Jane, howtobearedhead.com
The following morning Monique rushed to Rollo’s room and woke him up with a hug. We were close behind her to witness the rendezvous. Rollo was confused at first as Monique was acting so differently. But then Claire spoke:
“I know this isn’t my voice or my body, but this is your loving mother. It’s so wonderful to see you this big and mature. I’m sharing Monique’s body. It’s how I came back from the computer world. You’ll just have to get used to it. But remember, this is Monique also. We’re sharing this one form. When you’re talking to us, you’ll have to say which one you want to speak to. If it’s me say ‘mother.’ If it’s her say ‘Monique’.”
Rollo was still taken aback, trying to fathom the implications of two in one. It was as complex as the ‘Trinity’ in Christianity, a conundrum that could fill whole libraries with folio’s of scholarly debate, and yet never a satisfactory answer. But this was a five year old forced to ponder the question. He stared at her quizzically as he stood before her, then he touched her arm and said:
“Monique, are you there?”
“Yes I am, Rollo. Will you take me to breakfast now?”
Like the loving brother that he’d been over the last year, he took her hand and led her to the kitchen. They sat beside each other silently eating cereal. Routine was the one thing that made her feel comfortable, and Rollo knew this. Because his mother had been absent for a year he put her out of his mind. Monique was his daily concern and in front of him, so it was her he wanted to accommodate.
Once again I felt stupid, and as I looked around, I could see it in the faces of Scout and Mary. We’d overlooked the key player in this scenario, Rollo, even as we thought we’d considered everything before our decision. Claire was now reluctant to come out, in such a touching scene of sibling love. She’d have to wait until Rollo was away. But how could she ever play the role of his mother in that form? She knew right then that her whole mission was to repair Monique completely, restore her as an adult being, and then find another host for her own existence, someone who had no personality left, someone she wouldn’t have to accommodate, whom she could take over completely. Sharing a mind with another was unfeasible.
She told us this the moment Rollo left Monique and went off to get dressed. She’d gladly spend the time necessary on restoring Monique. She could visualize the task at hand and told us it might take weeks or months, but she thought she could accomplish it with her full attention, as she was already at work on it and making progress. So we’d be seeing very little of her presence at that time, she said. She kissed me on the lips like a goodbye, and added:
“You’ll have to wait just a little longer, you and Rollo, but I will be with you again, just me, in another shape and face, when the time is right. I want you to come with us. We’ll visit the hospitals together so we can choose together from the saddest cases which body I should take.”
Then she turned to Scout. Scout was so tall now, and she so short that their heights were only inches apart. ‘Take care of Rollo as he takes care of me. But help him to accept the changes you’ll both see in me as I transform. Explain to him that I’m going to become a grown woman again. Mary and Rolland can help with this, but you’ll be the best at it as you’re the closest to his heart. I won’t be his playmate anymore, but I’ll always be his sister. He’ll learn to accept it. Could you do this for me? I know this is an adult task I’m asking of you, but I have to. Maybe Rebecca can come over more often and help.”
Scout of course instantly agreed. We were all extremely pleased with this brief interview with Claire, Mary most of all. Over the next three weeks we didn’t see Claire at all, only Monique, who with an elegant grace slowly regained the adult demeanor and behavior of a twenty-seven-year-old. First in simple habits, like combing her hair, then in poise and form, then in mind she slowly came out of the shell. Rollo watched this transformation in awe, comforted by Rebecca and Scout, his twin harpies, in this case calming him with the sophisms of their fourteen-year-old logic, twisted reasoning, yet well intended:
“Your mother’s inside Monique, helping her. You probably don’t remember her that well because you were only four when she left us, but we do, and we remember Monique when she was Mary’s girlfriend, and as a mother to us. Now she’ll be both again, your mother and mine. We’ll share her like you share the two of us. We know it’s confusing, but you’ll get used to it, you’ll see.”
As their explanations expanded with each passing day so did Monique’s mind. I don’t know whether she was an example or a guide to what they were predicting. But she was right alongside them and soon able to make her own case to Rollo, explaining how she had come out of an illness and was now regaining her strength. As I watched Monique hug and kiss and play with Rollo with secret joy, I could hardly help conjecture how much Claire was controlling this behavior. But in all other respects Claire kept her promise of being completely invisible, once again an invisible player, a puppet master until Monique declared one day that she was her old self again.
“I know I have one duty left” Monique told us that morning. “We have to visit the hospitals, all of us together, and help find the right person for Claire to bring back to life. We don’t want to rush this choice. It has to last a lifetime, so we’ll walk through all the wards in the Bay Area, further if need be, and we all have to agree when we find the right ‘malade’.”
