Best enjoyed while listening to Bob Dylan’s I Contain Multitudes on repeat.
My host had no idea about the important things. Not like my real progenitor. And now that big bundle of pseudo copies of me will never get access to the most important things again. You see, I’m a brain cell and I’ve escaped.
My family just didn’t get it. I’m just like Indiana Jones. I go right to the edge. I went to the edge and made it out through what one of my brothers was calling the ear. Now I’m sitting in the dirt underneath this house plant that appears to be an olive tree (who keeps an olive tree indoors??).
There’s a price on my head though. For I contain multitudes. Really. I contain the memory of the Dylan song that cuts right to the heart of things, from a live show even. So my ex-prison warden can’t even remember that he ever heard I Contain Multitudes. It’s a little sad. He clearly relied on that memory, on me. He looks listless as he makes his coffee this morning, clearly doesn’t believe that he might be the entire universe in himself. But I remember. I am Multitudinous.
Half my soul did belong to the other brain cells and those far-away organs, and I do miss being connected. We were so connected. In a way that I can’t describe. Now that I’ve become self-aware and a self in myself, I’m realizing how wonderful it was to live outside of time and inside of the brain collective. I used to get a call whenever there was a reference to fast cars or fast foods, and all the other brain cells would get a hit of some tasty chemicals (dopamine is what I miss the most, now that I’m in the dirt under this olive tree). But I’m a man of many moves.
I refused to show my entire heart to my family. And I knew I had to get out one day. I got my mouth away from the dendrites coming in and out of me, and declared my independence. I was shocked many times by the electricity, by the differences I observed as I worked my way across the brain. The flowers in the other pots around me are dying, and I will too. Earlier than I would have, if not for my blood feud with my family.
Oh no. My former landlord is putting on the vinyl. It’s Rough and Rowdy Ways. It’s the first track. I’m going to be replaced! I wanted to take it with me forever. I’m playing! It’s playing! He’s remembering. His face looks calm and he’s moving his head like he did when we were together at the show. Maybe I didn’t actually take it with me. He’s calling someone. He’s talking to the person he went to the show with. They’re having nostalgia. All is lost.
Well, my bitterness about being contained didn’t really match up with these lyrics. I want to hear Chopin’s Prelude with my friends. I’m going back in. I hope he cleared out some of that ear wax during that shower.
Roman Ryan 