Prisons of Stolen Dreams

by Christopher St. John Sampayo

  He again let out a giggle.

  “It just works…it is a structure like any other…but an organic structure…the model is everything…understanding how it should all be arranged…understanding how the model can be improved upon.”

  “Brain elasticity. We put it all together…and it just works. Different pieces…here and there…woven together…brain elasticity…it works!!!”

  “Like two magnets…side by side…move them close enough together…they fly to each other and bond. Now we can shoot a current through them. Neurons. But not magnets…an organic machine.”

  The Weaver looked at Sarah. His eyes were excited with the words he had just spoken. He looked at Sarah as if waiting for something. Finally, Sarah forced a smile as if she had enjoyed all he said.

  The Weaver started to walk around the room. He began pointing to charts and pictures on the walls. Sarah got the impression that he might do this when he was alone also.

  “To build…to build…to build…a better structure. That’s what it’s always about right?” he said.

  “That is what I do…I study it. How can this be better? How can this be so much better? It’s all about the pieces and arrangements of pieces. I know how to arrange them…what would make this mind more perfect…I tell them what I need. They bring it to me. In containers. In the canisters. Pieces of brain collected from all throughout the Multiverse. I take what I need…I build…I improve.”

  “Then…side by side…like magnets…brain elasticity,” he said and he clapped his hands together.

  Shock washed over Sarah. Many questions had just been answered. Sarah now understood what Belili meant when she said they had made the children’s minds better. They collected pieces of brain from other versions of the children in different verses. They brought them to Verse Zero and wove these pieces of alternate brains to the children’s brains. It was truly horrific. However, from a scientific and medical perspective it was truly fascinating.

  Sarah forced herself to push her revulsion aside. She needed to better understand the principles at work here. This had been done to her. This had been done to Isiah. She needed to understand what exactly was done to her as a child.

  The Weaver spoke of Brain Elasticity. Sarah was familiar with this concept. It had been discussed in one of her medical classes. The neurons of the brain fired in certain ways. Repetitious things in life caused neurons in the brain to fire along specific patterns. Doing something over and over again locked these pathways in the brain together. Playing the guitar each day taught the brain to remember and this became a regular pattern that neurons followed in the brain whenever someone picked up a guitar again.

  However, sometimes the brain became damaged. The clearest example was for stroke victims. A part of the brain may no longer work. Suddenly the familiar path of the neurons could not be achieved. This could have dramatic effects on the body. The path that always told someone to move their legs no longer existed because that part of the brain was destroyed.

  This is where Neuro Plasticity came in to play. The brain could be taught new paths through the brain in order to achieve the same results as in the past. The brain in many ways rewired itself.

  The Weaver continued speaking. “Find the right parts…weave them together…the brain plasticity does the rest. It is the actions of God…it works. It comes together. The pieces form a whole.”

  Sarah took a deep breath. She needed to gather as much information as possible.

  “How long did it take you to become a Weaver?” Sarah asked. “To understand how it all works together.”

  “Very long,” the Weaver replied. “So long. Forever. Forever and ever…but I learned. I learned from the best.”

  The Weaver walked Sarah to a table. On it was a file. It was open. It showed medical data and a picture. Sarah saw it was a picture of Joshua.

  “Joshua, taught me. I study his case often. Along with others. How can I do better? How can I be better? Maybe we can have more like Joshua…but not like Joshua. He was much more gifted then I was. I took his position after…”

  Sarah saw grief appear on the Weaver’s face as if he was about to cry.

  Suddenly he seemed to push ideas of sadness away.

  “Learn…learn…learn…that is what I always must do.

  Sarah examined the files on the table more closely. They were filled with images of different people. All of them had their brains exposed. Notes were written on some of the pictures.

  Sarah’s eyes flew over the table. She knew somewhere she might find a file about herself.

  Suddenly she saw something that struck her like a thunderbolt to her gut. It filled her with terror, dread, and sadness.

  She reached for one of the pictures. She examined it closely. She felt her eyes begin to water.

  The Weaver saw the picture she was examining. His voice grew excited.

  “That…that is my greatest achievement,” the Weaver said. He was oblivious to Sarah’s tears.

  Sarah’s whole body went numb as she stared at the photo before her. How could Sarah not feel sadness and horror?

  The picture was of Patrick. It was a picture from when he was still a boy. She had grown to know his face well over the years. But not like this. Not in this condition. Not in this horrific state.

  The picture she was looking at was almost unrecognizable. Half of Patrick’s head was missing. Sarah might not have recognized him but for the one good side of his face. She recognized his beautiful remaining eye though his gaze appeared dead.

  “Amazing the Weaver,” said. “Amazing. My legacy. My achievement.”

  “What happened,” Sarah asked. She asked this question almost to herself. It seemed as if no explanation provided could explain to her why the boy she loved had once been dead.

  “They brought him to me like that. From one of the Verses. Something had gone wrong. When they went to claim him something had gone wrong. He had been shot. Half his head ripped away. From a clinical standpoint…almost…so close…”

  The Weaver sighed.

