Corpus Callosum

CORPUS CALLOSUM

  by

  Erika D. Price

  Copyright 2013 Erika D. Price

  Cover Image Copyright Erika D. Price, Licensed under an Attribution 2.0 Generic Creative Commons License. Photo Adapted from Images Copyright Jason Snyder and Functional Neurogenesis, Licensed under an Attribution 2.0 Generic License, Used with Permission

  Read more at Erikadprice.tumblr.com

  For Staci.

  1.

  Twenty-six hours in surgery, followed by fourteen hours for the upload. An hour or two between those, which Jeanette spent making all the decisions and filling out the forms. The process would have been quicker if Joey hadn’t elected to be an organ donor. All that meat struck Jeanette as particularly useless, these days. Especially in Joey’s case, since she was charred from the chest down.

  Jeanette slapped the last waiting room magazine she hadn’t read— Parenting Circle— against her legs. She’d never gone so long without moving before. It almost felt as if she were the one without a body. She considered this. Maybe if she sat still long enough she could be uploaded, too.

  Her thighs felt heavy and immobile, like the sacks of liquid in their dad’s old waterbed. Every spring, Jeanette and Joey used to drag the bulging, stagnant vessels into the yard and dump their contents into the lawn beneath the willow tree, then refill the bags from the hose and drop in a few chlorine tablets. It never helped with the mildew, those chlorine tablets. The bags always reminded them of body bags. Body bags, like where Joey’s body would be placed, soon.

  Jeanette’s stomach lurched at the thought, and she threw her head back, bumping it for the fifty-seventh time on the waiting room’s wooden border. She tried to picture something else.  She imagined blood clots colonizing her calves, or her leaden thighs, and beating a hasty course into her brain or her heart. The instructions on Jeanette’s birth control pills warned about blot clots, and cautioned against being sedentary for more than a few hours, but she couldn’t bear to enjoy bodily liberation while Joey was a still mass.

  “Not for long,” she whispered. “Not for long, not for long.”

  It felt like a prayer or an incantation, but it was a fact.  The upload had been paid for. There was a certainty to Joey’s immortality, the kind only a market transaction, not prayer, could guarantee. You couldn’t sue God like you could a corporation. Jeanette kept repeating her mantra anyway. There was a frazzled-looking mother and two kids on the other side of the waiting room, but Jeanette didn’t care about their opinions anymore. She’d been alone in the room too long. Now it made no difference.

  The Parenting Circle magazine was full of advertisements for cheap shoes and synthetic food. The featured article was about a newly FDA-approved gastric bypass procedure for toddlers.  It was followed by a one-page ad for pre-teen Electroconvulsive Therapy. The ECT center looked like the inside of a Claire’s, all pale purple, mirrored walls, and sparkles.

  Jeanette tried to make the magazine last as long as possible— she read all the bylines, the contents, the disclaimers— but still consumed all the text and images before the hour was out. Sighing, she opened the folder on her lap, which the surgeon had given her, and began reading the FAQ’s she’d been avoiding all day.

  BrightBox by LifeMedia™: Frequently Asked Questions

  Q: How long does BrightBox uploading take?

  A: Uploading takes between sixteen and twenty-four hours, depending on the memory capacity of the client and the comprehensiveness of their upload package.

  Q: Will my loved one have their natural voice?

  A: Only if they have completed the full voice-training software protocol prior to death. If we have a partial or damaged voice sample from your loved one, we will augment it with our SmartTalk voice reconstruction software. LifeMedia cannot guarantee satisfaction with voice fidelity at this stage of product development.

  Q: Will my loved one’s personality be affected?

  A: Human psychology is fluid, and a person’s attitudes and behaviors are strongly influenced by their surroundings and their situation. Expect your loved one to seem slightly “out-of-sorts” in the first few weeks following their uploading to BrightBox. However, they will remain biopsychologically identical to the person they were in life, particularly if they were uploaded via a comprehensive or deluxe package.

