Joel pushed a door open with his forehead and lay in the straw bed of his pen. The pen took up most of the open porch of a great, old house, and Joel had a view of flowerbeds, bursting forth with blue of irises and red and black of tulips, and a vast green lawn. He needed to think.
His discovery, as unsettling as it was, explained much. He now knew why Cassie and her father talked about him as if he were not there, and why newspapers were often snatched from under his nose. Most importantly, he realized why Cassie never acknowledged small signs of affection he offered. At least, it wasn’t about his personality. It was about him being a pig.
His ears pricked up, and he raised his snout to inhale the smell of gas and hot metal. Cassie’s Dad came home. Normally, Joel was not very interested in the old man—he seemed more of an aged barnacle appended to Cassie’s loveliness than a being in his own right. This time, Joel watched him.
Cassie’s Dad heaved his old body up the steps with the help of his cane, and spoke addressing a young man with a tape recorder in hand, who followed close behind. “I hope the tour of the farm assuaged some of your and your readers’ concerns. As you could see, it’s a perfectly scientific and humane operation.”
“Yes.” The young man stopped and cocked his head. “But did you have any issues with patients being squeamish about their transplants? About these organs being grown in pigs?”
The old man rasped a laugh. “You have to understand that people who need a transplant do not have the luxury of being squeamish. And think of the alternatives—would you rather receive a liver extracted from a human corpse?”
The young man made a small non-committal sound and looked away.
“You’re too young to remember it, but back in the day...“ Cassie’s Dad looked over the flowerbeds, his fingers tapping on the railing of the porch. “There was a lot of controversy over human cloning—human rights activists feared that people will be cloned only to harvest their organs. That never happened, of course—it is much easier to grow human organs in pigs, and there’s a whole lot fewer ethical questions. Animal Righters, of course, made a fuss, but they always do. Most of them don’t even know what they believe in.”
“Why pigs?”
“They are similar to us.” The old man smiled, and snapped his fingers at Joel. “Joel, come here, boy.”
Joel trotted up, obedient, hoping that his dark unease did not reflect on his face.
“Joel, here,” the old man said, “is a miracle pig. He has a human brain—he’s the only one of his kind. A real innovation. Hope your paper will enjoy this little factoid.”
The young man rubbed his face. “A brain? Forgive me, Dr. Kernicke, but a brain transplant reeks of a bad joke. Why would you need a brain?”
Cassie’s Dad rolled his eyes, and petted Joel’s sagging head. “Not a whole one. But you know that people suffer injuries, or—God forbid!—tumors. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a replacement frontal lobe in case you lost one?”
The young man nodded. “I suppose. But what about personality?”
Cassie’s Dad shook his head, impatient. “What personality? He’s a pig. He’s just keeping this brain warm, in a manner of speaking. It’s a blank slate. A person who receives Joel’s frontal lobe will eventually develop connections between his brain and the transplant, and gradually claim it as his own, regaining function as the time goes by. Brain tissue is just tissue until a human mind shapes it into something grander.”
The young man turned off his tape recorder. “Doctor,” he said in a hushed voice, and gave Joel a sideways look. “How do you know that this pig is not sentient?”
“Because pigs did not evolve with this brain!” Cassie’s Dad struck the boards of the porch with his cane for emphasis. “It’s like sewing albatross’ wings on a pigeon—it won’t make him a better flyer, and chances are that he won’t fly at all. Every animal is made by evolution, and all parts should fit together to function. Joel’s DNA says that he’s a pig, and thus he will remain a pig forever, whether we furnish him with a different brain or not. He has no other human equipment, such as neurotransmitters and sensory system, and thus he cannot make use of the brain. Interview is over.”
The young man ran down the steps, traipsed across the lawn, and disappeared behind the bend of the driveway. A part of Joel wanted to run after the man, to seek his help, while the rest of his soul reeled, as if an abyss had opened in front of his hooves. Betrayed by the very people who took care of him and pretended to love him—surely, Joseph did not feel worse after being sold to Egypt! If Joel could speak, he would’ve called anathema upon the old man’s aging, balding head. If he could cry, bloody tears would have stained his face. Joel did the only thing he could do. He ran.
