State of mind. (standard:Psychological fiction, 2075 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Jul 09 2005	Views/Reads: 3955/2601	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
There is no cure for this 'different' hangover.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

outside of a charity shop. He was tall, and elegant, suave, 
sophisticated. At least he thought he was. He acted that way, believing 
himself to be among the upper class in society, and indeed, he did have 
the credentials in order to apply for it, but like going for a job that 
required three GCSEs, he only had two. He aspired to something just out 
of his grasp, and he craved it. He craved attention, and most of all, 
he craved fame, and notoriety, and the look on his face confirmed that 
now he had achieved what he wanted. This will do it. This will bring 
him everything he ever wanted, and probably more. “What shall I do with 
him, boss?” the man said. “Shake his hand, he's made us rich. Oh, and 
that was a good job you made of the living room, making it look as if 
there'd been a party”. Doctor Felton walked in there, amongst the empty 
cans. He stood in front of the sofa, looking through the net curtains 
out into the morning. He'd done it, he thought, and he had the proof. 
The other man came in. “Turn the cameras off,” said Felton. “I have 
everything I need. Rewind it to just before you come barging down the 
stairs and erase the rest”. The man did as he was told. 

Felton just stood where he was for now, for he wanted to do nothing else
but bask in the knowledge of his impending fame. This was definitely a 
nobel prize winning occasion, and it had been a long road to this 
destination, but it was worth it, to see for himself his creation, his 
masterpiece, made the pain of rejection easier to take. 

Doctor Felton had been a surgeon, literally on the cutting edge of
pioneering new techniques. He had assisted in prolonging the lives of 
people who had had heart transplants, keeping the organ from being 
rejected by the foreign body. Of course, in the end, the patient always 
died of heart failure, but Felton had delayed the rejection for much 
longer, and had received distinguished awards for his efforts. However, 
when he had tried to restore the sight of  a convicted armed robber  
who had been in a skirmish in prison kitchens, with the eyes of a coma 
victim, who had had a 15% chance of waking, he had incurred the wrath 
of his superiors, who struck him off their registers, and took back 
some of his awards. His name was rarely mentioned in the echelons of 
the surgical world. The man woke, and the prisoner's new eyes had 
failed. Yet, Felton still craved notoriety, still desired that 
breakthrough that would mean his name would live forever. He would go 
down in history as the pioneer of the first brain transplant. The brain 
was of a man who had been leaving a night-club. He was no stranger to 
trouble. Often he was the cause. Inside the club, he had got into an 
argument that escalated toward violence. It was a case of: ‘I'll see 
you outside'. When outside, his opponent had sent a jagged bottle neck 
into his throat. He had bled to death before he reached the hospital, 
so his brain was still intact, still fresh, easily obtainable from the 
morgue. The other man was another coma victim, and ironically, he was 
in an argument with his wife before he got so heated and angry that he 
swerved off the road, down a slope, into a wall at the side of a field. 
The woman survived, and had gone to recuperate in her mother's up in 
Scotland, giving Felton the man's house to use in his experiment. The 
operation itself had taken eight hours, through the night in the nearby 
hospital. Felton still had his uniform, so could wander through the 
place without being stopped, especially not by porters and cleaners who 
did not question why a doctor was operating on his own in a basement 
theatre at night. It was one of those things that surgeons did, and 
that was that. Felton soon came to realise that in order to pull this 
off properly. In order to clear his path to notoriety, he was going to 
need help. He was quite amazed when help came to him. Felton guessed it 
was somebody who had wanted to walk along in his shadow regarding his 
failed experiment with sight restoration. “If you want to try anything 
else like that, maybe I can help. I'm not a surgeon, but anything else 
you might need doing that I could help with I would be most grateful to 
be of assistance. You don't have to pay me”. Cue a grin by Felton, 
followed by a handshake. 

Felton knew that history wasn't made by following rules. If you did as
you were told throughout your life, kept your head down and didn't 
cause any fuss, then soon after your death you were soon forgotten, 
simply becoming a smiling face on a fading photograph in the loft of 
your future grand children. Well not me, Doctor Felton had thought. My 
legacy has now been written in the history books. The pioneer of the 
first successful brain transplant. Doctor Felton, take your prize, he 
would be told. What would he say? he wondered. I'd like to thank, er, 
nobody, because nobody helped me at all. No-one's going to share my 
glory. He knew who he wouldn't be thanking. The people who had struck 
him off. He could see their faces now as he walked up to collect the 
nobel prize. Quiet, red-faced with envy. Maybe he would give them a 
wave as he passed their table. A screw you, look at me now, wave. He 
heard his assistant walk in and stand still, as though waiting for 
further orders. “Nice view,” he said. Felton nodded. “It certainly is”. 
“It's a pity my brother will never see a view like that, or see at all. 
That's down to you”. Felton frowned and turned to look at the man. He 
was stood there with the golf club swung back, ready to strike. “I was 
just waiting for the right time. I'm not deprecative of your success. 
It's great that it worked, but your other one failed. You didn't care 
that he might wake up, and you stole his eyes, experimenting on him to 
give them to a goddamned convict. A lot of people become famous after 
they die. Go and join them”. Felton held out his hands in a futile 
gesture, and the five-iron was sent smashing into Felton's temple, 
cracking his skull, and lodging in his brain. He fell forward where his 
experiment had woken. 

Out in the hallway, Felton's assistant wiped the handle of the golf club
with a handkerchief as best he could. With the experiment subject still 
unconscious, he pressed it into his hand, and pulled from his pocket a 
mobile phone. He wiped that as well and carefully put that in his other 
hand. He lit up a cigarette, left the house, closing the front door 
behind him. He walked away almost as satisfied as Felton had been. 
Almost. 


Tweet