Keep Your Hand on the Stove

CW: This story contains themes of suicide and suicidal ideation. Read only if you are in a good place. The suicide hotline is 988.

The room was filled with the smell of metal and the rushing torrents of blood swirling around infinitesimal tubes. There was a pounding in every space, a rhythmic thump that was both harsh and soft, beautiful and overwhelming. Mucus, bile, and fluid invaded every millimeter of the void. Everything was covered in warm liquid. Electricity danced across the tubes and wires and muscles, carrying information across the expanse faster than any living species could comprehend. In the center of that mass—that contorted piece of meat that acted as a steering wheel—was Logic. And sitting in front of him was a very important flame.

This was the human body. This was the brain, where Logic lived out his days carefully helping make decisions that would keep that flame alive.

It wasn’t a real flame. That would most certainly end the poor human who Logic watched over, burning through the sulci and gyri in a matter of minutes. It would be agonizingly painful to die in such a way. No, this fire was metaphorical, something Logic himself hated but humanity apparently couldn’t get enough of. Like how the heart is the resting place for love or the eyes are a window to the soul. Logic would have scoffed at the mere idea. But scoffing wasn’t his job. To be fair, neither was tending to a fire. He would much rather Love take the helm on such a task.

He shouldn’t be complaining about his lot. He couldn’t waste time letting his mind drift into the ‘what-ifs’ of reality. That was Daydreamer's job, and the last thing Logic needed was to get into a scuffle with that freak. He gently cupped his hands around the fire, frowning when it grew dimmer.

Someone else—something else, to be more specific—entered his lofty realm. Logic enjoyed the ‘front seat’ of the brain, resting comfortably in the prefrontal cortex, just behind the eyes. That way he could watch everything his silly human did and respond appropriately. No one was supposed to interrupt him while he was working. His work was the second most important in the body, running just behind the savage Survival Instinct that crept around now and then. That thing was more animalistic than human, and Logic did his best not to interact with him. This presence was more jittery, and as it made its way toward Logic’s fire, the flame wavered uncertainly. The thumping of the heart grew faster, and the hollow sound of the lungs breathing became strained. That could only mean one person. Logic could barely hold back his disdain.

“Anxiety,” he warned, “if you don’t get back to the amygdala this instant, I will convince the human to take so much medication that you will be nothing more than a mere memory.”

Anxiety took on the voice of a woman, more specifically, the voice of the woman Logic was currently controlling. This only made Logic more annoyed. Of course the human would rather follow an emotion-based feeling than his clinical advice. It irked him to no end, and if Anxiety was in his domain, that could only mean his human was going through something difficult. He would need to push the fear back as far as he could manage if he wanted his human to stay on track. Yet he could barely hear himself think as Anxiety wailed behind him.

“I can’t,” Anxiety cried, her high-pitched voice strained with terror. “I’m sorry. You know there’s nothing I can do in a panic attack, Logic. That’s why I came to you! Help me calm down!”

Logic frowned, glancing down at the weak flame sputtering in his hands. “Are you what’s causing this, then? Have your insane ramblings finally managed to get to the human? I cannot believe you would let things get so out of control!”

For a brief moment, Anxiety seemed to straighten up. It was rare that this facet of the human mind would pause from its constant tirade of doom and gloom. Logic refused to look at her, but he could feel Anxiety glaring into his back.

“I had nothing to do with that! I try to keep that flame alive, I’ll have you know. I spend my waking days trying to add fuel to the fire. Don’t blame your sorry job on me!”

“My sorry job?” Logic laughed. “At least I don’t spend the day wasting our human’s precious resources. You burn more calories than the rest of us combined. Our human’s a skinny branch thanks to your meddling.”

Anxiety shook behind him, a motion that was immediately copied by the human. Though everything was dark in the recesses of the brain, Logic could feel the body responding to Anxiety’s accidental orders. Heart rate increased to a steady 120 beats per minute. The throat closed up, blocking off precious air to the already starved lungs. The stomach and intestinal tract slowed, almost completely halting their processes to ready the human in case she needed to flee from danger. All because that pesky Anxiety had intruded into his abode. He held the flame up, ignoring the sobs from his human.