The gravel of the driveway exploded from under his hooves in small, angry fountains, and the greenery of the hedge melted into a green smudge. He careened around the turn, just in time to see the young man’s car exhale a pungent cloud of exhaust and disappear behind the gate.
Joel’s heart pumped harder than ever as he kept running. The metal bars of the gate came into motion, sliding, silent, smell of grease and black metal radiating from them. Through the opening, Joel could see a grey snake of the road, he could hear honking of the cars, he could smell an unfamiliar world that he had previously seen through the gate but never entered.
Until now. Joel’s face thrust into the street, into the warm shimmering air filled with asphalt fumes, just as the gate slid into his flank. He could feel the pain of bruised flesh, followed with a jolt the likes of which he had never felt. Every muscle twitched with the searing shock that radiated from the metal grid of the gate. Then, it ceased. Joel planted his front hooves in the pallid grass that separated the gates from the sidewalk, and pulled. The pain renewed—another jolt, then another pause. Joel thought that he could smell burnt hair, but it seemed too inconsequential in the face of the necessity to free himself. He pulled and strained, until the next shock set his flank afire, radiating across his back and down every nerve. Joel looked outside, at the traffic that flowed by, oblivious to a pig stuck in the gates. The next shock exploded in his eyes, in a shower of white stars, and Joel saw no more.
Joel woke up in hell. Before he even opened his eyes, he realized that he was paralyzed. He sent his muscles a signal to move, to close his mouth, but they would not obey. His throat and tongue felt dry as felt, and he could not swallow. His ears hurt.
Joel opened his eyes. The white light sliced across his retinas like a knife, and he squeezed his eyelids shut. Cautiously peering into the whiteness through his sparse eyelashes, Joel discerned the shapes of people around him. They were dressed in white, and blended with the white walls, the instruments in their hands the same color as the chrome fixtures. The chrome fixtures that held his mouth open, thrust into his throat far enough to scratch it and make him want to gag. Steel shafts penetrated his ears, holding his head immobile.
This is it, Joel thought. They’ve found someone who wants my brain—wants me. He swiveled his eyes around, half-expecting to see the perpetrator. He imagined him reaching greedily for Joel, an unholy gleam in his eyes.
Cassie’s Dad came into Joel’s field of vision, moving his face closer. “You gave us quite a scare, Joel,” he said. “What were you doing, getting stuck in the gate? Did you want to get out?”
Joel would’ve nodded if the mechanical gear did not prevent him.
“Silly boy,” the old man cawed. “You got quite an electric shock, you did. Now, you just relax, and we’ll make sure that you did not damage anything.”
Despite his discomfort, Joel breathed easier. It wasn’t the time, then. If he was lucky, the time would never come. With all his heart he hoped that the old man would find something wrong. Some imperfection that would let Joel live.
The old man gave a signal, and his helpers, white-gowned people with their faces hidden behind white cloths, wheeled Joel’s table into a large, humming tunnel. Joel closed his eyes, and in his mind repeated the words he
heard Cassie whisper before going to sleep. “Please Lord, have mercy on us all.” He thought a bit, and added, “Especially Joel.”
Lord did not listen—perhaps, because Joel was a pig, and not a young girl with curly hair and eyes like blackberries. After an eternity of loud humming and beams of light that shot at him from different angles, Cassie’s Dad wheeled Joel out of the tunnel, and patted his snout. “Good as new. Good boy.”
Joel wept silently as the masked people unstrapped him and freed his mouth from the ravages of steel. He was too wrapped up in his misery to look around as Cassie’s Dad nudged him outside of the low stone building into the yard covered in asphalt. The old man opened the door of his car, and Joel climbed onto a back seat. He looked out of the window, but nothing shook him out of the stupor—neither the flowering cherry trees, nor people milling about, nor the low wooden pens. He watched a row of pigs’ faces pressed against the bars. He guessed that they housed human livers, hearts and kidneys. But not minds, Joel thought bitterly. That cross was his to bear.
