The sense of time deserted him when the metronome of heartbeat died.
Determined Brain compromised by assuming that crude time could be kept
by the function of hunger, elimination, weariness. Logical Brain
pointed out that he could starve to death and feel nothing; elimination
was a sensory thing no more; weariness was of the body that brought no
information anyway—and what, indeed was sleep?
Brain considered this question. Brain said, I am Jerry Markham. But is
it true that no brain can think of nothing? Is it possible that “Sleep”
is the condition that obtains when the body stops conveying reliable
information to the brain, and then says to Hell with Everything and
decides to stop thinking?
The Brain called Jerry Markham did not stop thinking. It lost its time
sense, but not completely. A period of time passed, a whirlwind of
thoughts and dreamlike actions went on, and then calmness came for a
while.
Dreams? Now ponder the big question. Does the brain dream the dream as
a sensory experience—or is a dream no more than a sequence of assorted
memories? Would a dying brain expire in pleasure during a pleasant
dream—or is the enjoyment of a pleasant dream only available to the
after-awakened brain?
What is Man but his Memories?
In one very odd manner, the brain of Jerry Markham retained its
intellectual orientation, and realized that its physical orientation
was uncontrollable and undetectable and therefore of no importance.
Like the lighthouse keeper who could not sleep when the diaphone did
not wrneeee-hrnawwww for five seconds of each and every minute, Jerry
Markham’s brain was filled with a mild concern about the total lack of
unimportant but habitual data. There was no speckle of light to
classify and ignore, no susurrus of air molecules raining against the
eardrum. Blankness replaced the smell and taste and their absence was
as disturbing as a pungence or a poison. And, of course, one should
feel something if it is no more than the tonus of muscle against the
mobile bones.
Communication is the prime drive of life. Cut off from external
communication entirely, section A, bay 6, tier 9, row 13 hollered over
to box Q, line 23, aisle F and wanted to know what was going on. The
gang on the upper deck hailed the boiler room, and the crew in the
bleacher seats reported that the folks in charge of
C.I.C.—Communication Information Center—were sitting on their hands
because they didn’t have anything to do. One collection of bored brain
cells stirred. They hadn’t been called upon since Jerry Markham sang
“_Adeste Fidelis_” in memorized Latin some fifteen years earlier and so
they started the claque. Like an auditorium full of people impatient
because the curtain had not gone up on time, bedlam broke loose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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