The Disembodied Man

This, he thought, is a crazy way to die.

"You're not dying, George. You're just beginning to live."

He started, tried to see her. I didn't say anything!

"Yes you did," she insisted, in that same low voice. "You said, 'This is a crazy way to die.'"

George tried to prop himself up on his elbows—but suddenly he realized that he had no elbows!

"Don't worry, George. Just rest. You'll be all right."

How—where am I?

"Just rest," she repeated, and then she was gone. George thought about her for a long time, before dropping off to sleep.

It was a cold night, and lonely, for George Jameson. He paced the floor of his apartment, back and forth, into the kitchen, into the hall, through the bedroom, back and forth.

"God!" he said, although there was no one there to hear him. "Two years! And where am I?"

Angrily, he reached for his coat. Maybe some fresh air would do him good. He buttoned the coat, fumbled for his overcoat.

Then he walked outdoors.

It was snowing. The clean, white, slippery kind of snow that stays for a while, then quickly turns into Chicago slush. Instinctively, he turned his collar up against the cold, and headed for the El, a sentimental relic of the 20th century just past.

The snow was coming down in big, lazy flakes that caught themselves in the wind and buffeted against his overcoat. Streetlights cast weird shadows across the white. George could hear the faint crunch-crunch his shoes made. Half-turning he looked at his tracks behind him.

"Damn white stuff!" He hunched his shoulders more, pulled his neck down into the folds of his collar. "Puts a pure clean blanket over the whole world—but all you have to do is walk on it and you can see the dirt underneath!"

George climbed the steps to the elevated, bought a ticket to anywhere. Then he sat down and waited for a train.

There was a girl waiting with him. She was pretty. George watched her until the train pulled in, wondering what she was doing wandering around Chicago at this time of night.

She got on the train with him, sat down in the seat across from him. The train whined into motion.

"Hello," she said after a while.

"Hello," he replied, startled by her voice. People on elevated trains don't go around saying "hello" to each other!

"Do you mind awfully much if I talk to you?"

"Go ahead." Nor, he thought, do they ask such questions of strange men.

"Do you ever get lonely here in Chicago?"

George smiled. "Sometimes," he said. "You lonely, kid?"

"Awfully. I like to talk to strangers. Then I don't feel quite so lonely."

"Oh."

She was quiet for a minute, her eyes friendly, but her trim body stiff against the city.

"Don't let the town get you down, kid." He was giving her advice!

She looked at him wistfully. "Maybe it's not so bad. Only the people who are fitted to live in a world like this keep on living. There are a lot of people who don't see it the way we do."

"Could be." She was a strange girl, he thought, to be talking this way. Young, pretty, and fed up already. "Why do you ride the El at night?" he asked.

She smiled. "I can meet people—other lonely people—who don't know me and don't want to pry. I can talk to people, and learn things. And then I never see them again. I can't talk to people in a crowd."

Through the windows he could see the lights of a sleeping city flash by like speeding fireflies. "Never thought of it that way," he said.

Suddenly, without warning, the hurtling elevated car leaped under him. He was thrown to the floor as the car jumped the tracks and twisted upon itself. George saw the lights go off and heard the girl scream—and then her scream was cut off, sharply, by the grinding, tearing crunch of impact.

Blackness.

"Good morning, George. Did sleep well?"

There she was again—that soft, quiet voice! Sleep? I don't know if I did or not. Is it morning?

"Yes—a beautiful morning." Her voice was like lilacs, George thought. Sweet, soft lilacs.

"Lilacs? Thank you, George."

Go away! I don't want you to hear my thinking.

"Then don't sub-vocalize. Don't worry, you'll soon get the hang of it. Just think without trying to move your tongue and your lips, and I can't hear you."

Where am I?

"You're in a hospital." Her voice was gentle, soft.

And you?

"I'm Karen—your nurse, George."

How bad am I? I mean—I remember being on an elevated train when it crashed.

"You're going to be all right. The doctors will have you all put back together again. You just need some new parts."

It was that bad, huh?

"You almost died. But you're alive now. Please get well, George."

What kind of shape am I in?

She didn't answer immediately. "How do you feel?"

I—I don't feel! What's the matter—! I can't feel my body! I—Where is my body!

"George, please try to understand. You're safe, you're alive. You're not crazy, and this isn't a nightmare...."

Where is my body? He tried to scream it, but no sound came.

"Please, listen to me. You're in a hospital. You're being kept alive by the best doctors we have, and by machines made by those doctors. Physically, there isn't much left of you, but we're going to give you a new body. Please be patient. And please co-operate."

