have to bother with anaesthetic.’ ‘Like hell you wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘You’d be out cold, I promise you that, William. Don’t forget you died just a few minutes before.’ ‘Nobody’s sawing off the top of my skull without an anaesthetic,’ I said. ‘ Landy shrugged his shoulders. ‘It makes no difference to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll be glad to give you a little procaine if you want it. If it will make you any happier I’ll infiltrate the whole scalp with procaine, the whole head, from the neck up.’ ‘Thanks very much,’ I said. ‘You know,’ he went on, ‘it’s extraordinary what sometimes happens. Only last week a man was brought in unconscious, and I opened his head without any anaesthetic at all and removed a small blood clot. I was still working inside the skull when he woke up and began talking. “Where am I?” he asked. “You’re in hospital.” “Well,” he said. “Fancy that.” “Tell me,” I asked him, “is this bothering you, what I’m doing?” “No,” he answered. “Not at all. What are you doing?” “I’m just removing a blood clot from your brain.” “You are?” “Just lie still. Don’t move. I’m nearly finished.” “So that’s the bastard who’s been giving me all those headaches,” the man said.’ Landy paused and smiled; remembering the occasion. ”That’s word. for word what the man said,’ he went on, ‘although the next day he couldn’t even recollect the incident. It’s a funny thing, the brain.’ ‘I’ll have the procaine,’ I said. ‘As you wish, William. And now, as I say, I’d take a small oscillating saw and carefully remove your complete calvarium the whole vault of the skull. This would expose the top half of the brain, or rather the outer covering in which it is wrapped. You may or may not know that there are three separate coverings around the brain itself the outer one called the dura mater or dura, the middle one called the arachnoid, and the inner one called the pia mater or pia. Most laymen seem to have the idea that the brain is a naked thing floating around in fluid in your head. But it isn’t. It’s wrapped up neatly in these three strong coverings, and the cerebrospinal fluid actually flows within the little gap between the two coverings, known as the subarachnoid space. As I told you before, this fluid is manufactured by the brain and it drains off into the venous system by osmosis. ‘I myself would leave all three coverings – don’t they have lovely names; the dura, the arachnoid, and the pia? – I’d leave them all intact. There are many reasons for this, not least among them being the fact that within the dura run the venous channels that drain the blood from the brain into the jugular. ‘Now,’ he went on, we’ve got the upper half of your skull off so that the top of the brain, wrapped in its outer covering, is exposed. The next step is the really tricky one: to release the whole package so that it can be lifted cleanly away, leaving the stubs of the four supply arteries and the two veins hanging underneath ready to be reconnected to the machine. This is an immensely lengthy and complicated business involving the delicate chipping away of much bone, the severing of many nerves and the cutting and tying of numerous blood vessels. The only way I could do it with any hope of success would be by taking a rongeur and slowly biting off the rest of your skull, peeling it off downward like an orange until the sides and underneath of the brain covering are fully exposed. The problems involved are highly technical and I won’t go into them, but I feel fairly sure that the work can be done. It’s simply a question of surgical skill and patience. And don’t forget that I’d have plenty of time, as much as I wanted, because the artificial heart would be continually pumping away alongside the operating-table, keeping the brain alive. ‘Now, let’s assume that I’ve succeeded in peeling off your skull and removing everything else that surrounds the sides of the brain. That leaves it connected to the body only at the base, mainly by the spinal column and by the two large veins arid the four arteries that are supplying it with blood. So what next? ‘I would sever the spinal column just above the first cervical vertebra, taking great care not to harm the two vertebral arteries which are in that area. But you must remember that the dura or outer covering is open at this place to receive the spinal column, so I’d have to close this opening by sewing the edges of the dura together. There’d be no problem there. ‘At this point, I would be ready for the final move. To one side, on a table, I’d have a basin of a special shape, .and this would be filled with what we call Ringer’s Solution. That is. a special kind Of fluid we use for irrigation in neurosurgery. I would now cut the brain completely loose by severing. the supply arteries and the veins. Then I would simply pick it up in my hands and transfer ‘it to the basin: ‘This would be the only other time during the whole proceeding when the blood flow would be cut off; but once it was in the basin, it wouldn’t take a moment to reconnect the stubs of the arteries and veins to the artificial heart. ‘So there you are,’ Landy said. ‘Your brain is now in the basin, and still alive, and there isn’t any reason why it shouldn’t’ stay alive for a very long time, years and years perhaps, provided we looked after the blood and the machine.’ ‘But would it function?’ ‘My dear William, how should I know? I can’t even tell you whether it would regain consciousness.’ ‘And if it did?’ ‘There now! That would be fascinating!’ ‘Would it?’ I said, and I must admit I had my doubts. ‘Of course it would! Lying there with all your thinking processes working beautifully, and your memory as well…’ ‘And not being able to see or feel or smell or hear or talk.’ I said. ‘Ah!’ he cried. ‘I knew I’d forgotten something! I never told you about the eye. Listen. I am going to try to leave one of your optic nerves intact, as well as the eye itself. The optic nerve is a little thing about the thickness of a clinical thermometer and about two inches in length as it stretches between the brain and the eye. The beauty of it is that it’s not really a nerve at all. It’s an outpouching of the brain itself, and the dura or brain covering extends along it and is attached to the eyeball. The back of the eye is therefore in very close contact with the brain, and cerebrospinal fluid flows right up to it. ‘All this suits my purpose very well, and makes it reasonable to suppose that I could succeed in preserving one of your eyes: I’ve already constructed a small plastic case to contain the eyeball, instead of your own socket, and when the brain is in, the basin, submerged in Ringer’s Solution, the eyeball in its case will float on the surface of the liquid.’ ‘Staring at the ceiling,’ I said. ‘I suppose so, yes. I’m afraid there wouldn’t be any muscles there to move it around. But it- might be sort of fun to lie there so quietly and comfortably peering out at the world from your basin.’ ‘Hilarious;’ I said. ‘How about leaving me an ear as well?’ ‘I’d rather not try an ear this time.’ ‘I want an ear,’ I said. ‘I insist upon an ear.’ ‘No.’ ‘I want to listen to Bach.’ ‘You don’t understand how difficult it would be.’ Landy said gently. ‘The hearing apparatus – the cochlea, as it’s called – is a far more delicate mechanism than the eye. What’s more, it is encased in bone. So is a part of the auditory nerve that connects it with the brain. I couldn’t possibly chisel the whole thing out intact.’ ‘Couldn’t you leave it encased in the bone and bring the bone to the basin?’ ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘This thing is complicated enough already. And anyway, if the eye works, it doesn’t matter all that much about your hearing. We can always hold up messages for you to read. You really must leave me to decide what is possible and what isn’t.’ ‘I haven’t yet said, that I’m going to do it.’ ‘I know, William, I know.’ ‘I’m not sure I fancy the idea very much.’ ‘Would you rather be dead, altogether?’ ‘Perhaps I would. I don’t know yet. I wouldn’t be able to talk, would I?’ ‘Of course not.’ ‘Then how would I communicate with you? How would you know that I’m conscious?’ ‘It would be easy for us to know whether or not you regain consciousness,’ Landy said: ‘The ordinary electro-encephalograph could tell us that. We’d attach the electrodes directly to the frontal lobes of your brain, there in the basin.’ ‘And you could actually tell?’ ‘Oh, definitely. Any hospital could do that part of it.’ ‘But I couldn’t communicate with you.’ ‘As a matter of fact,’ Landy said, ‘I believe you could, There’s a man up in London called Wertheimer who’s doing some interesting work on the subject of thought communication, and I’ve been in touch with him. You know, don’t you, that the thinking brain throws off electrical and chemical discharges? And that these discharges go out in the form of waves, rather like radio waves?’ ‘I know a bit about it;’ I said. ‘Well, Wertheimer has constructed an apparatus somewhat. similar to the encephalograph, though far more sensitive, and he maintains that within certain narrow limits it can help him to interpret the actual things .that a brain is thinking. It produces a kind of graph which is apparently decipherable into words or thoughts. Would you like me to ask Wertheimer to come and see you?’ ‘No,’ I said. Landy was already taking it for granted that I was going to go through with this business, and I resented his attitude. ‘Go away now and leave me alone,’ I told him. ‘You won’t get anywhere by trying to rush me.’ He stood up at once and crossed to the door. ‘One question,’ I said. He paused with a hand on the doorknob. ‘Yes, William?’ ‘Simply this. Do you yourself honestly believe that when my brain is in that basin, my mind will be able to function exactly. as it is doing at present? Do you believe that I will be able -to think and reason as I can now? And will the power of memory remain?’ ‘I don’t see why not,’ he answered. ‘It’s the same brain. It’s alive. It’s undamaged. In fact, it’s completely untouched. We haven’t even opened the dura. The big difference, of course, would be that we’ve severed every single nerve that leads into it – except for the one optic nerve – and this means that your thinking would no longer be influenced by your senses. You’d be living in an extraordinarily pure and detached world. Nothing to bother you at all, not even pain. You couldn’t possibly feel pain because there wouldn’t be any nerves to feel it with. In a way, it would be an almost perfect situation. No worries or fears or pains or hunger or thirst. Not even any desires. Just your memories and your. thoughts, and if the remaining eye happened to function, then you could read books as well. It all sounds rather pleasant to me. ‘It does, does it?’ ‘Yes, William, it does. And particularly for a Doctor of Philosophy. It would be a tremendous experience. You’d be able to reflect upon the ways of the world with a detachment and a serenity that no man had ever attained before. And who knows what might not happen then! Great thoughts and solutions might come to you, great ideas that could revolutionize our way of life! Try to imagine, if you can, the degree of concentration that you’d be able to achieve!’ ‘And the frustration,’ I said. ‘Nonsense. There couldn’t be any frustration. You can’t have frustration without desire, and you couldn’t possibly have any desire. Not physical desire, anyway.’ ‘I should certainly be capable of remembering my previous life in the world, and I might desire to return to it.’ ‘What, to this mess! Out of your comfortable basin and back into this madhouse!’ ‘Answer one more question,’ I said. ‘How long do you believe you could keep it alive’ ‘The brain? Who knows? Possibly for years and years. The conditions would be ideal. Most of the factors that cause deterioration would be absent, thanks to the artificial heart. The blood-pressure would remain constant at all times, an impossible condition in real life. The temperature would also be constant. The chemical composition of the blood would be near perfect There would be no impurities in it, no virus, no bacteria, nothing. Of course it’s foolish to guess, but I believe that a brain might live for two or three hundred years in circumstances like these. Good-bye for now,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop in and see you tomorrow.’ He went out quickly, leaving me, as you might guess, in a fairly disturbed state of mind. My immediate reaction after he had gone was one of revulsion towards the whole business. Somehow, it wasn’t at all nice. There was something basically repulsive about the idea that I myself, with all my mental faculties intact, should be reduced to a small slimy blob lying in a pool of water. It was monstrous, obscene, unholy. Another thing that bothered me was the feeling of helplessness that I was bound to expenence once Landy had got me into the basin. There could be no going back after that, no way of protesting or explairing. I would be committed for as long as they could keep me alive. And what, for example, if I could not stand it? What if it turned out to be terribly painful? What if I became hysterical? No legs to run away on. No voice to scream with. Nothing. I’d just have to grin and bear it for the next two centuries. No mouth to grin with either. At this point, a curious thought struck me, and it was this: Does not a man who has had a leg amputated often suffer from the delusion that the leg is still there? Does he not tell the nurse that the toes he doesn’t have any more are itching like mad, and so on and so forth? I seemed to have heard something to that effect quite recently. Very well. On the same premise, was it not possible that my brain, lying there alone in that basin, might not suffer from a similar delusion in regard to my body? In which case, all my usual aches and pains could come flooding over me and I wouldn’t even be able to take an aspirin to relieve them. One moment I might be imagining that I had the most excruciating cramp in my leg, or a violent indigestion, and a few minutes later, I might easily get the feeling that my poor bladder – you know me – was so full that if I didn’t get to emptying it soon it would burst. Heaven forbid. I lay there for a long time thinking these horrid thoughts. Then quite suddenly, round about midday, my mood began to change. I became less concerned with the unpleasant aspect of the affair and found myself able to examine Landy’s proposals in a more reasonable light. Was there not, after all, I asked myself, some thing a bit comforting in