Mosaic

Chapter 3

Chapter 3The answer, it turns out, is right now.

Within thirty minutes of signing the consent forms and the inevitable non-disclosure agreement, you’re lying on your back in a hospital bed, head shaved beneath a small jungle of leads and wires, an IV line in your arm.

“No food or drink overnight, I’m afraid.” The doctor gives you a sympathetic look as you let your head fall back against the pillow. “We have to make sure there’s nothing in your system that could interfere with the procedure—just the drugs we’ll be administering.”

Apparently, a big piece of the breakthrough involves a custom blend of hypnotic induction and psychoactive drugs.

You’ve never tripped balls for science before. This should be fun.

As it turns out you’re put all the way under before they start working on you, and maybe that’s for the best.

It feels weird enough when you think it’s just a dream.

It feels like your mind is an ocean, teeming with so many forms of life. The memories, feelings, sensations, and inspirations layered atop each other, swirling and shifting, seemingly endless.

Except someone just pulled the plug, and the ‘water’ has begun to drain away.

You remember the grilled cheese you made yourself before the flight. The way the bread crunched beneath your teeth, and how the melted cheese oozed on your tongue.

You taste the first boy you ever kissed.

You hear the girl who took your virginity as she gasps in your bed.

You wonder what it will be like to f**k in a body that works.

The ocean grows shallower, as if it’s being emptied into some fantastic bucket.

Your dad reads your favorite bedtime story.

Your fingers tingle as you make a snowball.

You’re stumbling through your backyard, the sun warm on your face when you trip—you fall—it hurts!

The pain you’d been desperately trying to escape seems to grip every part of you. No respite, no relief. Every nerve searing and screaming.

It’s so much—too much!

You scream and scream, begging for relief, and to your shock it comes in a wave of cool balm, and a gentle whisper.

“It’s nearly over. You’ve done so well. It’s almost done.”

The ocean is drained now, and the water has taken all the fish and plant life with it. Vibrant colors have faded to the bleached and faded shades of a desert, clinging scrub and a few last skeletons atop the exposed bedrock.

You. The very immutable core of yourself.

And then it b r e a k s

The last of you tumbles into the abyss, and your eyes flutter for the last time.

At the moment the final pebble crumbles, your heart stops.