Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction (25 page)

“Well, you let me know if that one works,” Alvin laughed. “I’ll bring you some old overalls and maybe you could grow me some help for the farm.”

As spring passed into summer, the garden began to ripen and the fig trees started to put on tiny green buds of fruit that the
blue jays found irresistible. Mike tried tying strips of tin foil to the branches, hoping the reflection of the sun and the motion of the wind would help scare the birds away.

“Golly, I wish you’d look at that,” Snoogy Jenschke pointed out one day as he leaned out the window of his pickup truck. “I believe you’re trying to grow an air conditioner.”

“Nah, nothin’ that fancy,” Mike replied. “But I thought the figs might be in a sweeter mood if they were fanned a little now and then.”

When summer was in full swing, we had a glorious crop of tomatoes—red, ripe, and juicy.

“Must be the secret ingredient,” Mike said. “I never knew tomatoes drank beer.”

“Yes, but I’m disappointed,” I replied. “I still don’t have a maid or an air conditioner.”

Years later, after we had moved into a larger house and raised our children to adulthood, our son moved into my grandparents’ small country home. He was a gardener, too, and soon had a busy garden popping with produce. One day I caught him pouring beer on his tomato plants.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Watering the tomatoes,” he answered.

“With beer?”

“Sure.”

“Why on Earth?”

“Because that’s what Dad did. I thought you were supposed to feed tomatoes beer,” he replied.

“Son,” I laughed, “Dad was just trying to grow friends, but I guess it never did the tomatoes any harm.”

Brent Knowles

I
win.” The voice box gave his voice a shrill quality made almost hollow by the large auditorium, but the students laughed at Tate’s introduction anyways. He knew they watched the sensors, on the monitor; the students in the front rows were probably even able to read the results. His numbers were high on the satisfaction scale; he enjoyed making them laugh. Tate had trained himself to understand, at an intuitive level, the underlying data that informed the emotion graphs the students saw. The monitor was for their benefit only, a way of sharing his internal state of mind. It also made him more identifiable, Ilsa, his former grad student and current assistant, insisted.

She was still fussing with his countertop; she hated it when the early arrivals among the students leaned on it, leaving smudgy fingertips on the white granite slab that covered his tank. Few noticed how protective Ilsa was of him, but Tate did. There were two cameras on the countertop, flanking the monitor, and six more in the auditorium. Tate watched her, appreciating the attention. She gave one of the cameras a warm smile and then took her seat. That was the cue to really start the lecture.

“Consciousness. What is it—that was the question I set out to answer. Critics used philosophical diarrhea to dismiss any argument I put forth that might threaten the sanctity of consciousness. And when I responded with essays of my own, they chided me: ‘But the matter can only be settled empirically!’ They thought it could not be. Settled. But it was. The human
mind is a manifestation of form, of function.”

Polite applause and a cheer from Reid, who sat in the front row, leaning forward, engaged. Tate liked that Reid had attended all of the lectures, but his pleasure plummeted as the doors to the auditorium opened and Vargas entered. Seven minutes past the hour. The ass.

“Come to concede, Dr. Vargas?” The crowd laughed, though none of the students dared turn their heads for fear that his beady, buried eyes might recognize them. It pleased Tate that his rival had aged so poorly.

“How am I to know that this
thing
is telling the truth?”

Ilsa stood stiffly and said, “
Dr. Richards
has followed standard scientific practice and evaluation,” she paused, her eyes meeting Reid’s as if for reassurance, “and every step of the process has been monitored by neutral observers.”
Thank you, Ilsa!
Tate did not know how he would have survived without her. He’d lost his family for a long time, but never her.

The lower body had been the easiest to remove, though convincing surgeons to do it had taken years, the support of a tech company with deep pockets, and a law team to challenge his wife (now ex-), who felt what Tate was doing was suicide.

“Psychological interviews throughout the process confirmed the consistency and stability of my character,” Tate said.

Vargas laughed and replied, “Have you forgotten the breakdown?” Nervous whispers filled the auditorium.
That
was off-limits!

“More evidence to support my point, Dr. Vargas. What human wouldn’t have a breakdown after a decapitative transfer?” For seven months and twenty-three days, his head had floated in a nutrient bath with machines stimulating and maintaining his functions while volume imaging was used to construct the schematics for the artificial reconstruction of his brain. He had
been deprived of all sensation, swimming alone with his thoughts.

“You’re a fool,” Vargas said, and that really pissed Tate off, for that had been Vargas’s favorite line of attack during their long debates in the teachers’ lounge. Ridiculing, patronizing, as if these were Vargas’s only methods of defending the ‘mystique of the human mind.’ But before Tate could speak, the students turned on Vargas. His arguments were old and outdated; any fear of censure was buried beneath the students’ indignation.

We know more than this relic!

In the end it had been a biotech solution: pseudoneurons and nanoprocessors meticulously duplicating and replacing the parts of his brain. Originally, Tate had hoped to be transferred to a digital medium, but the technology did not yet exist for that, nor was there a means to replicate the intricate folding of the brain. Instead, his spongy gray-green/bio-digital mental apparatus floated in the large tank beneath the white countertop.