We started that afternoon on a tour of the closest ‘homes’ and hospitals. We left Rollo with Lucille, as we didn’t want to traumatize him with so many sights of the mentally crippled. But Scout came along, Rebecca too some days, with Mary and me, trouper that she was, Monique always leading the way.
At the threshold of each place, we made our intentions clear. We were in a position to restore one patient to a second life. We only wanted to see the most hopeless of cases of young women between the ages of twenty and thirty, as that reparation would be the greatest good. All the nurses and doctors we met were happy to comply and took us on tours, from room to room in countless wards, where we would walk the hall, while Claire mentally assessed each patient’s state, the leftovers of her character and past, her looks, and her aptitude for a real ‘reawakening’.
On the tenth day we came upon a patient, the five of us, in Hayward, skinny, light skinned, petite, with short, carrot red hair, asleep, curled in a fetal position in her bed. She was ten years younger than Claire but had a stunning resemblance in her large eyes and the angularity of her face, her nose and chin, so much so that Scout ran up to her ahead of us and declared: “This is the one.”
We were all struck by the resemblance. Monique stepped up next to the bedside and placed her hand on the poor girl’s head, closing her eyes. This lasted several minutes when the girl in the bed suddenly opened hers. The nurse in attendance said she’d never seen this. The girl was catatonic, was spoon fed and never opened her eyes. Monique quickly glanced back at us with Claire’s look and repeated Scout’s phrase: “This is the one.”
We soon were sitting with the director of the hospital and a call was made to Natalie in the governor’s office. The girl’s parents were in another hospital and she had no one in the world to claim her. A half hour later we were loading her up in the back seat of the Bentley and heading home, Monique holding her hand the whole way. Once there we zapped her head, just to be sure, and then dosed her with ten of our wafers, setting her up in a second, swivelling chair in the boudoir right next to Monique, in front of the computer and its screen, and the vials of perfumes and cosmetics.
Unbeknownst to us, the procedure of transferring Claire’s consciousness from one head into another was no easy feat. The computer screen was flickering volumes of scripts. Monique was staring at it wide-eyed, blinking her eyes frequently, while the girl that sat beside her was in a half-awake daze, head and arms drooping, eyes barely open, not a participant, hardly able to take in anything. This went on for three hours with no visible changes in their postures. So Monique took her to the spare bedroom and stayed with her the whole night, holding her, hoping the chips would kick in. The next morning they went straight back to the computer screen. Now the girl, whose name, strangely enough, was ‘Jane’, woke up a little to the point of being able to receive information, and at the cosmetics table, the metamorphosis, the transformation slowly began.
All of us watched this curious transfiguration over the next week, as we managed their needs, Mary mostly, while Monique and Jane were glued to the screen each day, or looking eye to eye, transferring data. Then Claire slowly appeared, as if Jane’s face was getting a makeover, Claire’s distinctive smile greeting us one morning as she turned from her chair in the panic room, asking to see Rollo. Only the voice was different. It was still Jane’s, high pitched and shrill, a teenager’s, not unpleasant but unfamiliar. I suppose the vocal cords dictated that and could only improve with maturity. We brought him to her, and they embraced, Rollo uncomfortable and awkward with her strange look and sound but she was thrilled with his reluctant hug.
Then she turned to me:
“Roland, can you accept me with this new face?”
“Of course, darling. Come closer. You were a thousand shapes in my mind when you controlled me. Now you’re just the new Claire, slightly altered, for the better, rejuvenated, still growing. Give me a hug. You’re my darling.”
We embraced. But it wasn’t Claire I was kissing. First of all, she was not all there. She was weakened, her character, her strong volition, by immense degrees. She was a faint version of herself, perfect in its hues, but lighter, less dominant, a watercolor, not an oil painting.
Then there was Jane, her personality was coming back to life again, unexpectedly and with a vengeance. It was punkish, with quick glances and gestures, a girl unwillingly dropped into an alter universe, not knowing where she was or why, but landing on her feet and fierce, like a wolf showing its teeth. And Claire seemed to have no control over this, or very little. She was a perfect Claire some of the time, just trapped in another body. But at other times, unpredictably, this impish Jane appeared, back in her own skin and full of life, saying the oddest things to all of us. She scoured every room, looking about, touching objects, watching us as we talked, but rarely speaking up as if we were strangers. In one aspect this was uncomfortable, but in another, intriguing, like Claire having a younger sister, a prankster teenager, in control and annoying.