The thought was staggering. New body! Then all that's left of me is—

She finished it for him. "A brain in a jar, kept alive by pumps and blood-conditioners and electronic impulses. I'm here to try to keep you sane."

George was silent, thinking now in visual images instead of words. A brain in a glass jar, surrounded by fantastic machinery to perform the functions of the human body. And a woman's voice being piped in to him, to keep him from going mad. He'd read about it somewhere—that it had been tried, and was successful up to a point. But the patient had died. He didn't want to die.

I'll try, he thought loudly. I'll try like hell!

George Jameson, or the part of him that was in the jar, learned quickly. It was two days before he had thoroughly mastered the knack of thinking to himself, and sub-vocalizing only to others. On the third day he asked Karen for a description of his surroundings.

"You're in a glass jar, about the size and shape of a normal human skull case. Leading in through the sides of the glass are several plastic tubes, a jumble of wires, and a thermometer. Attached to all of this is about a hundred pounds of machinery, gauges, and such."

I must be quite a handsome cuss.

"Oh, yes," she laughed. "Quite colorful, in fact. With those chrome-plated fixtures, you cut quite a figure."

You're talking to me, Karen, and you can't hear me. Tell me, is this being broadcast all over the place, or is it strictly a personal conversation?

"George," she said, "you're somewhat of a novelty. The electrodes that pick up your tiny nerve impulses—the sub-vocalization—feed the signal into a computer-translator sort of thing that changes it into words. Your voice is purely mechanical. It comes through earphones from the translator. Of course, everything we say is automatically recorded."

Is what I think—to myself, that is—is that recorded, too?

"No." Her voice had that same gentle, understanding quality. "We respect your privacy."

Thanks. I don't guess there would be much I could do about it if you didn't, though.

"I'm proud of you, George. You're taking all this quite calmly."

What have I got to gain by getting excited?

He could almost hear her smile. "Nothing."

Karen.

"What?"

You said something the other day that made me wonder. You said, "Please get well." What did you mean by that?

She hesitated for perhaps a fraction of a second. "Professional pride, I guess. And maybe it was just the thing to say."

Oh. He was silent for a while. Then these experiments haven't worked out too well in the past. It was more of a statement than a question.

He thought he detected a tightness in her voice. "George, you might as well know. You're the first man to have ever progressed this far without going hopelessly insane."

It's nice to know I'm not hopeless.

Silence.

I'm sorry, Karen. Maybe I talk too much.

"Would you like to hear some music?" Her voice was normal again, soothing.

That would be nice. As long as it's relaxing. Something by Debussy, or Beethoven, maybe. And please, Karen, accept my apologies for mouthing off like that.

She laughed, softly. "We seem to be forgetting. You're supposed to be the patient. Will you settle for Gershwin while I go hunt up some classical stuff?"

Gladly, sweetheart. Play it softly, huh?

Karen.

"Yes, George."

You know more than I do what it's best for a patient to learn. Can you tell me all about the setup here?

"Just what is it you want to know?"

My body—I mean my new body. How do they build a human body?

She laughed softly. "They don't," she said. "Medical science can do many things, George, but they can't really build a body."

But you said—

"They can grow one to order, almost. You know what cancer is, don't you?"

Yes.

"Well, the doctors here use what they sometimes call 'controlled cancer'—to grow the human body. That way, they can do in months what it takes Nature years to accomplish."

George puzzled over this for a moment. If he had had eyebrows, there would have been a frown on his face. If he had a face.

You mean—some other human being gives up his brain to make room for me?

"No, George. It doesn't have a brain. It's just a body, with a small lump at the top of the spinal cord that controls the muscles." Her voice was patient, yet urgent. He had to understand. "You see," she continued, "because of the enormous rate of growth of the rest of the body, the brain—or the mind—doesn't have a chance to develop. The body has no personality—no being of its own. It's your body, George. Yours alone."

He was silent for a long time, thinking. Considering the possibilities of a new body. It'll be mine, he told himself, all mine. To taste and hear and feel and smell. To get cold, or warm—to sweat! To walk, to swim, to touch her hand—to see her—to see Karen! To see Karen, who is just a voice; to take her dancing! How soon can I be in this body?

"It'll be six months, anyway, George." Her voice seemed to be saying, "Please be patient," just by the tone of it.

Six months! Cooped up in this—this fishbowl!—for six months more?

"I'm sorry, George. You won't be alone, though—I'll stay with you. That is, if you want me."

He began to laugh. He laughed uproariously. He didn't care that the translator made his laugh into a horrible thing that grated in her ears. Part of the time his laugh was a sob, but it was all the same to the translator.

