Brian's Brain

By Stephen Briggs

The date was Tuesday, June 4, 1968. That particular Tuesday in June held little significance for most people living in Windsor, Ontario. It was however, a day that Brian Bradley would likely remember for the remainder of his long life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 19, 2008
• ISBN: 9781465319098

Stephen Briggs

Stephen Briggs lives in Oxfordshire and has been involved in the world of amateur dramatics for many years. Oxford Studio Theatre Club staged his adaptations of Wyrd Sisters, Mort, Guards! Guards!, and many others. As well as compiling The Discworld Companion, The New Discworld Companion, and, now, Turtle Recall: The Discworld Companion . . . So Far, he has also co-authored the Discworld Diaries, the Mapps, and voices the UK and US Discworld audiobooks.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The date was Tuesday, June 4, 1968. That particular Tuesday in June held little significance for most people living in Windsor, Ontario. It was however, a day that Brian Bradley would likely remember for the remainder of his long life. It would not be remembered for any of the sensible reasons that you might expect on a young man’s wedding day. Certainly, the fact that it was his wedding day would have been a very good reason for Brian to recall this particular date. Very good, if for no better reason than to save himself years of misery if he even once forgot it. He would surely discover over time that there is nothing more infuriating to a woman than having a husband who can’t even remember which day of the year he was forever welded to her in marriage. Yes, that was definitely a very good reason to remember this date.

Unfortunately, the phrase ‘very good’ and the word ‘reason’ were not destined to have anything at all to do with this day nor with the hideous memories of coming events that it would forever dredge up. You see, Brian knew, deep down in his soul that he was about to do something terribly wrong. Something that could; no, that would be remembered as the worst thing that he could possibly have done on this usually joyous occasion.

Now, to Brian the most frustrating aspect of his predicament of course, was the fact that he had absolutely no idea exactly what this ‘bad thing’ was going to be. He only knew that it was going to happen and that it would happen very soon now and that all of the horrid repercussions would be blamed quite accurately, on him. If you had taken him aside and questioned him right then, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you any more than that. He had no idea where this awful knowledge came from but it’s truth was as solid and real to his mind as the carpeted floor he stood on was to his feet. He just knew.

There were so many bad possibilities flashing quickly through his mind that his head began to throb. His pants could fall off. They might accidentally drop right down to the floor, here in front of everyone. Maybe there was a hole in them that he couldn’t see. No, wait—maybe his fly was down.

That was just stupid. If his fly was down, it would only be funny. Even he could have had a good laugh at that. No, the thing that was sitting there in the shadows waiting to pounce would not be funny. It wouldn’t be stupid. It would be awful. It would be horrid and he would never, ever be able to live it down or forget it. Anything that he could imagine simply paled in comparison to the actual ‘bad thing’ that he was about to do because he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that if he could even think of a bad thing to use in comparison, then it was simply not bad enough.

Oh god, why me? he wondered aloud.

I beg your pardon? whispered the priest.

Brian mumbled a short apology and directed his gaze down to the end of the centre aisle where there was something happening. In the small chamber near the front door of the chapel, people were moving about, arranging themselves into some semblance of order. The low chatter of the crowd suddenly dropped to a stifling silence as all eyes turned that way. He saw Susan down there clutching at her father’s arm as if she needed support in this final moment before pledging her heart and soul to her betrothed. Brian wasn’t fooled. He knew that the reverse was probably true.

This was her show and her father knew quite well that even though he was footing the bill for this whole production, his purpose here amounted to nothing more than window dressing. He was ‘eye candy’ for the rest of this family gathering and especially for Susan’s friends. Like the bundles of expensive flowers they held or the horrid greenish silky dresses that they all wore, he was just another prop. He would rather have gone golfing but Susan was his little baby girl, suddenly all grown up and she wanted him here so here is where he was. He would stay right until the end and then he would go golfing.

That put a smile on his face and once it was there, he froze all the muscles that were responsible for creating it. It wasn’t perfect but it served to fool most of the guests.

