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Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.64 on 34 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2008-06-27 17:46:29 EDT
The kid was at the books again.
Sue seemed to spend every spare dollar she had on used books; paperbacks on their last gasp rescued from sale bins outside used bookstores, reference books from library fundraisers, anything and everything from yard sales around town.
Books on oceans and rivers were a big hit with the kid.
Hoyt didn't want to think about what the kid would be like if he got on the internet. The kid was only four. He couldn't type. Yet. And it was weird enough watching him sit in his easy chair, legs crossed, stacks of books on folding tables set to each side of his chair. He'd flip the pages as fast as he could, fingers twitching like the legs of insects as he scanned the text or pictures. When done he'd close the book and ask for another. Sue would set the closed book in the read stack and take one from the unread stack.
The kid had just finished a book about the way birds sleep, written by an ornithologist. Now he was reading the first in a six-volume set called The Winning of the West. The books were written by Theodore Roosevelt. The books smelled foul. The cloth bindings were green with mold.
Hoyt started counting. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand. The kid was licking his spindly fingers and turning the pages at a crazy rate. It was turning Hoyt's stomach. By the time Hoyt's silent count reached thirty one-thousand Sue was replacing volume one with volume two.
It wasn't natural.
Hoyt had intended to bury that thought, but he was too late. The kid looked up at him —Hoyt could almost hear all that liquid quietly sloshing inside the kid's oversized skull— and then Hoyt felt a stabbing pain in his left foot.
"Jesus," Hoyt gasped.
"Don't be mean to the baby," Sue said to Hoyt without looking at him. All of her attention was on the kid.
The pain subsided.
She had named the kid Julian. She had never told Hoyt who the father was. At first Hoyt thought his little sister was ashamed. She was a mouse, skinny and plain, and Hoyt thought she'd finally had a one night stand with someone desperate enough to throw her the bone. It took him a while to realize that she had never named the father, in conversation or on the birth certificate, because she didn't care. All she cared about that her little freak, an information sponge with a skull like a fuckin light bulb.
Hoyt's wife had left him for some guy with a ponytail. They'd gone up to Tulsa, and Hoyt had been left with an empty house in Okmulgee. When Sue had gotten pregnant, Hoyt had taken her in. Their parents were long dead. She had no one else. Sue didn't have a job, but she cooked and cleaned and did a better job of maintaining the home than Hoyt's ripe-assed but useless Ex ever had. He even gave her a bit of spending money. She sure as hell earned it.
The kid was a whole other deal, though.
Four years ago Hoyt had been knocking back shots at Go Fuck Your Hat. On paper the place was known simply as GFYH. Hoyt worked on the loading dock at Okmulgee Memorial, and he was a familiar face to a lot of the doctors and nurses at the hospital. Some of them were regulars at Go Fuck Your Hat, including a frizzy-haired RN named Regina. They'd slept together a few times, and once she'd stuck most of one slender hand up Hoyt's asshole while giving him a blowjob in his kitchen as he sipped a cold beer. She had announced that she was gonna massage his pro-state, whatever the hell that was. She'd felt his load coming and had ducked just as he had shot a stream of jizz into the open door of his fridge with enough force to knock over a half-empty can of Pibb Xtra.
After his sister had the baby, during which Hoyt had worked on his regular after hours drunk, Regina had come in, white as paste. She told him that there was something wrong with the baby.
"Baby skulls are soft an' sometimes they come out a little funny-shaped if the baby is big and the momma is small," Regina had said, "But this thing looked like a skinned cucumber." She held her hands a foot apart. "No offense intended Hoyt, I know it's your nephew I'm talking about, but that baby's skull was this long. Doctor Rand said the skull would assume a more normal shape in time, but that little boy's got a whole lot of head."
Since then Julian's skull had settled into a normal shape, for a while, and then it started getting bigger and took on that light bulb shape. Sue brought the kid in for x-rays early on, and that's when the doctors, a whole excited bunch of them who did a lot of work for free in return for the bragging rights to whatever they discovered, found out the kid's skull was real thin, and full of water. Well, not water. Brain fluid, whatever the fuck brain fluid was.
The docs said that some sort of cyst had formed on the top of the kid's spine. The cyst had acted like sort of a cap and stopped the kid from growing a brain. It was like something out of a horror picture in the creature-features Hoyt used to watch on TV as a boy. The kid had this big swollen skull. X-rays showed black empty space like the inside of a cave. Yet the kid was reading when he was two years old. The kid had started talking in actual sentences around his first birthday and Hoyt was told this was unheard of.