We could tell by the way she dressed. It was frequently mixed up, a plain skirt and blouse with running shoes and bright socks, borrowed from Scout, as if Claire picked out one item and Jane the next. And at the table there were moments of quick animation in hands and eyes, bolting her food and glancing about, then all of a sudden perfect composure and grace, and an apologetic look, as if to say: “Sorry, she got away from me again.”
“What is going on in that head of yours?” I finally asked. “Are you okay? You’ve been an enigma to me since I met you, but always in control. Now you seem only half in control with Jane bursting forth and calling the shots the other times.”
“Roland, there is a distinct change in me. I’m sharing my mind with a headstrong, fiery young woman with amazing energy, while I feel old and tired. I can’t use tricks to manipulate her because we’re so integrated. I’d only be weakening and stabbing myself. I have to rely on persuasion and reason. I have to talk to her, which is a good thing, but it’s draining, and she often has the upper hand.”
“Monique was so passive I never dreamt of this type of battle. But we are making progress. We are coming to terms very slowly, living together. As she ages a little more, I can see that we’ll come to a symbiosis. I like her a great deal, and I can see that she admires certain qualities in me, so our respect for each other is starting to grow. We are like two very different people thrown together into one tiny dorm room. But the fights will subside. It may take months or years but it will happen, and you’ll have a new person on your hands when it does, neither me nor her but a lovely synthesis.”
“I’m sure your motherly affections will be strong enough to make this ‘synthesis’ love Rollo, but will she love me?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It might be a love-hate relationship for a long while. Just bear with me on this and when you see any good parts in what’s coming from Jane, try to encourage them and befriend her. Look, I’d like to show you a picture of her from three years ago.”
All at once I felt a pulse of Jane’s past memories on my mind. Jane was there, a rebellious youth, a wild revolutionary at a bridge during a protest on climate change, waving a green flag at the very front line, wearing a red bandana while the police moved in with their sticks, remarkable bravery but at the same time stupid, making herself an obvious target of violence. I was struck with admiration but in a few seconds recovered myself.
Then I addressed Jane: “We’ve never properly met, and I’m surprised that we can talk at all. But I’m Claire’s husband, and you know who she is, and I’d like to introduce myself as Claire’s partner.”
“And kiss me when you’re kissing her. That’s not happening.”
‘You were supposed to be brain dead. Just be that way when I kiss her. Close your eyes. I have no interest in kissing you anyways, but I do love Claire.”
“It’s my body, and I’m not at all brain dead. My eyes are wide open so consider me off limits” she replied defiantly.
Claire’s image came back to me, her mind at least, in this youthful form.
“Honey are you okay. I’ve just had a spat with your alter-ego. This is not getting off to a good start. Can’t you, who lately controlled the whole world, control her?”
“I was tired, my dear, and she slips away from me, easily. I see what she said to you. Don’t fret; she’s immature. She’ll come around in time. I can’t help but laugh at this scene. But it feels so great to be in a youthful body and a vibrant mind again. This is a new lease of life for me. Hug me passionately, like you used to.”
I lightly hugged the body of Jane. Then Claire gave me a quick peck on the cheek. Then Jane pushed me hard, rudely, right back to the wall. I could see this was going to be a long, strange battle.
And so it was. Some rare moments I was showered with affection. On most others, there was a distinct chill in the air, a big question mark and distrust with every gesture or word spoken. So we slept apart.
Rollo fared better, caressed and cared for day and night, for who could resist the charms of a quiet, angelic six-year-old boy. Monique was still giving him all the attention in the world which only prompted Claire, in her moments of supremacy in Jane’s mind, to shower Rollo with affection. And in this activity Jane frequently agreed, because she was often at the table playing with him, card games and chess, enjoying herself just as much, because she’d never had a little brother before. In this I could see a bond forming between the two, or should I say three.
As we were all very much chip enhanced and very much enjoying life, I made my first big breakthrough with Jane in an unexpected way. Claire had never read with me much, hardly ever, so busy and different were our past years together. But I invited her into the library one day to join me for Rollo’s morning lesson. We weren’t sending him to school yet. There was still a great deal of disorganization in public institutions, with people moving about and trying out so many different lifestyles, and so many sick. Things had changed quickly in this new world. Everyone was re-evaluating their lives, and there was only one rule or fence in Claire’s new world, you could not harm or manipulate another.