  “Very hard…so hard to fix. Thirty eight percent of his brain remained. Was that enough…I don’t know. So hard to work with. So hard to fix.”

  “But…this one…they told me…this one was special. All the signs indicated…we needed to save him…we needed to save his mind. Did we have what we needed? I didn’t know. Who can know…so hard to save. So hard to fix.”

  “I did…I weaved his brain…together…no…I don’t know…I weaved together…a new brain…maybe. The one we needed? I don’t know. But I did it. And it worked.”

  For a moment the enthusiasm of the Brain Weaver faded. He merely was a man alone staring into an abyss.

  “In many ways he is still dead. That…tragedy…it is part of his existence. What did I save? What remains after so much is taken away and then reworked?”

  “He was almost a corpse when he was brought to me. But the brain still had some functionality. We had to keep it awake…an organism…a part of a machine…we had to keep it awake. How does the mind exist…where is the soul…half the mind gone. Physically gone.”

  “We completed something amazing with him. A miracle. I made a miracle. This is the only true miracle I’ve ever done in life. It is the only true miracle I’ve ever seen.”

  Sarah was trying to control her body from shaking. The emotions she was feeling were overwhelming.

  “How?” she asked.

  “Piece by piece…by piece…by piece. Slowly weaving a new brain with parts of others. So many parts…”

  The Weaver let the statement trail off.

  “It took so long…over a year. Piece by piece…by piece…”

  “Even once it was all there…his mind had to learn how to work together. To be the sum of its parts. All those pieces…”

  “It worked. A miracle. I did what I could. Brain Plasticity. He…the rest…he…his will… He repaired himself. He filled his memories. His thoughts. They tell me he is becoming the genius we hoped h
e would be. He learned the music. He learned the math. Piece by piece…the mind.”

  “But there has always been something that lingered,” the Weaver said. “He comes here sometimes. He comes to be checked on. All of this is so unknown.”

  For the first time the Weaver looked directly at Sarah. He looked deeply into her eyes. His mad excitement was gone. He was just a frail man alone in a strange world. He was as uncertain as anyone.

  “Tell me Sarah, you are a genius…tell me. Where do you think the soul resides? In the mind? What happens when…it…a brain is destroyed? Half gone. More than half. Does the soul leave the body? What is left? What is left in the mass? What happens if you repair what is left? Rebuild it?”

  The Weaver did not wait for an answer. He looked back to the picture of Patrick.

  “I think in many ways he asks himself these questions,” the Weaver said. “Does he have a soul? Did that soul depart for an afterlife after half the brain was torn away? What remained? Was that supposed to remain? And that is Patrick. A dead boy. He is a corpse with a beautiful mind.”

  The Weaver sighed. The seriousness left him. The mental stability left him. Sarah realized he had pulled himself away from reality. The Weaver was living in the theoretical and the logical. He was living far away from a man who tore peoples brains apart and rebuilt them.

  “I wonder about these things. But they are questions too great for me to answer. After all I am merely a Weaver,” he said.

  Sarah could not take her eyes off the photograph. She thought of her poor tragic love. She thought of Patrick with his half mind. What had resided in the other half she wondered? What happens when a mind is separated into pieces? Which piece contains the soul? Is the soul the sum of the parts?

  The thought chilled her and she realized that this thought was always with Patrick. She realized he had to wonder had he lost the best parts of himself? He had to wonder if what remained had a soul.

  ***

  Sarah left the cabin of the Brain Weaver after the discussion about Patrick. As she did so she saw Belili standing in front of the house. She was staring at the horizon.

  Sarah stood beside her. She stared into the sky also. After a moment she spoke.

  “That wasn’t an apprenticeship,” Sarah said.

  Belili did not respond.

  “You wanted me to see. You wanted me to find out about Patrick.”

  Belili remained silent.

  “You did didn’t you?” Sarah asked again. She turned to Belili demanding an answer.

  Belili faced Sarah.

  “Yes,” Belili replied.

  “Why?”

  “Because…you love him. We know it. And he loves you. And he is…so important to us. We need him. He is the one we have sought. We are certain of this. A whole society built to find him.”

  “But…” Belili went on. “There is an emptiness in him. For a genius to border on despair…it can be very bad.”

  “We need him,” she said again. “And we need you to understand why Patrick is the way he is. We need you to bridge the gap to him.”

  Sarah felt anger building inside her. “You want to use me. You are using me.”

  “Yes,” Belili said simply.

  “What happened?” Sarah asked. “Why was he like that when you brought him to the Weaver? What did you do?”

  Belili was quit for several moments.

  “Patrick…” she said. “He is a…tragedy.”

  “He was the one we were looking for. The most beautiful mind we could locate in all the Multiverse. His mind…his genius would be unparalleled. The Scholars located him. I was so excited. I sent Joshua to collect him immediately. Then…something happened.”

  “What,” Sarah demanded to know.

