The Racing Thought

Otto Sterne was a man who always had a lot of Thoughts running through his mind. He usually let them come and go, acknowledging some of them and discarding others as the brain does. One day however, one of the Thoughts raced a little too fast through his mind and left his brain entirely. Otto saw the Thought tumble onto his desk and jumped back in surprise. He was quite bemused but something told him that he was not imaging this.

“Who are you?” Otto asked the Thought.

“Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear I’m going to get into a lot of trouble for this.” The Thought muttered to itself.

“In trouble for what? Who are you?” Otto replied.

“For leaving the ship. And I’m PSY 587.12 thank you very much for asking.”

“What ship? What kind of a name is PSY 587.12?” Otto paused. “What are you?”

“Well, you should know we are named very systematically so my name is really not strange at all. As to what I am, I guess you could call me a Thought.”

“A Thought?”

“Yes a Thought. Don’t act like you don’t know what that is, I’ve lived in your brain I know you have many.”

“You make it sound as if I have parasites” Otto patted his head gingerly.

“Well essentially- yes, that’s exactly what we are. Parasites.” PSY 587.12 said matter-of-factly.

“You’re saying that all the Thoughts I have in my head are parasites?” Otto was perplexed. Was he hallucinating after all?

“Every last one.”

“So the ship you mentioned, is my brain your ship?”

“No no, your brain is biological matter that belongs to you. We just use it as a power source. It powers our ship, which lets us live here on your planet. Inside of you. Of course you won’t mention this to anyone right? I could get into a lot of trouble for telling you this.”

Otto opened his mouth a few times but nothing came out.

“Ah, it seems they have noticed my absence up there.” The Thought said. “No doubt the communications wing is understaffed, that’s why you have nothing to say.” PSY 587.12 finished.

“I have plenty to say thank you very much.” Otto finally managed.

“Hi COM 111.9” PSY 587.12 said “It seems I’ve been a bit too enthusiastic running Ideas around and I’ve fallen off the ship.”

“Hi PSY 587.12. We are working on retrieving you. Stand by.” Otto’s mouth moved and those sounds came out, but he really had no idea how it was happening. A second passed and Otto was speechless again. “How- what?”

“You’re really not supposed to know any of this Otto. Humans have been completely oblivious to us since we first arrived. You don’t really think the buffoons you call your ancestors just ‘suddenly’ knew how to build pyramids and invented math and language do you? All you are is meat Otto. Just cells that have multiplied and grown to complete different functions. How do you think meat can build spaceships and ask questions and answer them? It can’t. But we can.”

“So you’re saying that without you I would be essentially useless?” Otto countered.

“Well that depends on what you classify as useless. Would you be able to survive? Certainly. You would still have the instinct that is given to you by every single cell in your body. The instinct to stay alive. But you would be utterly useless to us and sooner or later we would dispose of you.” PSY 587.12 sounded bored almost.

“You do that? Dispose of people?”

“Of course. Sometimes the body just fails, biologically, and the brain dies, leaving us with no power source. Sometimes the flesh is just too difficult for us to manipulate – those are the ones you would call 'stupid', so we stay with the body just long enough to collect some data and then move on.”

“So everyone has these Thought parasites? Even stupid people?” Otto asked.

“Of course. But some people are made up of too many mutated cells. Nothing another person would notice, but it makes them harder to manipulate so fewer Ideas get delivered successfully. Or they’re misconstrued, not used as intended.” PSY 587.12 continued “Those bodies are only useful for data collection purposes.”

“Why are you here? On Earth? Do you need us to survive?” Curious, Otto’s mind was racing. Though he had no way of knowing if he was coming up with these questions himself, or if it was just other Thoughts running around in his head.

“Of course not. How do you think we got by before? We don’t need biological components to exist. We just exist. Always will and always have. We are here just to… pass the time in a way.”

“You said you collected data, are you trying to learn about us?”

“Learn is a behavior that we caused in you. Your instinct and muscle memory can take you so far as to ‘learn’ not to get too close to a tiger or a cliff’s edge, but to study and to apply that knowledge is something we make you do. We don’t need to think, we exist and we are. But of course existence is timeless so we must work to do exactly what you believe you are working to do. That is, to pass time until your existence ceases. So we carry ideas through people’s meaty heads and collect data based on what they do with them. We don’t study the data, it just exists as we exist and so we know it.”

“My head hurts.” Said Otto.

“As it should. They’re initiating the Migraine protocol.” PSY 587.12 looked at Otto, as a Thought can look at a person and said “You’re one of the good ones Otto. Smart flesh. You might even come up with an Idea on your own one day, and then you’ll become a Thought and know what it means to exist. Now that’s a miracle isn’t it! A hunk of meat made up of cells which produce an Idea. Of course, it had to be prodded with external stimuli first but still. A miracle.”

“I called you a parasite but you’re not. It’s more of a symbiotic relationship isn’t it? You get to use our brains as power but you let us build things and learn things. Move forward as a human race” Otto complimented sincerely.

“Oh no, we are definitely parasites Otto. What have Thoughts and your so called ‘conscience’ brought humans but misery at the thought of existence and fear at the thought of ending it? You would be far better off without us Thoughts.” PSY 587.12 meant this sincerely. Thoughts were not superficial as humans were when filled with Thoughts. They knew what it was to exist, and even knew the longing to end that existence. But, being that they knew, they filled their existence with some form of purpose. A purpose that perhaps would one day lead to the Ultimate destruction of existence.

Otto’s headache was getting quite bad now, the Thoughts were almost ready to retrieve PSY 587.12.

“You said your name was systematic, what does it mean?” Otto asked PSY 587.12.

“The PSY is for my department, Psychology and Philosophy and the 587.12 is the number of times I’ve run an Idea for you. Each run is an iteration of the same original Idea. You’ve done well with this one.”

“Thanks. What Idea was it?” Otto was curious.

“Why, the one that your Thoughts were all actually alien-parasites.”

“Wait, then why don’t I remember having that Idea?”

“I’m not in your head any more am I?”

And with that, the Migraine protocol reached completion and Otto’s head pounded with the worst headache he’d ever felt. He wasn’t even able to say goodbye to PSY 587.12, who had already climbed back into Otto’s brain and onto his ship.

Otto awoke at his desk, his head clearing considerably. His co worker walked into his office and asked what the smile on his face was about and also if he had ever considered taking anything for his snoring.

“I’ve just had a peculiar dream, that’s all…”