The crowd mumbled to one another as the guide spewed words of past history, scribbled across rocks to pray that it'll never lose its place in a world where humans forget their own children in the hospital.
"And here is a living form of the nerve system," the copper-headed lady directed us, "and you can see here the spinal cord, and of course, the brain."
I felt her shuffle her feet awkwardly while she silently stared ahead at the thing that made us human. Human.
"The brain is a complex figure that directs our emotions," the guide raised her hand up and down, "our sight," she blinked, "and our memory—all while maintaining control over everything else." A laugh pursed itself out of her red lips and her sparkly bleached teeth.
Slowly, as if processing what she's about to say, she raised her hand.
"Ah, yes?" The guide called upon you and you closed your eyes. A deep breath in, and a deep breath out. Open eyes.
"Biologically, we are given a brain, no? But isn't it life that gives us a mind? A mind full of tormenting nightmares and hopeless daydreams? Our brain acts as software, but it's the clicks and the computer crashes that trigger our thinking. If our life crashes, our mind spirals down into a darkness void of any light—of any response to the mouse clicking and we become unaware of our surroundings, of our mind telling us to get up, please fix that bug in your software. Then we need help. We need to call a technician who will poke our minds until we are working up again. We're given antidepressants, magic pills to make us move, robotic legs, and just brainwashed into believing that we are useless. If it wasn't for life, our brain would just be a controller. It would just control our senses without the provoking emotions of life. But it's a life that gives us a mind, not just a brain. With life, comes slaps on the face of harsh brutality and the hatred in reality. We see the joy in the simplest things and the most complex. Our faces turn blue at the sight of horror. These things are caused by life. And the brain just takes these emotions and turns them into visuals."
The guide raised her eyebrow, "I guess you can say that."
YOU ARE READING
therapy
Short Story"they told us that we needed therapy, as if medication and tainted words could fix broken toys."