Hoyt had gotten on the internet at the public library and sure enough, there was a case in the eighties where a kid with the same condition as Julian lived to his teens, but that kid was just another tard. Instead of a brain that didn't work he didn't have any brain at all, although like a lot of tards that kid was affectionate and playful. He wasn't supposed to be able to breathe orhold his shit in without a brain, but he did it, somehow.
There was also a case of a Frenchman who had a skull mostly filled with brain fluid, and his real brains had been pushed aside until they were just so much lining along the inside of his skull. Yet he wasn't a tard at all. He wasn't a rocket-scientist, but he held down a job.
In one article that wasn't filled to the rafters with horseshit a doctor said that it was possible that when dealing with these brainless types the brain fluid itself could be doing the thinking, that it may have looked clear but it was actually chock full of neurons, and then he went on to talk about the brain being basically electrical and water being the perfect conductor and at that point Hoyt called it quits.
"We are dealing with a liquid mind," the doctor said.
Now Hoyt stood watching the boy, the stabbing pain in his feet fading away to nothing. In his mind he was singing that old Beatles song Yellow Submarine. He couldn't stand the Beatles but knew most of the song by heart after hearing it on the radio a thousand times when he was young. Deeper down in his mind he was wondering about the boy.
He was wondering exactly how much the boy could learn before a limit was reached. He wondered what would happen if the kid really did get access to the internet and started eating up information faster and faster. He wondered why the kid was sucking up all that knowledge, and he wondered what the kid could do a year or ten years from now, once he'd read all about the human body and knew as much as the doctors studying him.
Most of all Hoyt wondered if Julian's ability to hurt people would grow as he got older. Hoyt had tried to discipline the boy from time to time or had vented his rage when the kid had knocked over a full glass or pushed his plate onto the floor at dinner. That was before Hoyt realized the only authority Julian recognized was his momma. When Julian retaliated Hoyt had felt as if the arches of his feet were being sliced open with razors. He had felt as if his eyeballs were on fire. He had felt as it his dick was being cut off piece by piece with scissors.
The kid finished the entire set of books by Roosevelt, while Hoyt stood watching, and then Sue handed the boy a book on the Pacific Ocean. The kid sucked up the text and glossy color pictures.
Oceans and rivers. They were the kid's favorite subjects.
Deep down Hoyt wondered what would happen if he could get close enough to the kid with an ice pick and puncture the boy's skull where it was real thin, at the temple, say. Would that liquid brain leak out onto the floorboards taking all the gathered knowledge and intent with it?
Hoyt hoped he could get close enough, and soon. Besides the thoughts of killing Julian he had another image in his mind, a frightening image, and it was getting stronger and stronger. Sooner or later the boy would pick up on one or the other.
The boy is at the seaside, or at a river that runs to the sea. Hoyt sees this as plain as day. The boy slams his own head against a rock or a lamp post or a curbside, breaking open that thin, swollen skull. The boy's liquid mind spills out of his cracked open skull like a yolk slipping from an eggshell, and it enters the water. And there it has all the room in the world to grow and learn. It can enter the minds of fish and birds. It can enter whales. It can enter people. Given enough time, there will be only one mind.
"Hoyt?"
He glanced at Sue. "Can you get Julian a Ginger Ale? You know how he likes it."
"Yeah," Hoyt said. "Sure."
He looked at the boy. The boy was watching him carefully. A cold sweat broke out on Hoyt's chest and back. He went and got the Ginger Ale, humming the words to Yellow Submarine.
User Reviews
Submitted by sparkle_pink (user info) at 2008-06-29 02:48:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read this earlier today and before I leave for vacation I just wanted to say that I enjoyed it a lot.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-06-28 14:03:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks for the link, Apollo.
Submitted by HateMudkips (user info) at 2008-06-28 13:10:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DonkeyOnTheEdge (user info) at 2008-06-28 09:30:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Poots (user info) at 2008-06-28 09:20:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I dreamt of zombies last night and blood...lots of blood.
Submitted by morello (user info) at 2008-06-28 04:34:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read this book https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=b1269463ae&realattid=f_fhw3n1dq&attid=0.1&disp=vah&view=att&th=11ac0681cc9ec172
It's BRILLIANT!
Submitted by Director (user info) at 2008-06-28 01:03:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I <3 brains.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2008-06-28 01:01:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hey Joe.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-06-28 00:31:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
i agree, my missus has multiple sclerosis, she's just had some high dose chemo to 'reboot' her immune system and she's recovering a lot of lost function.
it's obviously great to see but interesting, marvelous really.