Since that day, Joel thought of ways to escape. He circled the perimeter of the yard surrounded by thin wires. But the wires gave him the same jolt as the gates. He tried to root under the fence, and made good progress, but was discovered. The old man moved Joel’s bed into the shed, where he could be locked. His only solace was Cassie, who visited him occasionally. The old man tagged along on such visits, short and awkward as they were.
“What’s got into him?” the old man said, looking at Joel with consternation. He stood in the doorway, the afternoon sun creating a halo around his misshapen, hunched silhouette.
Cassie crouched down and patted Joel’s head. “Perhaps he knows.” She looked up at her father, her eyes rounded with emphasis.
“Nonsense,” the old man said.
Joel’s heart leapt with hope. He grunted and rubbed against Cassie’s knees, almost knocking her over.
“Dad,” she said.
The old man sighed. “There’s nothing I can do,” he said. “It’s not just my project. Perhaps it was a bad idea to keep him as a pet—I should’ve known that you’d get attached.”
Cassie stood. “What do you mean? Did you find someone?”
The old man nodded. “Ever since it’s been in the papers, we’ve been flooded with mail and phone calls. The Congress got involved, and the FDA is pushing for clinical trials. I think we found a recipient.”
“Who?”
“A young man,” Cassie’s Dad said. “He was in a car accident some years back, suffered a loss of a large portion of the right hemisphere. Think of it, Cassie—Joel will help someone to live a normal life. Think how you would feel if you were half a person.”
Cassie heaved a sigh, and thrust her hands deep into her jeans pockets. “I guess. I would hate to lose Joel though.”
The old man smiled. “You don’t have to lose him, dear. He’ll retain most of his brain—more than enough for a pet.”
Joel could not sleep all night. Cassie was an ally. If only he could send her a sign, let her know somehow that he was just like her, that he could think and understand everything... A sudden thought struck him. He almost laughed in disbelief—it was so simple. Why didn’t he think of it before? He picked up a twig with his mouth, and started drawing letters in the dust. Letters that he remembered since Cassie and he were both carefree and young, when she learned the symbols on the bright painted cubes. Joel was there, and he had learned too.
It was a hard going—the letters came out shaky and clumsy, and he had to start over a few times. He wanted them to be perfect, so that no one would doubt his abilities. He labored all night, often stopping to rest. By the morning, the inscription was ready. Large, blocky letters stood out clearly against the grey dirt. “Cassie,” he wrote, “I love you.” She would come in the morning and see that he had both a heart and a mind.
When the morning came, Joel circled around the cramped pen—a far cry from the luxury of the old house, where he could roam free and see Cassie whenever he wanted to. He even moved all the straw into the corner, so that nothing obscured his letter.
He heard footsteps outside, and his heart almost stopped, and then raced, once he realized that there were several people there. All of them came in, wearing green coats, loud and laughing. Their heavy shoes trampled his message back into dust, and their hands grabbed Joel. He fought back, crying out for help, until a needle jabbed his flank.
The afternoon sun flooded the porch, and Joel closed his eyes. It was a nice day, although his aching skull told him that it might rain later. Cassie shifted in her chair, and tickled Joel’s chin with her bare toes. He grunted and stretched his neck. He almost dozed off when he heard crunching of the gravel of the driveway. Someone was coming.
He opened his eyes. Cassie looked too, shielding her eyes from the glare, and put down her book. Joel glanced at the squiggly lines, and then at Cassie. For the life of him, he could not understand why she spent all day staring at the black worms that crawled on the white pages.
“Excuse me.” The visitor walked halfway up the steps that led to the porch and stopped, as if uncertain. “I was told that this is Dr. Kernicke’s house.”
Cassie nodded. “He’s at the Institute. It’s down the road, by the farm.”
