Mindbreaks. Mindbreaks?
The world was moving too fast for me.
In her scruffy London office, my lovely, exasperating editor
Cassandra was very clear when she pressed the assignment on
me.
‘John,’ she said, ‘wake up? It's 2050? Everyone's
been everywhere. As we speak, senior citizens from Rochdale
are climbing Everest. You can watch African lions scoffing
out of the bins behind the Serengeti Burger King. School day
trips go to the bottom of the Marina Trench, and my niece
is spending her gap year on the Moon.’
All this was partly my fault, of course. In twenty years as
a travel writer I'd done my share to open up the planet's
hidden, isolated destinations to adventurous travellers. There
was just nowhere left to write about.
Cassandra's green eyes blazed. Her fiery curls crackled with
frustration.
‘The magazine needs new destinations. Stop worrying!
Get out there and have a Mindbreak for me.’ She frowned
menacingly. ‘Or you don't get paid.’
I'd never dared to tell her, but in my secret heart I always
had this thing for Cassandra. That's why she could talk me
into anything. Specially with sentences like that last one.
Dr Finkelstein insisted I call him Al. He too said I shouldn't
worry.
In the sparse, hi-tech cube of his San Francisco office, the
genius behind Mindbreaks held up a white, very clean palm.
‘Relax, John,’ he said. ‘Our success rate
with these operations is 100 percent. We know exactly what
we're doing here.’
Did they, though? The 'operation' sounded most alarming. Forget
heart transplants. Forget brain surgery. And he wasn't even
a proper doctor. Al Finkelstein did his PhD at Yale, in Information
Technology.
‘A hundred percent?’ I repeated hopefully. ‘And
you've done a lot of them?’
‘Sure. Seven. You're the eighth.’ Finkelstein
rose from behind his glass desk, tall, white-coated and thin
as a computer chip. ‘It's very simple, John, just like
the brochure says. We digitise your synaptic patterns, laser
your personality into the host's mind, and Alakazam! The greatest,
most original holiday you ever had. Our hosts are exceptional
people. Artists, Nobel prizewinners, chess grandmasters. You'll
be inside the mind of one of those people, John. You get to
share your host's knowledge, his memories, even his dreams.’
‘Well, you do make it sound simple, Doc... er... Al.’
He walked to the window and hooked a pale finger into the
grey Venetian blind, revealing a stupendous view of the Golden
Gate.
‘Don't get hung up on the science, John. Relax and enjoy!
That's what Mindbreaks are about. Of course there are still
one or two details to clear up. ‘He turned and pulled
a wry face.’ I'm negotiating our fee with your editor.
She's a tough lady, I guess you know that. Wants a freebie,
on account of the publicity we'll get from your article.’
‘Not my department,’ I said. I knew what it was
to talk business with Cassandra.
The departure date came all too soon, but there were no taxis
or aeroplanes, and of course no luggage. A stonily reassuring
nurse showed me to a sort of posh dentist's couch. I expected
huge, beeping machines with blinking lights, but there was
just a small grey box with a couple of buttons, wired to a
pair of ordinary-looking sunglasses. I put them on, and the
nurse gave me a painless injection which propelled me into
a deep, dreamless sleep.
How to describe the sensation of being in another person's
mind? Imagine waking up in a strange house, a mansion with
many echoing rooms full of unfamiliar furniture. I began to
explore. There were glass-fronted cabinets full of Chinese
vases, chests of drawers stuffed with old newspapers, a gleaming
grand piano at which I sat and amazed myself by effortlessly
playing a Beethoven sonata. Through tall windows I saw colourful,
dreamlike landscapes. Impressive double doors led into an
immense, dusty library where, I realised with almost fearful
pleasure, I had read every volume. Compared to this, my own
reading was nothing but a little row of dog-eared paperbacks.
I knew I was not alone, yet there was no one there in any
real sense; just a feeling of being accompanied, that this
huge house was not mine. Then the owner appeared, or rather
manifested himself in the form of a voice.
‘Hi, John!’ he said. ‘Welcome to my head.’
The first thing I wanted was a mirror. I needed to see who
I had become.
‘Sure,’ said the voice. ‘No problem.’
The sensation of looking into a mirror and seeing someone
else is not altogether pleasant. I looked into, and out of,
another man's eyes. The overpowering feeling of alienation
is hardly conveyed by the word 'surprise'. Nor was it a complete
surprise, my suspicions being aroused when I heard that first
'Hi!' Sure enough, I was looking into the sharp, clean-cut
face of...