Do you mind if I call you Mom? There was a catch in his voice. When I was a kid I used to rely on my mother like this! I've never been so dependent upon another woman in all my life! If I want you! I need you, Karen. Don't leave me!

"I won't leave you, George—" He had the feeling there was something else she wanted to say, but she didn't.

He could hear her voice faintly now. She wasn't talking to him, and he had to strain to catch her words.

"He's all right, doctor. For the past few days all he's wanted to talk about is his body. I've been telling him anything he wants to know."

George could barely make out a mumbled answer. It was too far away to hear the words.

"Play the tape, doctor. You'll see what I mean."

He mustn't let her know he had overheard. He had forgotten all about this being put on tape. He'd have to watch his words from now on. She must have thought she had turned the microphone off when the doctor came in. Mentally, George smiled.

Karen.

No answer.

Karen!

Silence.

Karen, can you hear me?

Where in the name of heaven did that woman go? Has she left me? Maybe they gave me up for dead.

Karen. I've been sleeping—or day-dreaming. Or maybe it's the middle of the night. Maybe she's asleep. Maybe she's gone.

Karen! She must be asleep. Or maybe she's dead. Or maybe there's a loose connection in the wiring.

Karen! No answer. Nothing but that deep, dead silence. Karen! Testing. Testing. One, two, three—Testing. Karen. Where are you? Can you hear me, Karen? Karen!

It seemed like several eternities before she answered.

"George?"

He would have breathed a sigh of relief, if he could.

I thought you'd deserted me. Were you asleep?

She laughed that soft, vibrant laugh. "I'm sorry. I just—stepped out."

That's okay, sweetheart. I'm all right. Forget it. But tell me about these things next time, huh? I worry about you when you're gone.

"You shouldn't. I'm a big girl now."

Hey! Is this being recorded?

"Of course."

Who listens to it?

"Oh, a bunch of doctors and medical students."

Any prudes in the audience?

"Not me," she laughed. "But there's bound to be at least one, anyway."

Okay, he said. He spent the next two hours telling bawdy stories.

A month later George knew he had grown to rely on Karen more and more.

In fact, he knew he was falling in love with her.

"Hi," she announced. Her voice sounded excited. "George, I just had a look at your body. It's coming along fine—in fact, it's bee-ootiful! I'll be with you in about ten minutes. Enjoy some music while I'm gone. Bye!"

Then the music lanced into his brain at a tremendous volume. George quivered in real pain as each note blared forth. It was the loudest version of the Warsaw Concerto he ever hoped to hear. As the music progressed, blatting its way through painful crescendos and screaming treble notes, he tried to shut out the sound of it. It was impossible. It was a tearing, screeching nightmare of sound, that put him back on a hurtling elevated train with the sound of a young girl's scream in his ears, and the pain of a body crushed beyond recognition. With a convulsive shudder, George was unconscious.

"Headache gone yet?" She was concerned.

Yeah, sweetheart. I'd like to wring your lovely neck, though.

"I'm sorry about the music, George. I didn't have the volume adjusted. I won't leave you alone again." There was a note in her voice that George hoped was more than just professional concern.

Karen! You don't have to do that! You'll be tying yourself down. And I don't want that.

"I don't mind, George. I just don't want anything to happen to you. You're something—someone special."

Maybe I don't want it that way. Although I will admit I enjoy your company—but this around the clock business isn't necessary.

"I want to do it. Okay?"

Okay. I guess I can't stop you. Only don't you ever get tired?

"Sometimes."

Maybe you should let me worry about your welfare for a change. I think you need some sleep. Lie down a little while.

"Sure, boss. Is that an order?"

It's an order.

"I guess I am a little sleepy. Want some music?"

George shuddered. No! No more records for a long, long time! But leave your microphone on—I like to know that you're there.

While she slept, he carefully kept his thoughts to himself. She's sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. The little nut, she probably didn't go to bed at all while I was—out. She deserves all the rest she can get.

He listened a long time to her quiet breathing. I wonder what she looks like? Is the rest of her as beautiful as her voice? I can't help it—I'm in love with her. I wish I was more than a brain in a bottle. I wish I could touch her—hold her hand. Silly thought. Like a kid on his first date.

He pictured her in his mind—lovely, vibrant, beautiful. How, he thought savagely, could she ever fall in love with me? Simple—she couldn't. No woman could love a freak. And I wouldn't want it that way. She'd be throwing her happiness away.

But damn it!—I can't help it if I want her.

I'm neck deep—if I may be permitted to use such an expression—in world affairs. The good doctor read six newspapers to me while you were gone.

