This is my apology. It's a personal account of existence as lived by a
particular type of man known as "brain eater". To some, who accidentally
stumble across me and feel compelled to read this piece (against their
better judgement), it may seem like a metaphysical waste of time. For
others, I hope that, despite its many shortcomings as a written work, it
will nevertheless aid you in identifying this absurd and despicable weakness
within yourself and others. Let me begin by way of introduction.

     My name is Martin Grove. I am forty five years old. I am single and I
have no children. I like flying stunt kites in my free time and taking long
walks on the beach. My brain has been eating itself for twenty odd years
now. My doctor said my brain looks like a wad of mucous dripping inside an
empty roll of toilet paper. I know this to be true. It's difficult to say how it started
but after years of abuse, even the brain with its immeasurable fortitude can be
taught to deny its function and turn against itself.

    This essay is not meant to frighten anybody into thinking the brain is less
formidable than it is. As thousands of years and billions of thoughts, emotions
and experiences have taught us, it is ny no means a fragile mechanism. Nor am
I pretending to know the secrets of this miraculous organ. I am humbly attempting
to account for the loss of one brain so that others of its kind can find comfort in
knowing their situation to be very real and earnest.
 
    We can only speculate why a brain would want to eat itself. It can be
dangerous to attribute desires as belonging to organs themselves as if
organs were not merely a means to an end but themselves possessed of
a will It is obvious that my stomach is not hungry. It may be empty but it is I
who am hungry in virtue of my stomach being empty. It is rumbling with pangs
of discomfort so I can be aware that I am hungry. I satisfy my appetite with food
and my stomach is full so I am no longer hungry. Forgive this all too simple view
of the human organism which permits us to believe a human being is nothing
more than its parts. There are many other aspects to how the body works and
why which I am not concerned with for the moment.

     The brain normally functions to serve the I. I use my brain to solve a
problem or process information. Faculties of pleasure, pain, reasoning,
understanding, sympathy all lie in the brain to be used by I according to my
character. A benevolent character will access more knowledge about caring for
others than a hedonist character who develops different knowledge about the self.
So, I use my brain as I use my stomach, fueled by my will, in order to survive. However,
if a brain was to develop its own will and become an autonomous creature in its own
right, what might we expect to happen? Can you imagine a mutiny, sabotage, peaceful
coexistence, maybe alien intervention? I am here to tell you in my wordy and awkward
way that the only result is the brain that eats itself.
 
     What are the symptoms of the brain eater? Make no mistake, the brain
and its possessor are so intimately connected that they will identify with
each other until the bitter end, making it difficult for the possessor of a
brain eating brain to distinguish between his own true character and those
qualities which make up the brain. At first I had to try to get things going.
 
     Imagine, if you will, a young boy growing up in a middle class neighbourhood who by his
very nature categorized everything he could get his hands on. His books were in alphabetical
order on a shelf next to a filing cabinet organized into sections for school, family, holidays etc.
Every Christmas card ever received in the household was meticulously put away for safe keeping.
Blue pens were lined up like soldiers awaiting their orders. Red pens and erasers had their own
compartments as well.  Everything in his room was put away for maximum efficiency. No random
item was tolerated. Only calenders and bulletin boards lined the walls.

      Slowly, as the boy grows older, these things seem less important to
him. He lets the blue pens fall in with the red pens. He allows socks to
mingle with underwear and posters begin to appear on his walls. At this
time, a transformation has begun. Society begins to speak more directly to
the boy. He is being shaped by the world into which he was born. This world keeps
talking into his ear. Chattering really, telling him what to believe, how to believe, how to
succeed, how to live, what's good, what's bad...

     For a time the boy tries to slot everything into his compartments but
he soon becomes frustrated with the futile effort and realizes he is going
to have to give up. His only course seems to be to take what is given to
him, select what's important and useful, discard the rest (he hated throwing
things away) and slide into position with the rest of the world. 

     However, one night when most of the world was sleeping, another voice
opened the door a crack and whispered rumours about another possibility.
Rather than be swallowed up whole by the world, why don't you give yourself
over to your brain? It said. Let it run itself for awhile. Stop trying to
control it all the time. You are just an effect of the society that controls
you anyways. Just let her run for a bit and see what happens...The boy, who
was me, twenty five plus years ago did exactly that. He just gave up everything
to his brain. At first it was difficult but it wasn't long before
he forgot himself and started doing things he would never have thought of
before. He spent his days eating his brain in fields, on rocks, by pools,
backyards, rooftops, patios, basements, on the beach, in the nature trail,
playgrounds, front steps, the garage... Everywhere he could he would. 

Brain for breakfast, brain for lunch, brain picnics, brain at midnight, brain
again in the morning. He ate his memories, which were like little wagon
wheels. He ate a lot of deductive reasoning skills he had learned when he
was a child. He figured he didn't need them and they had a soft slimy
texture that he enjoyed, a little like tofu. He ate lots of things. He gobbled up
vanity many times over throughout the years and often tried to force down all
his pride in one sitting. Once, in a rather adventurous spirit with nothing else to
eat, he ate his ego which was sweet like a sugar cube melting over his tongue.

     The next thing to happen was a long period of painful denial. He couldn't get
used to it all and found himself with no friction on which to pass  through the world.
As soon as he ate one thing, something else would grow in its place. From as small
as a slender flower to as wide as a meadow.

From as near as a window to as far as a star. He kept eating it but he was
no longer eating in a good mind. He was poisoned with the need to get rid of it all
and make his brain disappear. It only reminded him of what he had
done in becoming a brain eater and he was ruthlessly ashamed of himself. He felt as
if he had done irreparable damage to himself by falling out with
society in order to become a brain eater. You know society did its best to
help him believe exactly that. Most of the time the boy couldn't hear the
words spoken to him by the world since he was too busy eating his brain but the
words expressly against brain eating pierced his conscience and drove him to great
depths inside himself despairing over a way to escape his fate.

He became withdrawn and started feeding on his brain unaware of what he was
doing. He would feed ravenously for days without any pleasure or
satisfaction. In order to go out in public he had to first convince himself
he was not a brain eater. He would run up to total strangers, look them
deliberately in the eye, and beg them to give him a chance to prove his
worth as a human being. He made many promises which ultimately proved to
be false and was always doing things he didn't want to, looking for a way out again
and again. Most people scorned him and turned their backs, politely sprinkling a little
pity over their shoulders because they could see he was desperate. The boy would
sulkingly return to eating his brain.

     One day I just accepted who I was and ate more in peace. I ate bitter
things, sour things, salty things, good and bad. Pillars or pies it didn't
matter to me. I ate entire worlds although they were no bigger than a
peppercorn. I ate and ate. One day I started noticing empty spaces. Things
were not growing back. As it turns out, I had accidentally eaten Common
Sense without knowing it. I kept on eating. It didn't matter at that point.
I eat my brains and that is all.

     I still consider myself one of the lucky ones because my senses
remember how to work so I can still witness the world even if there isn't
much going on behind the surface. I ate my understanding years ago so I
don't always get it. My eyes appear vacant  and I often stare dumbly at
things for hours and even days. What all of this amounts to is that; I eat,
I digest, I die. The end

To all the old guns who rest in peace.

Copyright © 2002 Worldbridges    Copyright Policies