Ruby Rose
Location: Canadian Prairies
"The Switch"
by Ruby Rose
It has been written that on this earth, there are human beings of super intelligence possessing unexplained psychic powers and unsuspected possibilities. This is the story of such a being.by Ruby Rose
Eleanor, a 90 year old woman with steel-blue eyes still as piercing and knowledgeable as 40 years past, had been widowed for many years now. She now spent her remaining days alone in an exclusive penthouse apartment within a high-class condominium in a city of many. She was a tall big-boned woman, perhaps even manly in appearance. Her snow-white hair was sparse and cropped like a man's. She was also very wealthy, and thus surrounded herself with beautiful furnishings as befitted her station. Eleanor has always been looked upon as being imperial in manner and posture. She has also been blessed all her life with an intelligence capable of ruling an empire, industrial or territorial. She had the kind of authority that comes with great knowledge. Upon her husband's death, she discovered within herself considerable business acumen and successfully took over the administration of her late husband's investment company which seemed to be at a perpetual standstill. Eleanor proved to have an analytical mind and an incredible memory. She also had a prescience--a knowledge of events before they even took place--which proved a monstrously valuable gift in the investment world. She always knew exactly when to buy and when to sell. Consequently, Eleanor soon accumulated an assortment of companies. And her wealth grew.
Eleanor was childless; therefore, there was no heir. Her one and only daughter had died at birth--reason given: "No Brain". Eleanor was tired now and felt as brittle as winter leaves waiting to be crumbled. She had seen the births and deaths of many people and of many things. Now Eleanor was ready to move on. Her affairs were in order with her final wishes voiced as to the distribution of her great wealth.
Her sanctuary was her bedroom and Eleanor never left it. Day after day, she lay in her huge mahogany four-poster bed fitted with a royal blue silk damask spread and let her senses be titillated by the combination of her favourite colours that were spread throughout the furnishings--the royal purples and electric blues; and the exquisite scents of the rich and unusual perfumes obtained in her travels about the world being gently sprayed through vents. There was also haunting music being piped at all hours through her speakers inserted in various corners of the walls in her suite.
Lying in her bed, Eleanor voiced her two greatest wishes...before she left forever. She wished she could pass on her brain--which Eleanor considered to be her most valuable asset--to another to benefit from. This would be her legacy. She also desired to see her beloved only child once more--deceased 70 years ago and now floating in limbo. So she prayed in her fashion...to the gods that be.
Unworldly beings from another sphere heard Eleanor's pleas and as they practised that transfer of super intelligence from one to another in their world, they applauded her dying wish--accepting her as one of their own.
One day, an unexplained phenomenon caused by certain forces was Eleanor's first indication that her pleas had not fallen on deaf ears. It was a transmission of images and sound in a manner analogous to television. Suddenly, powerful electric fields produced by the unknown, transmitted particles of radiant energy moved with the velocity of light and sound waves into Eleanor's bedroom. There were images in the air, somewhat blurred but definitely recognizable as human faces--a young man and a young pregnant woman with their arms wrapped around each other--both weeping tears of mourning. A few words were comprehensible..."Our baby...to die...before it has lived." Then the images and sounds slowly faded away. Eleanor, within the confines of her room, then loudly voiced, "Yes, I choose that unborn child. He will have my brain!" And her decision was heard.
Lisa, a fragile slight young woman of natural beauty with a pearlescent colour to her cheeks, was about to give birth to her first child. She was a good woman wedded to a good man, called John. They were poor but proud. All they had to give a child was their undying love and protection. Lisa and John were both uneducated and lived in a scantly furnished lower-class apartment above a grocery store, holding on to the bare necessities with John's small carpenter's pay-check. Lisa and John fell in love and pledged to stay together, having the mutual dream of establishing a family of their own.
X-rays proved that their baby would surely die at birth or shortly after because the baby had no brain, referred to by the doctors as anencephalous, a condition in which most of the skull bone and the upper portions of the brain were missing. Lisa and John did not understand how this could be so; all they knew was that their coveted child would die.
The day soon arrived for Lisa to enter the hospital to be delivered of her dying child. To everyone about her, she appeared as if a light had gone out within her. As Lisa was wheeled into the delivery room, the doctors and nurses present admonished her not to look upon the child and suggested the use of anaesthesia. Lisa refused to listen. On commencement, suddenly, the delivery room was filled with extra lights of unusual bluish and purplish hues from unknown sources. Shortly after, a joy-inducing cry was heard--that of a newborn boy child...Lisa and John's. Lisa's eyes were enormous as they filled with tears of pure joy that rolled down her cheeks. She called for her husband and they soon were both lost in communion with their newborn son. By some benign providence, they knew their child would live. Their son resembled an angel with his translucent skin with petal soft cheeks and his golden peach fuzz on his perfect little head. His eyes were steel-blue in colour depicting wisdom and great intelligence...yet to be tapped. There was no travail to be remembered.
The doctors and nurses had no explanations. It was written on the hospital chart: "Anencephalic condition ameliorated...Sudden brain formations...Reason Unknown."
Unbeknownst to them, the little family upon returning to their small apartment would find a few new additions to their simple abode: a beautiful white wicker bassinet--lined and skirted with the most exquisite cerulean blue fabric as befitting a princely boy child--and dozens of tiny little garments of strange, soft cloth decorated with arabesque brocade designs woven in thread of gold and silver...all gifts of the gods that be.
Lisa and John thanked the gods that be for the boon of life granted...having no knowledge of the riches beyond their dreams that would come to pass through their son via Eleanor's brain--now his.
Meanwhile on the other side of the city, Eleanor, on her death bed, experienced an out-of-body observation. It was parallel to that special moment when the waves at the seashore foam in and then seem to be suspended momentarily before being pulled back out to sea. But in that one frozen moment, one could see the sand, the pebbles and the shells. Eleanor was given a small static slice of time which enabled her to perceive her brain entering that perfect little head within Lisa's body. And she was pleased.
An autopsy was performed on Eleanor and all were astounded as the cause of death would forever read: "No brain activity; Lack of formations." How, they wondered, could she have lived for 90 years, amassed a treasure, and thought her piercing thoughts and analyses and computations...all with the most rudimentary of brains!
The switch was completed and Eleanor walked on towards the lights that beckoned...where a little girl child was waiting.
