My Ideal Brain

(With thanks to Sirat and JohnG for their encouragement)

My Ideal Brain (Performing Script)

It's like you have a friend for life, and suddenly he lets you
down.
My current brain is running out, or running wild, but either way
it isn't right.

It's vintage 1944, a classic year for war, but not for brains.
It wouldn't score at Mastermind or shine at university debates.
It often can't control my limbs; you see how easily they shake.

My brain got damaged by disease, and not by war,
but my neurologist is keen enough to show it off in his
collection.
I've told him not to hold his breath;

I still have several other bets.
The Brain Bank want to slice it like salami for the benefit of
science.
Sotheby's strongly recommend I get it pickled as conceptual art.
My accountant says, we'd profit best if he could write it off for
tax.

If I believe the dealer who sold me my Apple Mac,
it's completely incompatible and I should get it scrapped.
According to my vet, if it were up to him, he'd put it out to
grass,
or failing that, he'd have it shot.
I'd be a lot more easily convinced if it were not the only brain I've
got.

Its memory banks are jumbled full to brim with tangles,
trivia, unfinished dreams, and songs I used to sing,
and most of it is locked behind a door that has a sign that
reads:

'Don't ask if we do names, because we don't,
not passwords, birthdays, jokes, nor answers to quiz shows.
We do do film, some theatre, photography, and arts,
And you could always try next door .
They store the raw material of dreams;
they're sitting on a mountain of the stuff;
they'll give you anything you want, but not today,
because, thank God, we are out to lunch..

My brain is out of touch; it's out of gas; it's obsolete;
it's totally outfoxed by all the brash young brains we meet.

I'd dearly like to trade it for a brand new brain; not off the
shelf,
one size fits all, but custom built for me and no-one else.
Now listen well and get this straight; I don't care if it's pastel
blue
or apple green, I want a brain that's free of Parkinson's
Disease.

I've had my fill of being ill; a twelve year stretch is long
enough;
by then most murderers go free, unless they're innocent, like me.

I've had enough of shaking, twitching, freezing, keeping
cheerful,
taking pills that sometimes work, and sometimes don't,
with side effects that make it worse, and pills to put that
right,
and still more pills to make me sleep at night.
If I sound angry, you're damn' close, but not enough;
you fill my shoes for just one week and you'll be fully up to
speed
with just how fired up I am.

But here's the part to make you laugh. Or cry.

All this time I'm chasing an illusion; these pills are just a
fudge.
No pills can bring dead brain cells back to life.
No pills exist can put this mother right.
So let me spell it out, in letters ten feet high,

'I WANT A BRAIN THAT WORKS! NOT ONE THAT SUCKS!

I know I shouldn't lose my rag; it's not what people want to
hear.
But one thing more; I want it clear that this time round it's me
that's got to call the shots.
I know exactly what I want.

I want a brain that's wiser than it's smart;
we don't all have to be so stressed or run so fast.
I want the patience of a saint, but not the halo or the food.
I want to know what people mean, whatever cloak they hide it in.
I want the curiosity to see connections no-one's ever seen.
I want a bloody great thesaurus, and an Oxford dictionary,
a memory of hugendous size, and a wit that's razor sharp
to duel with Stephen Fry and shave the chin of Oscar Wilde.

But I don't want to be a walking brain so big I have to stuff my
head
into a wig, or one of those huge woolly Rasta hats.

I want a brain to entertain and energise whatever company I'm in,
so I can hitch a ride with royalty and movie stars,
in Bentleys and stretch limousines, and still have time to say,
"I see it's turned out wet again," to someone on the big red bus
that runs from Shepherds Bush to Golders Green.

I want an answer for the old woman I once met wandering the streets in
tears.
'God is dead!' she told me angrily. 'He died last year.
And took my husband with Him. Why did He do that?'

I want a telepathic link that's free of bleeps or tweets or waiting to
connect,
while I am driven mad by Mozart trilling through my head.

And lastly,
I don' t want to end my days, like others I have seen,
entrapped by terminal disease.

Deep inside my ideal brain, I want a bomb and detonator.
So when the light has nearly gone,
and my small role in this strange comedy is over,
I can make my final bow and go out with a BANG!
And not a whimper.

None of that should be too much to ask.
Oh! There's one thing more that I forgot;
don't make it cost more than five hundred pounds.