Chapter 18

“Imagine you’re riding a bike, watching for traffic, and a pretty girl comes walking down the street beside you. I mean, right toward you.”
Witticker stood shivering in the remains of an old bus-stop analyzing a crude map carved on the wall. A man in a white suit had been talking rabidly at him, rather than to him, for the last several minutes. Rain fell in gallons around the small structure and a cold breeze crept through the night air around the two men. A streetlight hung far above them, lighting a small, dim circle on the ground below.


“Our minds are so amazing! I mean, they are able to operate the three activities at once and arrange them in order of importance based entirely upon our needs. Personally, I’d probably wreck the bike, but hey, that’s just me. Ha!”
Witticker had walked into the bus-stop a few minutes earlier, just missing the rain. He had been walking the abandoned streets of Recon-Chicago since Harvey had dropped him off an hour earlier and had found no sign or direction until the discovery of the map in the deteriorating waiting area.
“Like now, for instance. You’re looking at that map, thinking about where you’re about to be off to, and listening to me; all at the same time. Amazing!”
Witticker found ignoring the man in the suit was becoming progressively more difficult as the suited man had begun to intermittently address him directly. Witticker turned from the map, a bit more confident in the direction of the distribution property, and looked out onto the rainy street before him. He stared away from the man in hopes that he could avoid the trappings of a conversation.
“Of course, your mind was probably concentrating most of its efforts on the map, so you probably haven’t heard much of what I’ve been saying,” heralded the man as he eagerly extended his hand, “Hi, I’m Carlin. And you are?”
While Witticker had become used to exchanging pleasantries with Harvey he was still not quite ready for physical contact with a stranger. He silently cursed the rain for creating his dry prison and turned slowly to face Carlin. Witticker looked down at the outstretched hand in its greeting position, but could not bring himself to reach out towards it.
“Witti-uh, pardon, Brisby. My name is Brisby,” he said with his hands plunged deeply in his pockets.
Carlin stood with his hand out towards Witticker for a few more seconds before pulling it back.
“Brisby. Neat name. Well, like I was saying, the mind is an amazing thing. Just the amount of information it can hold is staggering. And the way we remember things, just amazing.”
Witticker nodded and looked out across the streets, away from Carlin. He had found, through his brief experiences with Harvey, that the best way to avoid small talk was to not encourage it with any responses. With enough head nodding and re-assuring mumbles the conversation would eventually wash away into nothing.
“For example,” said Carlin enthusiastically, “Try to think back as far as you can. Can you remember every single detail of your life? What you did every day? What you did yesterday? Probably not. Most people can’t even remember what they did a few days ago unless they’re asked to. It’s because we don’t have any markers to attach to every detail of our day. If it’s mundane our mind just files it away under ‘unneccessary’.”
At this point Carlin went as far as highlighting the word unnecessary by gesturing a pair of quotations in the air.
“However, think about where you grew up. Not just that. Think about the house you grew up in. The blueprints even, if you will. You can probably remember every square-inch of the place. What could be more mundane than that? But your brain remembers! In fact, you could probably draw the blueprints of every place you’ve ever been in, with enough time of course.”
Witticker thought of the house he had left only a short while ago. It was the only house he could remember as it was the only one he’d ever been in. He thought of the kitchen and the living room, the upstairs rooms, his bedroom. He could remember every corner of every room.
“Your mind stores away these blueprints because you have a mental picture attached to them. You don’t remember the structure as much as you remember the place. Simply amazing.”
Carlin reached his hand out into the rain, catching raindrops in his palm. Witticker watched as the drops formed a small puddle in the crease of his recent acquaintance’s hand.
“If you put all that information on paper you’d have boxes and boxes of blueprints. Just blueprints. And that’s just buildings. Imagine how much stuff you’d have to carry if all your memory was on paper.”
Carlin tossed the puddle from his hand onto the ground. Witticker tried to imagine all his boxes of memories stacked around him. How he might access each one with a specific reminder. How much easier things would be if he could remember all the way back. Just find the box and look inside.
“Lots and lots of paper. Ah well, just a thought. Where are you off to tonight?” asked Carlin as he moved to lean against the wall of the bus-stop.
The boxes of memories tumbled in Witticker’s mind as he thought on how to answer the question without putting any real information into play.
“I’m looking for a distrip actually,” answered Witticker, “Would you happen to know if this map is accurate?”
Carlin turned towards the map and shrugged.
“Close enough, I guess. Just stick to the main streets and you’ll be fine. It’s in the side-streets that…”
Witticker cut Carlin short by picking up his briefcase and running across the street and down the main street towards the distrip. It wasn’t that Witticker didn’t like Carlin; it was that he simply didn’t know what to say next. Running away seemed a viable option, so Witticker took it.
As Witticker jogged down the street he felt a hint of regret nip at the corner of his mind, a nagging whisper reminding him of his latest awkward social encounter. He reached another overhang two blocks further and looked back at the tiny bus-stop he had left on the corner. Witticker could make out the faint silhouette of a man standing under a dimming street light vigorously waving goodbye. He couldn’t help but appreciate Carlin’s persistence.
Witticker stepped out from his shadowy cover and slowly raised his hand into the air. As he stood in the rain shaking his hand at a man he barely knew Witticker was certain that he had lost his senses entirely.