  Q: Does the upload to BrightBox damage any memories?

  A: The fidelity of a BrightBox upload is limited by only two things: the state of the client’s brain at the time of upload, and the size of the BrightBox’s hard drive. If you are concerned that your loved one has more memories than the standard BrightBox’s 1 petabyte, consider upgrading.

  Q: Will my loved one be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or feel physical sensations?

  A: Regarding the first two: yes, the BrightBox is fully wired with cameras, microphones, speakers, and sophisticated processing equipment at or near the capability of human sensation. As for the other three: Yes, but not at the level of detail or intensity that a physical human can.

  Q: Why isn’t there a BrightBox chassis that allows the uploaded client to move?

  A: Unfortunately, fine and gross motor function have proven the most difficult brain functions to map onto BrightBox (other than automatic physiological functions, such as arousal). We are currently beta-testing a BrightBox that allows the client to walk, sit, climb stairs, shake hands, and perhaps even dance!

  Q: Do any clients regret being uploaded to BrightBox?

  A: Extensive psychological research has demonstrated that BrightBox clients regret/resent their circumstances at a rate comparable to the general living population. Life is fraught with worry, depression, and regret, and life in a BrightBox is apparently no exception!

  Q: How do I take care of a loved one who has been uploaded to BrightBox?

  A: With love! Treat the loved one the same as you did when they had a body. Take them with you to lunch, on shopping trips, to parties, or for a walk in the park. Play word games and watch television, or put on an audio book (or read aloud)! Make sure to move your loved one several times a day, and to change the lighting and music in their surroundings frequently to avoid boredom and frustration.

  Q: How long does a BrightBox chassis last, and what happens if it breaks?

  A: As long as LifeMedia’s usage guidelines are followed exactly and the warranty is not voided, a BrightBox should function smoothly for at least seventy years. If a client or their family notices errors in the system or the client’s psychology, the client may be uploaded to a new BrightBox for a nominal fee.

  Jeanette put the sheet of paper back in the folder. Her eyes were burning from strain, so she pushed them into their sockets with the pads of her fingers until the pain was different. For the first time in perhaps a day, she let herself peek at the digital clock above the nurse’s stand. It was brick-shaped and a bright, sterile white, not unlike Joey’s soon-to-be- body. 4:38am.

  Jeanette leaned her head back on the border and threw mittens over her eyes, pleading for sleep. She drifted off to visions of her and Joey as young girls, running around the above-ground pool in their bikinis, throwing clumps of grass. Jeanette saw Joey’s knobby knees and shoulders, her hair slick and lightened by sunlight and chlorine, stuck to the sides of her face, never to be seen again.

  A few hours later Jeanette’s neck and legs were stiff and began to complain enough to nearly wake her. She was pulled into full consciousness by the squeak of a surgeon’s Crocs on the tile, and a crisp professional voice saying, “Miss Porter? Ma’am? Your sister’s ready.”

  2.

  The surgeon led Jeanette through a corridor and down a half-flight of stairs, swinging a metal clipboard in his left hand. The lights were dimmer than she expected. Her calves and knees ac
hed and stung from the hours she’d spent sitting still in the waiting room. She had to nearly run to keep up with him, stumbling all the way.

  He was brisk and youthful-looking, in powder blue scrubs. He was white and his hair was chestnut and cropped close. When Jeanette had seen him before, sitting in the waiting room, she’d been too stricken with grief and panic to notice anything about him. He turned another corner, Crocs squishing. She dashed behind him in flats that cut into her bare heels.

  “Did everything go okay? The transfer?” She panted.

  “Smooth sailing, I hear. Surgery is a bit pissed because her kidneys couldn’t be salvaged. They were kinda banking on them.”

  He turned back to her. “You seem much better,” he said.

  “I. Yeah. Well it’s still such a rush, you know?”

  He smiled – tightly, tentatively. “This is my favorite part of the process.”

  “I would’ve thought that saving, you know,