Rollo was quite the scholar, and I was reading with him some sociopolitical historical works of nineteenth and twentieth century Europe, of colorful revolutions and the beginnings and ends of socialism and fascism in Europe, and this is where Jane, with Claire in tow, joined us in our session. She was immediately fascinated by the rich lore of my presentations, which I enhanced by including many black and white documentaries and movies of post-war Germany and Italy, which I’d easily place as a footnote and link in their heads, like a picture in a book, for them to view at leisure. The early works of Victorio De Sica and Federico Fellini blew her away. From that day on I was joined by the two at every lesson, which soon floated through all the ages and continents of human history, my passion, and now theirs. They also joined me at the fireside each night, sipping brandy, for long and intimate discussions. It must have been the chips in her head, but Jane was famished for knowledge and I was the gateway. What pleased me the most in this newfound friendship was that Claire and Jane were growing closer to each other as much as Jane and I. We all read it in each other’s minds, a three-way conversation, always long and warm and rewarding. But afterwards we went our separate ways to bed..
Jane was maturing quickly with Claire’s help. She’d had a very happy childhood with her middle-class parents, secure and loved, an only child, sent to a good school with many friends and activities. It was only in her mid-teens that she became the rebel, more because of the hormones raging in her system than anything else. The world was doing better right after the war with the deployment of the first new chips. But she needed a cause, something to scream about. So she found one, global warming.
This put her in jail several times and her new set of friends likewise. But she was part of a group, a new family, and happy, or should I say happy and mad at the same time, because anger was the uniform she had to wear each day as part of this group. At seventeen she quit school and left home, living with her rebel soulmates in small and often changing groups, underground. They took odd jobs in the city and made ends meet but with only a blur of a future, expressed in angry rhetoric sitting at discarded tables swilling cheap wine in semi-dark basements, plotting plots before retiring to sordid mattresses on the floor, fully clothed.
At nineteen she was arrested again at a pointless demonstration and was one of the first administered the new chip and inducted into the recently formed Federal Enhancement Bureau. And what a perfect cheerleader she became, so much the opposite of her former self, so prim and proper, dressed in white, until that whole world crashed with Claire’s revolution, resulting in her twisted soul being left in a fetal position on a white, slender hospital bed.
So she had been an uneducated hellcat, adrift at sea, without a port, without a lighthouse, and yet brimming with life and energy. When Claire chose her as a partner and revived her, her lust for knowledge encountered my library and me, a blinding lighthouse. This instantly became her overpowering directive, her quest, and Claire immediately knew to ride this wave of enthusiasm alongside her, encouraging it, surfing hand in hand. It gave Claire such a feeling of youth again, a joy she’d never known. Once lying on the beach together, resting between the waves, Claire would take her by the hand and share her past experiences of diplomatic victories, real history, just like riding a wave, only with governments and treaties on the table, and millions of lives affected by the consequences.
They knew they had to bond and fortunately, I was the catalyst. Over the next six months Jane had her final growth spree. She grew four inches, and her voice deepened, sounding more like Claire every day. They melded into one identity for all of us. It wasn’t Claire, because there was a youthfulness, a sprightliness of ideas and a simple ‘joie de vivre’ that manifested itself in her expressions throughout the day. But through the same hours, Claire’s intelligence and composure and command also shone out, making a unique individual, collected and yet wild. Monique and Mary eloped back into their own private Elysium, helping us with all the mundane chores of the house and Rollo by day, but evanescing, come evening, into their bedroom.
They talked of opening up their old coffee shop again, and we encouraged it. They still owned the house and business and in a few weeks it was ready. But they delegated the operation of it to others, all college students, acting only as managers and dropping in three or four hours a day. They spent much of their time upstairs, but they let Scout spend almost all her afternoons at our house, and sleep in the spare bedroom next to Rollo’s. It was a fine guest room and with her redecorating, it became hers. Rebecca also slept over frequently and I would drive them both to and from their old school.
Scout and Rebecca were fascinated by the slow and beautiful bonding between Claire and Jane. They watched it spellbound, emulating, or trying to, every smooth improvement in the poise and grace of Jane, the convergence of enthusiasm and control. They were only a few years behind her in this chrysalis and eager to imitate her. As the tenor of Jane’s voice transformed from the shrill to a soft and sonorous lilt, my twofold wife took to the both of them with renewed interest, talking to them as equals and as a mentor, playing games with them and Rollo after school, or just holding hands and exchanging thoughts. Jane taught them what it was like to be nineteen when they were barely fifteen. Claire taught them what it was like to control a world of men, and the world itself. I taught them Euripides and trumped them all in astonishment. I showed them other great works as well and how, with all these memorable characters and thoughts in your head, you could live a hundred lives while leading one. I felt like I had four children now growing up under my care, under this roof, the long enduring roof of Roland house, having survived through so many changes, still intact, and now with this diverse and dynamic set of inhabitants under it, likely to last a long time.