the thought that my brain might not necessarily have to die and disappear in a few weeks’ time? There was indeed. I am rather proud of my brain. It is a sensitive, lucid, and juberous organ. It contains a prodigious store of information, and it is still capable of producing imaginative and original theories. As brains go, it is a, damn good one, though I say it myself. Whereas my body, my poor old body, the thing that Landy wants to throw away well, even you, my dear Mary, will have to agree with me that there is really nothing about that which is worth preserving any more. I was lying on my back eating a grape. Delicious it was, and there were three little seeds in it which I took out of my mouth and placed on the edge of the plate. ‘I’m going to do it,’ I said quietly. ‘Yes, by God, I’m going to do it. When Landy comes back to see me tomorrow I shall tell him straight out that I’m going to do it.’ It was as quick as that. And from then on, I began to feel very much better. 1 surprised everyone by gobbling an enormous lunch, and short after that you came in to visit me as usual. But how well I looked, you told me. How bright and well and chirpy Had anything happened? Was there some good news? Yes, I said there was. And then, if you remember, I bade you sit down and make yourself comfortable, and I began immediately to explain to you as gently as I could what was in the wind. Alas, you would have none of it. I had hardly begun telling you the barest details when you flew into a fury and said that the thing was revolting, disgusting, horrible, unthinkable, and when I tried to go on, you marched out of the room. Well, Mary, as you know, I have tried to discuss this subject with you many times since then, but you have consistently refused to give me a hearing. Hence this note, and I can only hope that you will have the good sense to permit yourself to read it. It has taken me a long time to write. Two weeks have gone since I started to scribble the first sentence, and I’m now a good. deal weaker than I was then. I doubt whether I have the strength to say much more. Certainly I won’t say good-bye, because there’s a chance, just a tiny chance, that if Landy succeeds in his work I may actually see you again later, that is if you can bring yourself to come and visit me. I am giving orders that these pages shall not be delivered to you until a week after I am gone. By now, therefore, as you sit reading them, seven. days have already elapsed since Landy did the deed. You yourself may even know what the outcome has been. If you don’t, if you have purposely kept yourself apart and have refused to have anything to do with it – which I suspect may be the case – please change your mind now and give Landy a call to see how things went with me. That is the least you can do. I have told him that he may expect to hear from you on the seventh day. Your faithful husband, William PS. Be good when I am gone, and always remember that it is harder to be a widow than a wife. Do not drink cocktails. Do not waste money. Do not smoke cigarettes. Do not eat pastry. Do not use lipstick. Do not buy a television apparatus. Keep my rose beds and my rockery well weeded in the summers. And incidentally I suggest that you have the telephone disconnected now that I shall have no further use for it. W. Mrs Pearl laid the last page of the manuscript slowly down on the sofa beside her. Her little mouth was pursed up tight and there was a whiteness around her nostrils. But really! You would think a widow was entitled to a bit of peace after all these years. The whole thing was just too awful to think about. Beastly and awful. It gave her the shudders. She reached for her bag and found herself another cigarette. She lit it, inhaling the smoke deeply and blowing it out in clouds all over the room. Through the smoke she could see her lovely television set, brand new, lustrous, huge, crouching defiantly but also a little Self-consciously on top of what used to be William’s worktable. What would he say, she wondered, if he could see that now? She paused, to remember the last time he had caught her smoking a cigarette. That was about a year ago, and she was sitting in the kitchen by the open window having a quick one before he came home from work. She’d had the radio on loud playing dance music and she had turned round to pour herself another cup of coffee and there he was standing in the doorway, huge and grim, staring down at her with those awful eyes, a little black dot of fury blazing in the centre of each. For four weeks after that, he had paid the housekeeping bills himself and given her no money at all, but of course he wasn’t to know that she had over six pounds salted away in a soap-flake carton in the cupboard under the sink. ‘What is it?’ she had said to him once during supper. ‘Are you worried about me getting lung cancer?’ ‘I am not,’ he had answered. ‘Then why can’t I smoke?’ ‘Because I disapprove, that’s why.’ He had also disapproved of children, and as a result they had never had any of them either. Where was he now, this William of hers, the great disapprover? Landy would be expecting her to call up. Did she have to call Landy? Well, not really, no. She finished her cigarette, then lit another one immediately from the old stub. She looked at the telephone that was sitting on the worktable beside the television set. William had asked her to call. He had specifically requested that she telephone Landy as soon as she had read the letter. She hesitated, fighting hard now against that old ingrained sense duty that she didn’t quite yet dare to shake off. Then, slowly, she got to her feet and crossed over to the phone on the worktable. She found a number in the book, dialled it, and waited. ‘I want to speak to Mr Landy, please.’ ‘Who is calling?’ ‘Mrs Pearl. Mrs William Pearl.’ ‘One moment, please.’ Almost at once, Landy was on the other end of the wire. ‘Mrs Pearl?’ ‘This is Mrs Pearl.’ There was a slight pause. ‘I am so glad you called at last, Mrs Pearl. You are quite well, I hope?’ The voice was quiet, unemotional, courteous. ‘I wonder if you would care to come over here to the hospital? Then we can have a little chat. I expect you are very eager to know how it all came out.’ She didn’t answer. ‘I can tell you now that everything went pretty smoothly, one way and another. Far better, in fact, than I was entitled to hope. It is not only alive, Mrs Pearl, it is conscious. It recovered consciousness on the second day. Isn’t that interesting?’ She waited for him to go on. ‘And the eye is seeing. We are sure of that because we get an immediate change in the deflections on the encephalograph when we hold something up in front of it. And now we’re giving it the newspaper to read every day.’ ‘Which newspaper?’ Mrs Pearl asked sharply. ‘The Daily Mirror. The headlines are larger.’ ‘He hates the Mirror. Give him The Times.’ There was a pause, then the doctor said, ‘Very well, Mrs Pearl. We’ll give it The Times. We naturally want to do all we can to keep it happy.’ ‘Him,’ she said. ‘Not it. Him!’ ‘Him,’ the doctor said. ‘Yes, I beg your pardon. To keep him happy. That’s one reason why I suggested you should come along here as soon as possible. I think it would be good for him to see you. You could indicate how delighted you were to be with him again – smile at him and blow him a kiss and all that sort of thing. It’s bound to be a comfort to him to know that you are standing by.’ There was a long pause. ‘Well,’ Mrs Pearl said at last, her voice suddenly very meek and tired. ‘I suppose I had better come on over and see how he is.’ ‘Good. I knew you would. I’ll wait here for you. Come straight up to my office on the second floor. Good-bye.’ Half an hour later, Mrs Pearl was at the hospital. ‘You mustn’t be surprised by what he looks like,’ Landy said as he walked beside her down a corridor. ‘No, I won’t.’ ‘It’s bound to be a bit of a shock to you at first. He’s not very prepossessing in his present state, I’m afraid.’ ‘I didn’t marry him for his looks, Doctor.’ Landy turned and stared at her. What a queer little woman this was, he thought, with her large eyes and her sullen, resentful air. Her features, which inust have been quite pleasant once, had now gone completely. The mouth was slack, the cheeks loose and flabby and the whole face gave the impression of having slowly but surely sagged to pieces through years and years of joyless married life. They walked on for a while in silence. ‘Take your time when you get inside,’ Landy said. ‘He won’t know you’re in there until you place your face directly above his eye. The eye is always open, but he can’t move it at all, so the field of vision is very narrow. At present we have it looking up at the ceiling. And of course he can’t hear anything. We can talk together as much as we like. It’s in here.’ Landy opened a door and ushered her into a small square room. ‘I wouldn’t go too close yet,’ he said, putting a hand on her arm. ‘Stay back here a moment with me until you get used to it all.’ There was a biggish white enamel bowl about the size of a washbasin standing on a high white table in the centre of the room, and there were half a dozen thin plastic tubes coming out of it. These tubes were connected with a whole lot of glass piping in which you could see the blood flowing to and from the heart inachine. The machine itself made a soff rhythmic pulsing sound. ‘He’s in there,’ Landy said, pointing to the basin, which was too high for her to see into. ‘Come just a little closer. Not too near.’ He led her two paces forward. By stretching her neck, Mrs Pearl could now see the surface of the liquid inside the basin. It was clear and still, and on it there floated a small oval capsule, about the size of a pigeon’s egg. ‘That’s the eye in there,’ Landy said. ‘Can you see it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘So far as we can tell, it is still in perfect condition. It’s his right eye, and the plastic container has a lens on it similar to the one he used in his own spectacles. At this moment he’s probably seeing quite as well as he did before.’ ‘The ceiling isn’t much to look at,’ Mrs Pearl said. ‘Don’t worry about that. We’re in the process of working out a whole programme to keep kim amused, but we don’t want to go too quickly at first.’ ‘Give him a good book.’ ‘We will, we will. Are you feeling all right, Mrs Pearl?’ ‘Yes. ‘Then we’ll go forward a little more, shall we, and you’ll be able to see the whole thing.’ He led her forward until they were standing only a couple of yards from the table, and now she could see right down into the basin. ‘There you are,’ Landy said. ‘That’s William.’ He was far larger than she had imagined he would be, and darker in colour. With all the ridges and creases running over his surface, he reminded her of nothing so much as an enormous pickled walnut. She could see the stubs of the four big arteries and the two veins coming out from the base of him and the neat way in which they were joined to the plastic tubes; and with each throb of the heart machine, all the tubes gave a little jerk in unison as the blood was pushed through them. ‘You’ll have to lean over,’ Landy said, ‘and put your pretty face right above the eye. He’ll see you then, and you can srnile at him and blow him a kiss. If I were you I’d say a few nice things as well. He won’t actually hear them, but I’m sure he’ll get the general idea.’ ‘He hates people blowing kisses at him,’ Mrs Pearl said. ‘I’ll do it my own way if you don’t mind.’ She stepped up to the edge of the table, leaned forward until her face was directly over the basin, and looked straight down into William’s eye. ‘Hallo, dear,’ she whispered. ‘It’s me – Mary.’ The eye, bright as ever, stared back at her with a peculiar, fixed intensity. ‘How are you, dear?’ she said. The plastic capsule was transparent all the way round so that the whole of the eyeball was visible. The optic nerve connecting the underside of it to the brain looked like a short length of grey spaghetti. ‘Are you feeling all right, William?’ It was a queer sensation peering into her husband’s eye when there was no face to go with it. All she had to look at was the eye, and shekept staring at it, and gradually it grew bigger and bigger, in the end it was the only thing that she could see – a sort of face in itself. There was a network of tiny red veins running over the white surface of the eyeball, and in the ice-blue of the iris there were three or four rather pretty darkish streaks radiating from the pupil in the centre. The pupil was large and black, with a little spark of light reflecting from one side of it. ‘I got your letter, dear, and came over at once to see how you were. Dr Landy says you are doing wonderfully well. Perhaps if I talk slowly you can understand a little of what I am saying by reading my lips.’ There was no doubt that the eye was watching her. ‘They are doing everything possible to take care of you, dear. This marvellous machine thing here is pumping away all the time and I’m sure it’s a lot better than those silly old hearts all the rest of us have. Ours are liable to break down at any moment, but yours will go on for ever.’ She was studying the eye closely, trying to discover what there was about it that gave it such an unusual appearance. ‘You seem fine, dear, simply fine. Really you do.’ It looked ever so much nicer, this eye, than either of his eye used to look, she told herself. There was a softness about it somewhere, a calm, kindly quality that she had never seen before. Maybe it had to do with the dot in the very centre, the pupil. William’s pupils used always to be tiny black pinheads. They used to glint at you, stabbing into your brain, seeing right through you, and they always knew at once what you were up to and even what you were thinking. But this one she was looking at now was large and soft and gentle, almost cowlike. ‘Are you quite sure he’s conscious?’ she asked, not looking up. ‘Oh yes, completely,’ Landy said. ‘And he can see me?’ ‘Perfectly.’ ‘Isn’t that marvellous? I expect he’s wondering what happened.’ ‘Not at all. He knows perfectly well where he is and why he’s there. He can’t possibly have forgotten that.’ ‘You mean he knows he’s in this basin?’ ‘Of course. And if only he had the power of speech, he would probably be able to carry on a perfectly normal conversation with you this very minute. So far as I can see, there should be absolutely no difference mentally between this William here and the one you used to know back home.’ ‘Good gracious me,’ Mrs Pearl said, and she paused to consider this intriguing aspect. You know what, she told herself, looking behind the eye now and staring hard at the great grey pulpy walnut that lay so placidly under the water, I’m not at all sure that I don’t prefer him as he is at present. In fact, I believe that I could live very comfortably with this kind of a William. I could cope with this one. ‘Quiet, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘Naturally he’s quiet.’ No arguments and criticisms, she thought, no constant admonitions, no rules to obey, no ban on smoking cigarettes, no pair of cold disapproving eyes watching me over the top of a book in the evenings, no shirts to wash and iron, no meals to cook – nothing but the throb of the heart machine, which was rather a, soothing sound anyway and certainly not loud enough to interfere with television. ‘Doctor,’ she said. ‘I do believe I’m suddenly getting to feel the most enormous affection for him. Does that sound queer?’ ‘I think it’s quite understandable.’ ‘He looks so helpless and silent lying there under the water in his little basin.’ ‘Yes, I know.’ ‘He’s like a baby, that’s what he’s like. He’s exactly like a little baby.’ Landy stood still behind her, watching. ‘There,’ she said softly, peering into the basin. ‘From now on Mary’s going to look after you all by herself and you’ve nothing to worry about in the world. When can I have him back home, Doctor?’ ‘I beg your pardon?’ ‘I said when can I have him back – back in my own house?’ ‘You’re joking,’ Landy said. She turned her head slowly around and looked directly at him. ‘Why should I joke?’ she asked. Her face was bright, her eyes round and bright as two diamonds. ‘He couldn’t possibly be moved.’ ‘I don’t see why not.’ ‘This is an experiment, Mrs Pearl.’ ‘It’s my husband, Dr Landy.’ A funny little nervous half-smile appeared on Landy’s mouth. ‘Well…’ he said. ‘It is my husband, you know.’ Ihere was no anger in her voice. She spoke quietly, as though merely reminding him’ of a simple fact. ‘That’s rather a tricky’ point,’ Landy said, wetting his lips. ‘You’re a widow now, Mrs Pearl. I think you must resign yourself to that fact.’ She turned away suddenly from the table and crossed over to the window. ‘I mean it,’ she said, fishing in her bag for a cigarette. ‘I want him back.’ Landy watched her as she put the cigarette between her lips and lit it. Unless he were very much mistaken, there was something a bit odd about this woman, he thought. She seemed almost pleased to have her husband over there in the basin. He tried to imagine what his own feelings would be if it were his wife’s brain lying there and her eye staring up at him out of that capsule. He wouldn’t like it. ‘Shall we go back to my room now?’ he said. She was standing by the window, apparently quite calm and relaxed, puffing her cigarette. ‘Yes, all right.’ On her way past the table she stopped and leaned over the basin once more. ‘Mary’s leavingnow, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘And don’t you worry about a single thing, you understand? We’re going to get you right back home where, we can look after you properly just as soon as we possibly can. And listen dear…’ At this point she paused and carried the cigarette to her lips, intending to take a puff. Instantly the eye flashed. She was looking straight into it at the time, and right in the centre of it she saw a tiny but brilliant flash of light, and the pupil contracted into a minute black pinpoint of absolute fury. At first she didn’t move. She stood bending over the basin, holding the cigarette up to her mouth, watching the eye. Then very slowly, deliberately, she put the cigarette between her lips and took a long suck. She inhaled deeply, and she held the smoke inside her lungs for three or four seconds; then suddenly, whoosh, out it came through her nostrils in two thin jets which struck the water in the basin and billowed out over the surface in a thick blue cloud, enveloping the eye. Landy was over by the door, with his back to her, waiting. ‘Come on, Mrs Pearl,’ he called. ‘Don’t look so cross, William,’ she said ‘softly. ‘It isn’t any good looking cross.’ Landy turned his head to see what she was doing. ‘Not any more it isn’t,’ she whispered. ‘Because from now on, my pet, you’re going to do just exactly what Mary tells you. Do you understand that?’ ‘Mrs Pearl,’ Land; said, moving towards her. ‘So don’t be a naughty boy again, will you, my precious,’ she said, taking another pull at the cigarette. ‘Naughty boys are liable to get punished most severely nowadays, you ought to know that.’ Landy was beside her now, and he took her by the arm and began drawing her firmly but gently away from the table. ‘Good-bye, darling,’ she called. ‘I’ll be back soon.’ ‘That’s enough, Mrs Pearl.’ ‘Isn’t he sweet?’ she cried, looking up at Landy with big bright eyes. ‘Isn’t he heaven? I just can’t wait to get him home.’

From Horror photos & videos July 07, 2018 at 08:00PM