Karen laughed. "I thought he sounded a bit hoarse."

Well—out with it, woman! Did you enjoy your first day off in almost three weeks?

Her voice was happier than he had heard it in days. "I went shopping, George, for the first time in months, and really splurged. Got a new outfit. You should see me."

I wish I could.

"You will soon enough."

What do you mean by that?

"Your body's ready. You move in tomorrow."

Thank God! Tomorrow! It is—rather hard to believe, after all this time! I'm going to have a body. He could almost feel a lump form in his throat, only of course he didn't have a throat—yet. I don't know if I'm going to like having to put up with the pains of the flesh again.

She laughed. Then her voice turned wistful, or maybe it was just his imagination. "Not only the pains, George, but the pleasures, too."

Yeah. He was silent for a moment. Then he forced his voice to be light. I can't wait for those eyes, Karen. Tell me about the outfit. What color is it—how does the cloth feel? Tell me all about it, Karen.

The next day, Karen warned him just before Dr. Chase released the sedative into his blood supply. George peacefully went into a deep, dreamless sleep. In his mind, he could still hear Karen's voice speaking gently to him, assuringly.

Almost instantly, it seemed, he was awake, though it took hours. The first thing he was conscious of was a dull throbbing pain in his head—and then he realized—it was in his head!

Vaguely at first, then sharply, as nerves clicked into action, he could sense his arms and legs.

He tried moving them, experimentally. It was a painful process.

There was sound, he realized suddenly—a low, subdued noise level. But there was no light!

Karen! Karen! he thought sharply.

Still just that low noise level. An electric fan going somewhere.

Karen! This time he felt the muscles of his throat contract. His breath came out in a sigh of satisfaction. He had been sub-vocalizing through long habit!

"Karen." He said it; he heard his voice.

"George! You made it!" Karen was there.

"Karen," he said again. A little quavering, but it was a voice. "Karen!" he sobbed. "I can't see!"

"Silly!" she laughed. "Of course not—there's a bandage over your eyes. The optic nerve is very delicate. The doctors have to give the nerve-endings—the nerve-graft—more time to heal. Another three days and you'll be able to see."

A low moan from his throat. "Then," he said, haltingly, "you're still only a voice."

"Not quite," she said. She touched his cheek. Cool, soft fingers. "That better? Now you're the one who needs some sleep."

"Karen," he said.

Silently, she took his hand in hers.

At noon of the fourth day, they removed the bandages from his eyes.

The blinds were drawn on the windows, but still the light was staggering. George squinted until his eyes became accustomed to the brightness. Then he focused them on various items in the room.

He had just flipped the sheets back from his body and was commenting proudly to himself, "I'm more of a man than I thought," when the door opened.

George looked up, startled.

The most beautiful woman he had ever seen was in the doorway.

"Hi," she said, her voice as soft and vibrant as ever.

"Karen!"

She was staring, unashamed, at the body George had just fully uncovered. "Wow!" she said.

George scrabbled for the sheets, pulled them over him.

"You should knock," he said, starting to laugh.

She came over to the foot of the bed, and slowly turned around for him. "Well, how about me? Are you disappointed?" Her voice had an intimate, challenging quality.

"Sweetheart," he said slowly, looking at her for what it seemed to George was the first time, "you are lovely. You're more than I ever dreamed. And I don't care what you say or think of me for saying this, but I love you. I've loved you since I first heard your voice. I know it's impossible—no woman could ever knowingly fall in love with me—a freak, a brain in a bottle—but that can't stop me from loving you. Maybe it's just that I'm so happy to have a body again after so long that makes me say this...."

She had come around the corner of the bed, and was sitting on the edge of it now. There were tears in her eyes and her hands were clasped over his. "I know, George," she said slowly, when he had stopped. "I felt the same way as you—when I got my new body—but I didn't have anyone to say it to."

His eyes widened in disbelief. His mouth worked for several seconds before the words would come. "You...."

She nodded slowly. "George, don't you remember many months ago—the night of your accident on the El ... there was a girl on the train with you...."

He stared at her, sudden amazement in his eyes. "Of course I remember—but—you—you mean you are...."

"Yes, George. I'm the same girl—different body, of course. My case wasn't as tough as yours. Your brain was close to death for quite awhile before you regained conscious thought."

He looked at her incredulously. "But you said I was the first to ever go this far...."

Her face was close to his, her lips smiling. "I said you were the first man to pull through. I was praying for you George. I needed you—as much as you thought you needed me...."

As his arms closed about her, there wasn't much else for either to say....