The Return of My Brain

My brain is back. I don't know how it happened, what I did, or did not do, but suddenly here it is, thinking, functioning, remembering, all as clear as a bell.

At first I thought this was maybe just some weird trick of perception--like the way an amputee feels a missing limb--but it cannot be so, for the organ proves itself in performance. The other day, for instance, my wife told me a phone number to call, and even though it took several minutes to go and find paper and pencil and cell phone, I actually remembered the number immediately and without flaw. I was astounded, amazed at the utility of the thing. I wrote down the numbers and read them back to her, just to be certain, as if to prick myself with a pin.

Am I dreaming? No, by God, it's real!

Not a month ago, had we been driving in the car together, my wife would have had to direct me from start to finish. Left here . . . straight now . . . right at the next traffic light. And yet now this sort of guidance, helpful--no, essential--before, has become suddenly acutely irritating, such that old objections return to the pilot's seat as if they had never released the throttle in the first place--I know, I know; you don't have to tell me; I've been here a hundred times before!

Surely I sleep. Surely I dream. Surely I have received without cause or merit. Shall I rejoice now, or tremble at the thought it might depart once again? Shall I tell people about this, or shall I be silent, careful of words that might shatter the gift? Can I trust my brain to stay, or does it whisper but a moment like a ghost, an echo, and arch wings of flight even as I speak.

And if it stays, then what I am to do? What to make of this brain? How should I live for having received this unbroken thing thing from the abyss?