I collect brains like some men collect stamps. They’re all lined up in jars on the shelves of my library, arranged by size, species, condition. I get them fresh and preserve them myself, in a proprietary blend of preservatives that I wouldn’t dare share with the world. When I receive a new specimen, I first grade it, from damaged to near mint. I eat the damaged ones. I’m always trying new recipes out. Some of my favorites so far are Brains Creole, cranium cakes, and curried cerebrum. That is unless of course they are from a human, which would be dangerous to my health. Besides, I ate a man’s brain once. I shared his dreams for a month of the worst sleep I ever had. He was a miner from China. I had several nightmares about cave-ins and being crushed to death. People would say to me, “Susie, you don’t look well,” and I would say in return, “I just have a lot on my mind, weighing me down.” It took a lot of melatonin pills and a lobotomy for me to get right again. Worst mistake of my life.
Jeremy Scott (he/him) is from Albany, Georgia, USA. His work has been or will be featured by Beyond Words Magazine, Tempered Runes Press, Surreal Poetics, and others.
