We’ve Only Just Begun

By Chris Bullard

GOD, I HATE THAT FREAKING KAREN Carpenter and I don’t give a damn that she died of an ... any ... lexia. Boo, hoo. Poor freaking Karen. Well, she got off lucky and she didn’t even know it.

Yeah, I want another drink. Bring me a double bourbon. I don’t care how many I’ve had. Three? Not enough.

Christ, just let a man think for a minute. Just let me get organ ... organized.

Who the hell wrote that goddam song, anyway? Run—sun—just begun. Sharing horizons. It’s only got two verses. Screw her and screw that freaking song. Ha, ha, Karen, I guess you really didn’t see the signs along the way. Maybe you would’ve gotten yourself a good meal sometime.

Yeah, I want to put it on my tab. Don’t worry, there’ll be a tip. Now, why don’t you go back to the bar? Find something to do back there and leave me alone. Maybe you could invent something. Ha, ha. I used to invent things. I used to be one of the smartest men in the world.

How’d I end up with Karen Carpenter, for Christ sake? I never listened to that crap. I listened to Bud and Monk and Bird and Lovano and sometimes Mo ... Mozart. Just goes to show what crap is floating around in your head, even in my head.

So, anyway, I used to be pretty smart. I had the usual degrees, did the usual post-grad work. That’s why they came to me. The government, I mean.

World tensions, armies on the borders, all that sort of crap, so they wanted something that would in ... in ... capitate. Not kill, they didn’t want that. Kill was in ... humane, just confuse, immobilize the suckers. Hah, I guess they didn’t think that one out.

President probably directed them to do it. Not Obama. The guy who came after him. What was his name? You know.

Anyway, that was what they wanted us to do.

Someone else was doing gas. Someone else was doing viruses. Lasers, radiation, blah, blah.

I worked in the research lab for a biotech. I did sono ... sono ... sonogenetics. You know, I used sound waves to manip ... change the nervous system.

Memories. That’s what I was working on. Stimulate the brain! Hit the right neuron with the right sound wave and you can release an old memory. One that you’ve lost. Now you’ve got it back.

Good stuff. All sort of medical uses. Non-invasive. Helps people with Alzheimer’s. Und so weiter.

But some genius at corporate HQ said we should weaponize it.

What’s so bad about memories, you say? Well, Mr. Taxpayer, what if you have too many memories?

Mass confusion. That’s what we were looking for. Stim ... late as many memories as possible. Smack those neurons.

Suddenly your head is full of the stuff you haven’t thought about in years. All that stuff that brain housekeeping has swept under the rug comes back in a rush—what you were doing in the third grade in Ms. Munster’s class and every dinner you’ve ever had and all those conversations you had with relatives who’ve been dead for twenty years.

That would screw everybody up good, wouldn’t it? Everybody would go bonkers. So what? I don’t care. Labs run on money. M-O-N-N-E-Y! A kiss for luck and we’re on our way, eh, Karen, you frigging bitch.

Anyway, so we needed a pulse, beam, something we could use to direct the sound. I mean, you couldn’t put a whole army in something like a dentist’s chair and just say sit quiet while I put this machine on your head.

Had to bring in engineers. That’s where it went wrong. Engineers love failure. They love to quote Edison. Once you get them involved you know something’s gonna go wrong. Workin’ together day to day. Ha, ha.

So they built me a chamber. Someplace I could practice on chimps. First I’d zap ’em, then I’d monitor the changes in their brains.

Some grad student type brings in a chimp. Ties him down. No, no, I say. His head’s not re ... re ... trained. I go in. I come out.

Engineer says, oh, oh, looks like we had a discharge while you were in there. How ya feeling?

Wha, I say. Who turned on the freaking Carpenters?

Cut to the chase. I’ve been hearing this one freaking song for weeks. It’s like hearing elevator music. Except it’s just one song. And the doors never open.

Alcohol helps. Calms me down. But I know I’m going crazy.

Freaking engineers. How’d you like to hear Karen Carpenter any time, all the time?

Been thinking I might go back to the lab. Do a little tinkering. Make a few changes. Next time those engineers flip on the switches it’s Karen Carpenter time. Or maybe it’s the Macarena. Ole! That’d really be hell.

Or maybe make it the big broadcast. Never figured out the range of our equipment, but I bet I could take out everybody in the building. Hello, Cost Accounting, it’s time for some “We Built This City.” How’d you like to hear that forever?

Gimme another bourbon! Now!

You’re right, Karen, so many roads to choose.

And we’ve only just begun. 

Chris Bullard lives in Collingswood, NJ. His work has appeared in “Rattle,” “River Styx,” “Pleiades,” “Green Mountains Review,” and elsewhere. WordTech Editions published his second full-length book, “Grand Canyon,” in 2015.