Hi,
Thought I'd write a little bit of prose as my contribution, a short story of
alian abduction of a person with CP (well ISM raised the bar with his
excellent poem, but I'm just going to dive underneath).
----------------------------------------------------
Abducted
========
"What the ....".
You don't expect to see a bright pool of light while driving
through the puddled country lanes of a dank March evening. But
there it was right in front of me.
A piercing white/blue oasis flooded through all the cars
windows. Then blackness...
... a winking light tugged at my consciousness, and I woke
up feeling warm and clammy. The room seemed like some sort
of doctors surgery, decked out with an advanced hologramic
display of my head showing the complex folds of my brain,
complete with aspidistra and eye-chart (which I couldn't
read!).
"Welcumm earthling - my name is 'o"
The surprise of seeing an alien bending over me was
nothing compared to hearing a voice which had the monotonic
drawl of someone with CP.
"Are you understanning me earthling?".
"I can't believe you have Cerebral Palsy, with all this
advanced medical equipment."
He flicked a switch on the control panel and his voice
changed to a plummy Oxford accent:
"Terribly sorry old boy, the Universal Translator
recognised your voice as 'CP English', I didn't realise
you understood 'Oxford English' as well!".
Strangely I didn't feel frightened (probably the Dantrium
and Valium kicking in!!). The alien had no hair and quite a
high domed head.
"Why have you abducted me?"
"I wanted to talk to you. You see I am a researcher into
Terran Neuro Processes - three year fully funded
fellowship - very prestigious. Me and my colleague,
Cedric are fascinated with Human Heads - they are all
roughly the same size."
For the first time I realised there was a second alien
standing absolutely still with a slightly vacant grin on his
face. Instantly noticeable was Cedric's dome was much
smaller, in fact the whole head seemed smaller. I glanced
back at Bo's gleaming dome.
"Aah, I see you have noticed that Cedric has a number 3
sized head - I", he proudly stroked his dome, "have a
number 7".
Bo leaned closer covering the side of his mouth and said
confidentially.
"Sometimes I wish I'd brought a size 4 with me, but I
would have had to include his name when we publish the
research - rules you know." Then towards Cedric, "Say
hello Cedric".
The vacant look on Cedric's face slowly changed to a little
frown, then back to a vacant look as he slowly said:
"Hullo ... Cedric".
If Bo had had eyebrows they would have shot skywards.
"I have a size 7 head", another stroke, "size 3's are
normally in politics or banking, but his Uncle is
supplying the funding!". He gave me a knowing nod.
"Is size 7 the biggest?"
"Well, there are a few size 8's, but they are all OTs
with GRE qualifications".
"How can I help you?".
"Ever since we discovered earth we could not understand
why you all had almost the same size heads. You can't all
be Occupational Therapists. I", stroked his dome,
"discovered that it is the use of the brain which differs
from person to person".
A smug smile beamed from his face as though he had just told
me a great truth of the Universe, and he continued:
"I don't quite understand why noone uses all their
brains, the best seem to use one third, but my break
through came a few years ago, after I abducted Ronald
Reagan and found practically no brain activity at all -
and I realised here was a classic size 2 head political
leader!!".
"My latest discovery is very interesting. All the people
who talk CP English or CP French (in fact CP anything),
have very interesting brains. It appears part of it is
damaged, but they seem to have trained part of their
brains to do the functions which the damaged part can't
do very well. To finish my research I thought I'd see
what would happen if I repaired one of these brains so
that they could use it. The total useable brain would
then be phenomenal.".
It suddenly dawned on me what the alien was saying.
"WHAT!!! You could repair my brain damage?!!"
"Sure. Basically I just laser burn the injured tissue and
replace it with cloned cells from the good part. Of
course I map the synapse network before burning, and
impose the lattice on the new cells - piece of cake - a
size 5 could do it. You'd end up with this virgin brain
area where you can think new thoughts, fill with fresh
ideas."
"What about all the secondary problems, the neck, back,
hip, feet, complications."
"No, I just do the neuro fix, my size 7 head has no
skeletal information. You'd need an ortho size 7 for
that."
I paused to think of what I'd learned. No more spasms. No
more drooling. No more continuous repetition just to be
understood. No more CP - my friend for decades.
Yet I'd still have all the neck/back/hip/feet pain - but
without the very visible reason for it. Would I be fit for
"normal" life - when my whole life up till now had been
fitted to my disability.
This and much more flashed through my brain.
"Bo, I'm really sorry but you are going to have to find
someone else to test your theory."
A disappointed look crossed Bo's face.
"What possible reason have you got for turning down my
offer."
"My wife would kill me!!"
Deri James
12th March 2001
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