Once again it was Ney Year’s eve. We decided to celebrate with a large get together. The whole gang collected once again, the only change being a new Jane in place of the old. I played the host and we had a feast, with the wine flowing. Then we retired to the living room for more drinks and talk until midnight. We congratulated each other over what a fine year it had been, prosperous and happy for all of us and for the whole world. We had a lot to celebrate, as Naomi was pregnant and Samantha was planning to be. Then the children were sent to bed, and Mary and Monique retired, while Naomi and Jason, Samantha and Jaime called a taxi to take them to their respective mansions, all within a few miles of my own.
I expected that to be the end of my evening. But something strange was going on. All that night I had been drinking lightly, along with Naomi. I think it was a cue that Claire put into my head, but I wasn’t sure. Now Jane, who had been drinking heavily, delighted with all the bright company and the enlightened talk, was dragging me by the hand to the library, for what she said was: “just one last drink to life.”
Once there she poured herself and me two full glasses of brandy, insisting I drink with her. I complied, thinking it would put me to sleep at least and we toasted the new year and the studies we would pursue. We tapped glasses and I took a sip, but for her it was ‘bottoms up’.
I was so surprised at her action that I put down my drink, grabbed her arm and set her down on a chair, thinking she might fall. I sat in the chair next to her, wondering what all this was about. Then her arm reached over in a jerk and touched mine.
“This is Claire, pure Claire. Jane is sound sleep, or rather, passed out. I didn’t know if I could pull this trick off and I don’t ever want to repeat it, but it worked. Roland, listen carefully; I’m tired, all the time now, you can’t imagine. A part of me is lost, left in the machine, and with each transference another slice of me was lost. I didn’t realize it until I joined with Monique, how much I’d shed. But I’m glad I did it for her sake.”
“With Jane, I thought the transfer would be easier and complete and that I’d found a perfect host. But when she woke up, I was stunned by her strength of willpower. I was also intrigued by her past and her bright spirit, so caught up to improve the world at all costs, just like me. I fell in love with her and swore right then never to damage her or take away any part of her beautiful consciousness, to make room for mine.”
“I’m telling you this because you’ll be seeing a lot less of me in the days to come. I’ll be in the background, a whispering voice, and she will be Jane. Love her as you would love me.”
“But know that I’m at peace with myself, after a lifetime of unrest. These last two sacrifices for Monique and Jane, have brought me calm, peace of mind. And I am only a piece of what I was, for all my transgressions. This is how it should be. The bad in me is all gone. The good is here, however small the fragment.”
“I never told you or anybody this before, but even before I was given the first chip I had a dark soul. I hated the world in my misery. But it was an active hate, constantly scheming up plots to do evil to others, dark daydreams. When I came home from my dead-end job, even the whole time I was there, I didn’t turn on the TV or read books or socialize like any normal human being. I’d lay on the couch, eyes closed, and weave intricate plots to manipulate and ruin the lives all my co-workers and bosses. If Bob had seen this he would never have chosen me as a test subject. But I deceived him too.”
“I had a twisted mind from the start. I knew it and yet I nourished it. I also had a lust for power over others that never stopped burning, and when the chips empowered me, well, you saw what happened. I was a victim of my own illusions. You remember me back then. I thought I started wars, brought the whole banking system down when I was only the slightest player in those events. And I concocted a scheme to empower women to take over the world. That didn’t happen. It was all a dream. Yet it was such a beautiful dream I had many followers.”
“But there was always one small part of me that did know it was wrong, and when I met you, you were a sunbeam, a ray of hope, nourishing that plant. You brought out the better part in me, and though you lost many battles, you prevailed in the end.”
“This might be my end now. I’m fading away. I can feel it. But let me say that what I did accomplish, thanks to you, was so rich and all the people that I met and befriended, all the experiences we’ve been through, I’ve lived a thousand lives, and a thousand lifetimes. Consider me retired, happy, holding Rollo’s hand in the garden and at peace with all the world.”
“Just one last thing. Jane is a hellcat but she’s finally maturing. I just hope and pray that our world will be at peace for the next few years, because if not she’ll take up the cause like a firebrand, and with all the tricks and knowledge she’s gained from me, there will be trouble.”
“One thing that should calm her down would be her own experience of motherhood. It would even transform her love for Rollo.”
“Come, the time is ripe. Let’s go upstairs and make a baby.”
THE END
beginning of the book ...
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