I read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214627444&sr=8-1
Highly recommended if you are interested in brain plasticity.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2008-06-28 00:16:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2008-06-27 21:40:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm not familiar with paymelater, but that was funny. And I needed the comic relief
say hay lung
Submitted by BranDo (user info) at 2008-06-27 22:37:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-06-27 22:35:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Of course matters of the brain are a fairly large plot point in my [>GRATUITOUS SELF-PROMOTION<] novel...
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-06-27 22:34:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Apollo, I do not know... I read a news story YEARS ago about a young boy like the 'tard' described in this story, and since then have searched the net for some ref to it with no luck. The story said he should have been an absolute veg, x-rays showed the cyst on top of his spine and just liquid in his skull, but he was more like an autistic kid.
I found the whole thing fascinating, anything about the brain is fascinating, really, the way some people with massive injuries to the head sometimes recover to a degree as the brain rewires itself. Fucking incredible.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-06-27 22:15:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
the brain can reuse neuronal space, what would be more telling would be his hearing/visual abilities, were they normal too?
Submitted by The_Drake (user info) at 2008-06-27 21:54:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
'atta boy!
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 21:45:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Lungfish, grammatically correct since he was a baby.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2008-06-27 21:42:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
they're
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2008-06-27 21:42:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
But there the least shitty team in the NL West. Woot.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2008-06-27 21:40:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm not familiar with paymelater, but that was funny. And I needed the comic relief, because the d'backs suck.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 21:15:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That's what is wrong here. PayMeLater is considered funny even by Lunger.
Shit reflows around until everyone eats it. Buncha crap.
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2008-06-27 21:03:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMBXJ9I3pJM
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2008-06-27 20:54:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by PayMeLater (user info) at 2008-06-27 19:48:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 18:21:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I may have to start writing down my dreams as soon as I awaken and send them to you...
Why don't you just give him a nudge and whisper them in his ear?
---------
Bwahahahahahaha
Sorry, Bubba. That was hilarious.
D'backs suck. ;(
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2008-06-27 20:53:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 20:50:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2008-06-27 20:45:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 20:09:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by PayMeLater (user info) at 2008-06-27 19:48:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 18:21:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I may have to start writing down my dreams as soon as I awaken and send them to you...
Why don't you just give him a nudge and whisper them in his ear?
=======================
Why don't you STFU, HotWillie/Apollo/Method/JonnyX?
You gutless alter fucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!
----
Alter or no, I believe that was a good burn.
=====================
Which tells me that you are just as big an asshole as the above named dipshits. Fuck off and die, bitch.
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2008-06-27 20:45:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 20:09:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by PayMeLater (user info) at 2008-06-27 19:48:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 18:21:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I may have to start writing down my dreams as soon as I awaken and send them to you...
Why don't you just give him a nudge and whisper them in his ear?
=======================
Why don't you STFU, HotWillie/Apollo/Method/JonnyX?
You gutless alter fucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!
----
Alter or no, I believe that was a good burn.
Submitted by billrhine (user info) at 2008-06-27 20:20:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 20:09:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by PayMeLater (user info) at 2008-06-27 19:48:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 18:21:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I may have to start writing down my dreams as soon as I awaken and send them to you...
Why don't you just give him a nudge and whisper them in his ear?
=======================
Why don't you STFU, HotWillie/Apollo/Method/JonnyX?
You gutless alter fucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Submitted by coley (user info) at 2008-06-27 20:08:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2008-06-27 19:51:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well, this was wonderfully grotesque...
Submitted by PayMeLater (user info) at 2008-06-27 19:48:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 18:21:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I may have to start writing down my dreams as soon as I awaken and send them to you...
Why don't you just give him a nudge and whisper them in his ear?
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 18:21:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Someone asked the same question of Stephen King once, and he said that frequently his dreams were rather tame compared to his waking imagination. He did admit, however, to having a few howlers of nightmares.
I may have to start writing down my dreams as soon as I awaken and send them to you... Nah, you'd probably get banned or hunted down. :)
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-06-27 18:14:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 17:57:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You have weird dreams, huh?
--
Believe it or not, I was just telling a buddy (who shall go unnamed because he does not exist) in an email that at least half of the short stories I've posted on uber came from dreams.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-06-27 18:02:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-06-27 17:57:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You have weird dreams, huh?