‘Finkelstein!’ I exclaimed aloud, with the Doctor's
voice, the Doctor's tongue.
‘Al, please,’ he said.
‘What's going on, Al?’
‘Well, John, your charming editor bargained me down
so low, there was no budget for one of our usual hosts. I'm
lending you my own mind for free. Hope you're enjoying it.’
I was having the time of my life. Unlike myself, Al Finkelstein
had gone to an expensive private school and a world-class
university. He hadn't wasted his time at either. He (and now
I) had read all of Shakespeare, Proust and the Greek dramatists,
and remembered them too. I knew Planck's constant and could
run through the maths of relativity in my head. In Al's head,
I mean. I knew the dates of all the American presidents, and
the map of the US on the library wall was populated by a whole
new family. My little white-haired Mom and Dad lived in a
condo in Sacramento. Brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles were
scattered all over the 50 states. I knew their names, birthdays,
even the colours of their eyes. It was disconcerting to find
I had been married three times. The amount of alimony I paid
left me breathless.
I had been in Al Finkelstein's mind for only minutes, but
it seemed like weeks. With instant access to his thoughts
and memories I could run through great sections of his life
in seconds. I spent a lot of time – how to put this?
– in the private cinema in the mansion's basement, watching
the 'films' of Al's memories. What a life it was. Even with
all that studying, he'd found time for surfing (oh those California
girls!), rodeo riding, hang-gliding, space travel... everything.
Of course there were puzzling and disagreeable things too.
He had a passion for dogs, which I can't stand, and had unaccountably
read all Jeffrey Archer's novels; but these are mere quibbles.
Al was a revelation.
Still, as I became more accustomed to my new situation, a
sense of uneasiness grew. Something wasn't quite right. Al
was keeping something from me. Eventually, I worked it out.
There was a faint echo of footsteps where none should be.
A door was left ajar, dust disturbed where no breeze blew.
It could mean only one thing.
There was someone else in the mansion with us.
‘You're totally right,’ Al confessed when I cornered
him. ‘It was stupid to think we could hide it. In there.’
He indicated a room I had never visited. I wrenched the door
open and came face to face – so to speak – with
Cassandra.
‘I bet you're wondering what I'm doing here,’
she said.
‘You win your bet.’
‘I'm sorry I didn't tell you, John, but I thought you
might chicken out. You see, Al's a pretty good bargainer too.
When he wouldn't bring the price down any further, I thought,
well, why not have a little holiday myself?’
‘She got two for the price of one, John,’ said
Al.
‘And why not?’ said Cassandra chirpily. ‘Travel
companies do it all the time. Isn't it great here?’
‘Great. But it's made me realise just how small my own
mind is.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘If this is a mansion,
your head is a bedsit.’
This reminded me that while I was in Finkelstein's mind, seeing
his thoughts, he could see mine; and so could Cassandra. It
was more than a little embarrassing. As I mentioned, I'd always
had a bit of a thing for my emerald-eyed, fire-haired editor.
‘Don't worry John,’ she said. ‘I'm an open
book too, you know. If you rummage a little in my thoughts
you might get a surprise.’
I rummaged, and I did.
‘Cassandra,’ I said, ‘I'm shocked. I didn't
know you had fantasies like that. Besides, my back would never
stand it.’
‘You don't know until you try, babe,’ she said.
So that was how Cassandra and I finally got together after
all the years. A holiday romance, of all things.
Back in our own bodies, we decided that the travel writing
business was going nowhere. Cassandra sold the magazine, and
Al Finkelstein let us spend our honeymoon in his head. Then
we moved to San Francisco to work in the Mindbreaks publicity
department. Al pays us well, but the money's only part of
it. Every year, as a bonus, he lends us his mind for a short
break. I think he's come to like having us there, and we wouldn't
holiday anywhere else. l
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| Shortlisted
Entries shortlisted to final judging stage in the Annual Holiday
Short Story competition were from: Jim Baker, Bull Creek,
Australia; Ann Cross, St Brelade, Jersey; Patricia Gifford,
Banff, Scotland; Kay Harley, Hove, Sussex; Patty Lafferty,
Seaton, Devon; Fiona Lloyd, Horsforth, Leeds; Jacquelynn Luben,
Pirbright, Woking, Surrey; Eric McFarlane, Bathgate, West
Lothian; Julie Murphy, Glenfarg, Perthshire; Sarah Taylor,
Trefechan, Aberystwyth; Janette Walkinshaw, Dalry, Scotland;
Pam Weaver, Worthing, West Sussex.
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