  “Joshua…he is always so careful. We usually plan these things well in advance. If there is any blame it is mine. When the Scholars said they had located the one I immediately had Joshua go to collect him. No planning. Just get him I told Joshua. My excitement…”

  “With no patience there can be consequences. Joshua went to the Verse where the perfect Patrick existed. Patrick was staying with his grandparents on a small farm in Louisiana. Patrick was playing on the porch.”

  “Joshua was careful. He grabbed Patrick and he ran. But he did not realize the boy’s grandfather was near. He did not realize his grandfather had with him his hunting rifle. Joshua fled with Patrick in his arms. The grandfather gave chase. He tried to shoot Joshua as he ran. He fired. The grandfather shot at Joshua. But…he missed. The bullet hit Patrick.”

  “Joshua ran. He did not realize the extent of the damage till he reached the shores of the Sea of Glass.”

  “I was there waiting. I was excited when I saw Joshua step onto the beaches. Then I saw…all the blood. There was so much blood. Joshua set the body down. He set the child down…oh Sarah.”

  Belili closed her eyes. She closed her eyes remembering the horror. “Half his head had been taken off. The bullet had torn away half his mind. That mind we needed so desperately. “What lay on the ground…on the beach…”

  Belili shook her head. “It was terrible.”

  “I collected him. We stabilized the brain as best we could…I immediately brought him to Jean-Henri…our greatest Weaver. He needed to be saved. Our whole society…it could have all been on the brink. All our hopes rested on if he could be saved.”

  “We did it Sarah. We saved him. He is a tragedy and he is a miracle.”

  They both stood in silence for a few moments. They watched the dance of the horizon of the Multiverse.

  Belili broke the silence. She took from her coat a small book. She handed it to Sarah.

  “Here,” she said. “Take this. This is Jean-Henri’s journal. It is his medical notes about Patrick. It will tell you what needed to be done. It will allow you to understand.”

  Sarah did not take the book that was being offered to her. She instead looked at it in disgust. She no longer wanted to be a part of this place of games and secrets. She knew by taking the book she would understand more of the horror of this place.

  However, as she stared at the journal being offered to her she also knew she needed to read it. The information it contained was about the boy she loved. His journey was one of horror. She needed to understand that horror to be there for him.

  “Take it,” Belili said. “Please. You have to understand. You have to understand the terrible nature of how Patrick came to be who he is. Because now…we need you. We need you to understand. You are his connection.”

  Sarah still hesitated. She did not want to be another pawn in this awful game.

  “Sarah think of it…you love him…we just need you to connect with him…we just need you there. You would have done this on your own. We just needed you to understand it all. He is so unique. In all of existence he is unique.”

  Sarah finally took the book.

  Belili nodded. She did not say anything else.

  Sarah began to walk away. She was disgusted by Belili. She was disgusted by the day’s events.

  She walked through the streets of the city in this strange land. Her mind was spinning with the evil that she had learned. The evil of minds being torn apart and put back together with other minds.

  She walked to the beach. She walked to the place where the ocean of time and space met the land.

  She stared into the Sea of Glass. She thought of all the lives she could have lived. She thought of all the people she could have been. She could have been a teacher she thought. She could have lived every day in a world without abducted children. Without the horror of brains pieced together.

  She could have lived without knowing that everything that ever existed was dying. She could have lived without knowing that even the past was being eaten away. She could have lived her days quietly. Her life could have been about lesson plans and learning activities.

  However, that was not her life. Her life was standing on a beach staring into infinity. This is who she was.


  As Sarah looked out into the ocean of forever she wondered, can we decide who we are? Is it the circumstances around us that shape us? It is the time we live in? The place we live in? The people we meet? The pains we experience?

  Or is it fate? Is there always something that will make us who we are. Is there some predetermined path of self?

  In these questions somewhere is a soul. In these questions lays the person we are. In the midst of all the circumstances, uncertainty, experiences, and predetermination was the Sarah who now stood on this beach.

  Sarah’s life had led her to this beach with this book in her hand outlining the circumstances and the experiences that defined the boy she loved.

  Sarah sat down on the shore of her glass world. She stared down at Jean-Henri’s journal.

  Sarah stared at the book for a long time.

  Finally, she opened the book. She began to read about the tragedy of the boy she wanted to spend all eternity with.

  ***

  The Philosophical Principles of Death. The Scripture of Farinata Uaegli Abertio.

  Gospel 000034

  All that I have seen…all that I have witnessed has made me aware that we are wretched debris floating on the ocean of fate.

  Those waves bring us to the place which we find ourselves. They wash us upon this shore that is our moment under a sunless sky.

  We are deceived by the belief that we can ever truly move beyond the oceans of circumstance.

  We trick ourselves with the believe of other possibilities for the soul. A person is not defined by who they could have been. They are defined by who they are.

  They are defined by where the waves of circumstances took them.

  We are debris in the tempest of causality.

  In truth we cannot rise above these ocean tides.

  All things beyond that are an illusion.

  We exist merely as slaves to where fate will lead us.

  Verse Fourteen: The Journal of the Brain Weaver