It didn’t fool Brian. He knew that glassy facial clench intimately. Many of Susan’s relatives seemed to have mastered it for some reason.

Not Susan. Not Susan and not her mother. He had never seen that look on either of their faces. Wasn’t that odd?

Don’t go there Brian; not today anyway, said his brain.

The little voice in his head made him jump. He had been hearing it every so often over the past month or so and it always caught him off guard. It was like listening to himself speaking but the things it said were not things that he would ever have said aloud. In fact, the things it said would have put him into a very precarious position if anyone else had ever heard them. It was both blessing and curse at once. It’s usually caustic observations about Brian’s life always put things into sharp perspective without the disadvantage of getting him into too much trouble. No one could blame him for any of these remarks if no one but him ever heard them. No volatile opinions were ever voiced aloud.

The observations that his brain made were usually accurate and they almost always helped to get him out of sticky situations. Today, it was only this simple warning to stay away from these dangerous thoughts at a time like this.

Sure, that tight, porcelain-faced death grin that everyone in Susan’s family had mastered was something that obviously needed to be picked apart carefully but for now, he filed it away under Mysteries That Must Be Solved. In retrospect, he would see clearly that this sort of mystery was something that should have been looked at carefully, a long time ago. Now, whatever the reason for members of Susan’s family developing such a strange survival tactic, he would not be able to verify until it was far too late to matter.

Brian’s right leg suddenly began to twitch ever so gently. It was almost indiscernible even to himself but it had a disturbingly regular rhythm.

What’s that? asked his brain, Are you doing that? Stop it! You look stupid!

In fact, he didn’t really look stupid. The movement wasn’t actually noticeable to anyone but himself yet. It did feel as if it was slowly getting worse though. Within a few minutes people began to whisper and point at him. Was that it? Was this the Bad Thing that he had been waiting for? This wasn’t really so bad. Sure, it was strange and it held the potential to become a genuine embarrassment if it got much worse but it wasn’t really that bad. And that’s what stopped him short. He suddenly knew that in the final analysis, this shaking of legs was not even related to the horrible event he’d been anticipating. It wasn’t difficult to see that this was only destined to be a little icing on the cake of his eventual Ultimate Failure and Utter Humiliation.

It all began when his leg started to twitch, they would later recall when telling each other the story for the hundredth time. Some would nod in agreement as others would register their feigned surprise and disdain toward Brian the Madman, whom they’d all thought they had known until this very day.

He began trying to formulate excuses and run them over in his mind for use in his defence when this was all over. Naturally, without any idea of what exactly he might be apologizing for, this proved rather difficult to do. It’s not an easy task to make an excuse for something you haven’t done yet for a reason that is unclear at best. He tried out a few generic statements to see how they sounded.

"I didn’t know. Of course I didn’t really mean it. What would you have done if it was you?"

No, they all sounded hollow and stupid and none of them would ever be believed by anyone. None of them would ever turn the hideous finger of blame even a single degree away from his slack-jawed, guilt-ridden face.

The organist was a tiny old lady wearing half-glasses like an accountant from some Dickensian novel. She played a few tentative notes to warm up the crowd. Brian’s brain tried to tell him that he was certain he’d recognized the Death Knell, skillfully wound into her repertoire of popular tunes but Brian wisely rejected this omen of doom as being just too silly to be accurate.

Someone signalled her from the back of the church and she suddenly began playing the Wedding March. Every eye turned to watch Susan’s approach. Brian could see her far down at the end of the aisle, his vision now distorting with fear. It was as if he were watching through a wide-angle camera lens. This ‘fish-eye’ perspective fooled him into thinking that it would probably take her a long time to walk all that way and so he foolishly relaxed a bit, knowing that he had some time to work on his excuse. He went back to trying out some generic lines but just as he began, his vision cleared and life seemed to enter a momentary fast-forward. Before he could object she was standing there beside him at the alter.