“I know,” the visitor said. “I just wanted to talk in a more informal manner.” His eyes met Joel’s, and he whistled. “Say, is that the pig that...” He swallowed a few times but did not continue.
Cassie looked puzzled for a moment, but then smiled. “Oh yes, this is Joel, the wonder-pig.”
Joel lifted his head at the mentioning of his name. The rest of the words escaped him somehow, no matter how hard he listened.
“Joel,” the visitor repeated. “I’m Phil Marshall.”
“Oh yes.” Cassie looked at the visitor with awe. “You’re the recipient.”
The word evoked a vague displeasure in Joel, but the day was too nice to get agitated over anything. He grunted and rolled to his side, trying to capture as many rays as he could before the sunset.
“And you’re Cassie,” Phil said.
“How did you know?”
Phil frowned, shook his head, and shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably heard it somewhere.”
“Probably,” Cassie agreed. “Father will be home soon. You want to see the garden meanwhile?”
Joel watched the two people walk down the steps and stroll across the green lawn. He tried to focus his thoughts, but they just stumbled about, unruly, chasing each other’s tails. There was something about that man, something about the way he looked at Joel that seemed familiar. The words ‘blank slate’ floated into his mind and dissipated, leaving no impression or understanding. Joel yawned. All the thinking made him tired, and he closed his eyes, savoring the warmth and the sun. No need to worry about things one could not change. And truly, Joel had no reason to complain. He was treated well, and he had anything a pig could desire. And it was getting even better—every day, he found that he had fewer things to worry about, that the concerns of yesterday made no sense today, and often left no memory. He had forgotten the smell of blood, and the searing pain, and the sickening sound of the tissue tearing like fabric. Soon, he would be truly happy.
Hindsight, in Neon
Jamie Todd Rubin
1
The last science fiction writer sits in an all-night diner beneath the sizzling haze of a neon “Live Nudes” sign. His agent, a vaporous figure of a man, sits across from him sipping at coffee, blurred by the rising steam.
“It was sixty-nine years ago,” the last SF writer says, poking at his clam chowder, “that Dying Inside first appeared; one of the true classics, a first rate effort and so forth.”
The agent mutters something incomprehensible under his breath and continues to suck at the coffee.
“I am dying inside,” says the last SF writer.
The agent has heard this all before. “You haven’t written anything worth publishing in thirty years,” he s
ays.
“I am losing my power,” the last SF writer says. He wears a faded periwinkle suit, as deformed as a crumbled manuscript page. From an inside pocket he pulls a yellowed paperback and thumbs though the pages. “David Selig—now there’s a character with whom I can sympathize. There is a danger in knowing too much.”
“There is a danger giving in too easily,” the agent says, in disinterested tones.
The last SF writer sets the book down on the table. “It’s out of my hands now,” he says.
“It’s not really your fault,” the agent says, this time with a hint of sympathy. “You have to have readers. You have to have people who can make sense of the letters and words on the page, who can be moved by the drama and imagery.”
“No one remembers,” the last SF writer says, sadly.
“You remember,” the agent says.
But the last SF writer is shaking his head, staring into the cold clam chowder, beneath the hot anachronistic neon light. “Too late,” he mutters, “It’s all gone.”
2
The last SF writer sits in the all-night diner, fiddling with a flaking copy of an ancient science fiction magazine. The pages have been annotated in microscopic print. As a weary waitress refills his coffee cup, he says to her, “They don’t make life like they used to.”
“Preachin’ to the choir, sweetheart.” the waitress says, and with leaden steps disappears somewhere behind the counter.
“She has no idea what you’re talking about,” the agent says from behind a pair of thin-framed eyeglasses perched precariously on the bridge of his bulbous nose.
The last SF writer waves the magazine in the air, creating a minor blizzard of decayed pulp all about the table top. “It was seventy-eight years ago when this story first appeared. It was true then, and it’s true now.”
The Book of Apex: Volume 1 of Apex Magazine Page 25