By Umi Keezing

            I stare blankly at the white room. White walls, white sheets. The surgeon in the white uniform sits beside my bed, watching me with an expression of—of what? I’m blanking out.

______“Are you awake?” says the surgeon.

______I’m too tired to think about hard questions. I also feel kind of sick. “I don’t know,” I say.

______“Are you pleased not to know?” says the surgeon. His voice sounds like it’s far away.

______“What?” I say.

______“Never mind.” The surgeon sighs. “Looks like the operation was a success, at any rate.”

______I sit up. It makes my head hurt, so I lie down again. There’s a piece of paper with black writing on my pillow. “What’s that?” I say.

______“A letter you wrote to yourself,” says the surgeon.

______I look at the black writing. It makes my head hurt even more. Still, I feel like it’s—how do I say it? Oh yeah, like it’s important. I kind of remember writing it, but not what it says.

______I start to read it. It says “M-Y, space, D-E-A-R.”

______“What does ‘dare’ mean?” I say.

______The surgeon’s eyes make a funny circle. He picks up the paper and says, “Let me just read it aloud to you.”

______“Okay,” I say. The white light makes my head hurt a lot. I put my pillow on my face. That feels better.

______“‘My dear post-surgical self,’” the surgeon reads. “‘How have you fared during your convalescence?’”

______“What does ‘convalescence’ mean?” I say under my pillow.

______“Save your questions for later,” says the surgeon. He reads, “‘Congratulations on your acquisition of dimwittedness. The removal of your superfluous neurons will serve you well.

______“‘Paradoxically, your simplicity of thought will ameliorate your ability to express yourself. Due to their lack of intricacy, your emotions will require little effort to articulate. They will range from grief to joy, bypassing solipsism, and nihilism, and other tiresome “ism”s. You will discuss them with others, who will…’”

______I open my eyes. The surgeon is looking at me. He doesn’t look happy.

______“What?” I say.

______“As draining as the surgery may have been,” says the surgeon, “I thought you’d have the decency to stay awake while I’m doing you a favor.”

______I look at the paper in his hand. “Oh yeah,” I say. “What does it say next?”

______The surgeon reads, “Due to their lack of intricacy, your emotions will require little effort to articulate. They will range from grief to joy, bypassing solipsism, and nihilism, and other tiresome “ism”s. You will discuss them with others, who will understand you.

______“‘You will derive genuine pleasure from your everyday activities. Your classes will stimulate your brain enough to hold your interest, motivating you to complete homework assignments and secure a successful future for yourself. Your trips to the mall with your friends will be intellectually bearable, even the hours of comparing nearly identical shades of nail polish. At the school cafeteria, you will never hear the voices around you fade to meaningless babble as you tire of their predictability. Neither friends nor family will accuse you of indifference when you decline to pose questions whose answers you already know.

______“‘You will never flee to a mountain, the valleys too crowded to accommodate your surplus of thoughts. You will never inch closer to the edge of a cliff, gazing longingly at the abyss beneath you, until you catch sight of a hospital building and recall a newly legalized brain surgery. Most importantly, you will never probe too deeply into the contents of this letter. You will no longer concern yourself with introspection, which will automatically erase your internal strife.

______“‘Please do not blame me for your mental debilitation. Between you and your brain, I chose to kill your brain. Sincerely, your pre-surgical self.’

______“And that’s that,” says the surgeon. “You’ll never be able to reply to her, since she doesn’t exist anymore. I hate that I played a role in her self-destruction.”

______“That’s sad,” I say. “Did she die?” I don’t really care, since she sounded kind of full of herself. Nothing she said made any sense. She did say something about nail polish and the mall, though. I want to go to the mall.