The priest began speaking now with the practiced fluidity of a man reciting an old story, often told. In Brian’s ears it was all gibberish. His heart thumped in his chest with such force that he was sure he must be dieing. The phrase ‘Myocardial Infarction’ kept running through his mind for some reason. That term always looked like a spelling mistake to him. Surely, they must have meant ‘Infraction’ but tried to cover up the error in all the printed medical books. Nobody would be willing to admit that they were responsible for that bit of spelling stupidity so it just stayed that way forever.

Infarction, infraction; whichever spelling might be correct, Brian was sure he was having one of them right now. His chest pounded so fiercely that he couldn’t understand anything the preist was saying.

When his preamble finished he turned and asked Susan something. She smiled and replied but Brian could hear neither the question nor her response to it over the horrid buzzing noise that had started in his ears. It was as if some phantom metal worker had begun grinding a chunk of cast iron just out of sight behind him. The priest turned to him now and smiled a genuine, confident smile just as the grinding ended.

And do you, Brian Bradley, take Susan MacKay to be your lawfully wedded wife.

Oh god, there was a formula; a required answer to that question, he was sure. It definitely set off some alarm bells deep inside his head. There was a specific answer that he was supposed to recite now and everyone seemed to know what it was but him. Every eye in the church was focused expectantly on him. Time passed.

Just a few feet away, he saw his own mother and father watching his demise sadly, unable to help. His mother mouthed the words to his expected answer encouragingly to him. It didn’t help. She looked as if she were saying something about Haiku and it only served to confuse him even more. What on earth could Japanese poetry have to do with anything at all? Couldn’t she see that he needed her help?

More time passed. The smile on the priest’s face slowly transformed itself into a tooth clenching death mask reminiscent of the one Susan’s father was wearing. He asked the question a second time.

And do you, Brian Bradley, take Susan MacKay to be your lawfully wedded wife?

It was a waking nightmare. More people in the audience began silently mouthing the words to his expected response. Why couldn’t he remember the answer? It was a simple enough question. His eyes darted around him looking for an avenue of escape as if he were a trapped ferret. He saw a door just beyond the place where his best friend John stood and he began evaluating the cost of running at top speed in that direction. Could he make it? What would happen if he did? What on earth was John doing here looking ridiculous in that cheap tuxedo? The legs were far too short, exposing a flash of mismatched socks. The jacket was too wide for him across the chest as if it had been custom tailored for a gorilla. Susan’s father must have ordered it for him from some discount rental shop or possibly a circus supply store, in what was obviously another of his futile and misguided attempts to save money.

Brian smiled nervously at John but his brain was screaming Help me! Help me!

And then in a flash it all came back to him and he knew in that brief, beautiful moment of enlightenment and re-discovery, that he was going to be alright. The answer came to him like a glowing light in the darkness. Of course, he was supposed to simply respond, I do. He almost laughed, knowing that his friends would make fun of his terrifying delay for a long time to come. He would laugh with the guests and tell them that it looked as if they were mouthing the words A-Choo! or eye two in their attempts to help him. The correct answer to the simple question he had been asked was simply, I do. He felt like an idiot for ever forgetting it.

Brian turned to the priest and speaking as clearly and confidently as possible replied,

I don’t.

There was an odd hiss that he would later be able to identify as the sound of two hundred people all gasping in unison. Brian foolishly tried to explain himself.

I mean, I can’t. I couldn’t. I would if I could but I can’t so I won’t. I don’t

All of these words were the wrong answer to the question that the priest had asked him and he was about to elaborate even further when something hit him hard on the jaw and he slumped almost mercifully into unconsciousness on the carpeted floor. It was the strangest event he could ever recall. Instead of Brian falling over, it was as if the floor had suddenly risen up sideways and smashed into his face. The lights dimmed and all sound receded into the distance as he went to some other realm that he had never imagined was there. It was strange and wonderful and not the least bit disturbing, except for the pain, of course.

It took an hour or more for him to escape from the strange dream-like room that he seemed to be locked in. He sat, happily munching on delicious pieces of his own wedding cake but they all exploded violently whenever he bit into them.