His face reddened with anger, Vargas stormed from the room. Tate, after a quick thank-you, continued the lecture. Question period ran longer than normal, but Tate enjoyed the discussion and interaction. Slowly, as it did every day, the room emptied, leaving only Ilsa.

“A good session,” he said, and Ilsa agreed, smiling, but she was working more quickly than normal to clean up, as if in a rush. Tate noticed Reid waiting for her in the doorway.

Oh.

He was glad that Ilsa did not look over at the monitor right then because his emotional data points were scattered in a haphazard relationship. He almost begged her to stay, but she had already lowered his volume. As she left, she waved and then abandoned him to the empty auditorium.

What could he expect
? She had a life outside his. Pioneers like Tate had to make sacrifices. To shake paradigms, to change the
world.

He allowed himself a half-second of self-pity and then logged onto the Web, scanned his friends’ updates and noticed with pleasure that his kids were online. He greeted all three of them at once and their replies came back quickly. They chatted for hours, his numbers trickling back into the happiness range. The whole world was spread out for him, the mental network of his thoughts that he had so painstakingly proven to be the sole product of physicality connected, through the Web, to everyone else. He was still human.

And he
had
won.

Elizabeth Creith

O
ne pecan pie, two peach Melba, and a cherry cheesecake. Four coffees?”

“Yes, please,” Matt said. “Make mine decaf.”

Shirl caught my eye.

“We’ll be back in a few,” I said, pushing my chair out.

Bill rolled his eyes at me. “Is it illegal to go into the ladies’ room one at a time?”

I stuck out my tongue at him.

Once the door had closed behind us, Shirl spread her left hand flat on the mirror, and I spread my right, my little finger just touching hers. In unison we said, “We’ll just freshen up!” The mirror filled with violet mist as we lifted our hands away.

We turned around. The wall, golden-brown stone adorned with mosaics, towered twenty feet above us. The porter by the ogival arched entrance bowed deeply.

“Welcome, ladies. It’s good to have you back.” He sounded like James Earl Jones and looked like Christopher Judge decked out in full
Arabian Nights
gear.

“It’s good to be back, Haroun,” Shirl said. “Can we make this five minutes?”

“My pleasure, ladies.” He selected a small, gold-filigree-mounted sand glass from a table beside him and turned it over. Tiny grains of sand began to fall through the waist of the glass and pile up in the lower half.

“Five minutes it is,” he said, and swept his hand toward the arch that lead to the inner rooms.

“Ooooh, that’s so good!” Shirl moaned. I turned my head. The
young woman working on Shirl had her limp with pleasure. My young man wasn’t doing so badly, either. He pushed harder and I gasped.

“Sorry, did that hurt?” he asked, “I will be gentler on that shoulder next time.” His hands smoothed my back and he pulled the towel over me. “If you want to dress, I will have your tea made.”

The masseuse finished Shirl’s foot massage, patted her ankle, and left with the masseur.

“Hey,” I poked Shirl gently, “don’t fall asleep.”

“Sorry—just the bath, and the foot massage. So relaxing.”

“I prefer the full-body workover, myself.”

“Yeah, I heard. Great if you want your bones cracked. Too much grunting and groaning for me.”

“The groaning’s the best part. And my back is so happy afterwards. The guys are waiting. We should get dressed.”

Shirl yawned. “Let ‘em wait. Haroun has it under control. What are they gonna do, come and drag us back?”

I sat up. My clothes, as always, had been cleaned, folded, and set on a small, exquisite table nearby. I found my panties and pulled them on. Reluctantly, Shirl followed suit. Our shoes, beautifully polished, were neatly set under the table. We tidied our hair and walked through to the tearoom. A low table surrounded by cushions held two cups, a pot of steaming jasmine tea, and a platter of sweets.

As we sipped our tea, Aliyah brought her tray of perfumes and touched our wrists and ankles with scent. Shirl chose patchouli; I prefer sandalwood.

“I am expecting some attar of roses next week,” Aliyah said.

“We’ll definitely be back for that,” I said. “It’s been a while since you had attar of roses, hasn’t it?”

“The crop last year was not good, but this year is better. And the lavender, of course, is always fine. More tea before you leave? Another bit of honey cake?”

Haroun bowed again as we came out. In the sand glass, the last few grains were just trickling through the waist.

“On time as always, ladies,” he said. “Do come again.”

“Thank you, Haroun,” Shirl said, “it’s been lovely.” We turned to place our hands on the mirror again.

“There, that’s much better!” we chorused. In the mirror, Haroun, the door, the baths beyond all disappeared in the violet mist. When the mirror cleared, two tiny toilet stalls were all it reflected beyond ourselves.

The waiter was pouring the coffee as we sat down. The ice cream on my peach Melba was just starting to send vanilla tendrils into the peach juice.

Bill leaned towards me and inhaled.

“Mmmmm,” he said, “you smell great.”

“And you look wonderful,” Matt said, smiling at Shirl. “I guess when you say you’re going to freshen up, you really mean it.”

“Five minutes in the ladies’ room works wonders for a girl,” Shirl said, starting on her pecan pie.