Journals of Eleanor Druse, The (Digital Picture Book) by Eleanor Druse Page A

Conlan.” I spoke aloud, but words were of no use.
    A tap on the door. It was an orderly pushing a wheelchair, and right behind him, son Bobby.
    “C’mon, Mum,” said Bobby. “We’re going upstairs to take some pictures ofthat crackpot brain of yours.”

THE BRAIN OF E. DRUSE
    More brain scans! How exciting. I didn’t have the heart to tell Dr. Metzger that I wasn’t going to let the likes of Dr. Stegman poke around inside my brain, no matter what showed up on my scans. (There’s a little legal theory I know a lot about called informed consent.) But I saw no harm in indulging our mutual curiosity about what big doings were happening between the walls of my skull.
    Bobby and the orderly wheeled me to a separate wing that must have been devoted exclusively to the domain of the brain. All the signs on the wall began with
neuro
—neuropharmacology, neuropsychology, neurophysiology.
    Finally, at the end of a windowless corridor, we came to a large door with a huge handle on it that looked like a closed bank vault. The technician, a nice young man named Michael Baxley (from Portland, Maine!), came out and informed me about the extremely powerful magnetic fields to which I would soon be exposed and questioned me closely about any metal components I may have acquired in life’s journey—prostheses, pacemakers, orthopedic screws, shrapnel.
    “Did you know that the Dalai Lama is intensely interested in brain imaging?” I asked him. “He’s in cahoots with several Western neuroscientists who are imaging the brains of Buddhist monks to measure what occurs in the brain during meditation and mindfulness.”
    “You don’t say,” said Michael Baxley. “Nobody’s ever told me that before.”
    “Mum, lay off with the Dalai Lama, would you?” said Bobby.
    My interest in the Dalai Lama embarrassed Bobby, I guessed. But why? I don’t get embarrassed when he’s interested in beer and the Red Sox, or when he plays that damn old ABBA album all day long.
    By the time I got into the scanning chamber I was beaming with anticipation. I assumed my health insurance would cover most of it, but it occurred to me that I might be able to charge these neuroresearchers for a look inside the brain of Eleanor Druse. I’d show them a scan image for the record books if I could work myself into one of my meditations or deep prayer states before they took their pictures.
    Once in the scanning room, I felt as if the technicians were preparing to launch me into space via an alien abduction tube. I had to lie very still while the MRI was working, they said. I would be able to hear them and speak to them, and they would be able to tell me when I had to hold still and when I could take a break and wriggle around to get the blood flowing and keep my old limbs from falling asleep.
    They slid me deep inside a huge cylindrical scanner. I had the sensation that my little cranium had been nestled in some vast cosmological turbine.
    On the inside panel of the beige doughnut, at eye level, I saw a tiny metal tag embossed with letters and numbers, a code or serial number, a long meaningless alphanumeric sequence.
    “Okay, Mrs. Druse,” said Michael, “we’re going to start the machine now. We aren’t taking scans yet, just warming her up, okay?”
    “Fire away!” I said.
    I began my meditation in earnest, trying to slip as quickly as possible into the strong but gentle stream of being that flows just below consciousness.
    “Mrs. Druse, the machine is all ready, and now comes the very important part about holding absolutely still. Can you do that for us?”
    “I won’t budge a jiggedy jot!”
    I stared straight ahead at the letters and numbers, which became ciphers glowing with a celestial light. I didn’t so much as blink and yet they changed right before my eyes into occult symbols or cryptograms, iridescent and changeable, as if the data from the device was flashing by on a digital readout for me to see.
    I closed my eyes and felt myself