"They got rid of the
thing, but damaged the pituitary."
More Perihelion:
Bob Sward's Writer's Friendship Series
The World
“They took my skull and broke it
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just east of my eyes,
cut an equator over my head
from ear to ear, then
swung half of me forward
exposing the frontal cortex.
They lifted my brain
and followed the optic nerves
to the pituitary gland and
began to remove the tumor.
I was unlucky. They got rid of the
thing, but damaged the pituitary
while leaving traces of it for fear of
crippling me permanently. Which
they did anyway, and now I am
fat around the middle.
But here’s the fascinating thing.
They told me that it was a kind of
homunculus, an undeveloped mass
of cells, a lost brother,
which found its safest home
in my head from the moment of my
own successful individuation.
My tumor, which has left me
naturally immature, is my twin.
And you were my brother too,
both before my maturity, and now
after it.”