“You are fine,” he repeated to the flame, his tone matter-of-fact. “You are safe. Nothing can harm you here. You are loved. You are fine.” The shaking continued, and he cursed. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Once Anxiety dug her claws into his space, all logic (no pun intended, he loathed those) flew out the window. He tried forcefully shoving Anxiety back into her space. “Don’t you see what you’ve done! Now nothing I say is going to work on her!”

Anxiety pushed back just as hard. “It’s not my fault! You have no idea what it is like having to be this on edge for days on end. Your stupid medicine doesn’t work well enough to keep me calm. So how about you do a better job of convincing me—and the human—that there’s no logical reason to be feeling this way!”

“Don’t you dare use my name like that!” The two forces pushed against one another, logic against fear, fear against logic, two powerful aspects of the human mind. The girl’s fingers danced awkwardly on her desk. Her leg jittered uncontrollably. Teeth tore at the loose skin around her bottom lip. The longer the two mental foes faced off, the less the human could sit still, swaying back and forth in her chair as Logic and Anxiety screamed at one another. All the while, the faint flame flickered dimly.

Neither mental facet seemed to notice this. Anxiety flared up with a passion, and the heartbeat got even faster in response. “No, let’s do things your way, Logic. Didn’t you just say you could make the human take something that would wipe me off the face of the brain? Why not go ahead and do that, save us all the trouble?”

Logic fumed. He began manually shutting down the parts of the brain that Anxiety was inflaming. “That is a last-ditch effort, but right now, I’m seriously considering it!”

“Oh, that would make you happy, wouldn’t it? You’d just love to get rid of anything that doesn’t fit into your perfect little box!” Anxiety’s venom flowed through the human’s veins. The human began gasping, unable to control the hammering of her heart or the tears springing from her eyes. Logic had to get things under control, and quickly.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “you are unnecessary. We already have Fear. We already have the innate instinct to survive. You are a horrible mutation that does nothing but harm those it touches. What good have you ever done the human?”

Anxiety wilted. “I…I kept her grades up. I made sure she got things done on time. I made her the best student in her school. I made her the best! What did you ever do for her, huh? Nothing, that’s what. You might have helped her reach conclusions promptly, but every human can do that. You don’t help her, not like I do. You don’t make her special!”

How could she say such a thing? He was Logic! He was what distinguished humans from apes! He was what made humans human. Of course, Anxiety couldn’t understand that. He needed to shut down any power Anxiety had. He had to wipe any intense emotion off the face of the brain. Logic set the flame down and grew until he—and only he—could stand to fit inside the grey matter.

“I am the only thing that keeps this human running,” he hissed, basking in the fear that radiated off the other facet. “I am clinical. I am impartial and unbiased. I look at facts and truth and organize it all with reason. I am the planner, the leader, the thing that the human always falls back on.” He felt the human’s brain quiet, something that neither he nor Anxiety had anything to do with. This was the human’s doing. She was no longer sobbing, and her heartbeat slowed considerably. Even her fidgeting had stopped. If Logic had a physical body, he would have patted himself on the back. A job well done. He withdrew from his constant pressure, allowing Anxiety to see the calmed human for herself.

“See?” he said, not bothering to hide his glee. “She listens to me when it matters. Watch and see the reasonable, logical next steps our brilliant human will take.”

The human stood.

The human wiped her nose on her shirt.

Her feet slid across the carpet.

She walked to her drawer.

She opened it.

She pulled out a bottle.

The bottle was filled with pills.

The human dumps them all onto her palm.

Some of them fall to the floor.

She doesn’t pick them up.

She stares at the pills, and there is only one thought in her head.

If I do this, I’ll never have to feel. I think that’s better.

Logic and Anxiety didn’t know what to say. This didn’t make sense. Logic was reason and truth and fact, and yet none of what his human had thought was correct. Anxiety was fear and panic and angst, but now her human was completely apathetic. The two mental facets looked for the flame. It was gone. It had gone out while they were arguing, the thing they were supposed to protect having died because of their brawl.

The human was not reasonable, nor was she fearful. The facets cried. They banged on the skull, they crashed against the brain, and they passed electricity over the fluids. Nothing. They had both argued their cases well. Too well. They had won the human’s favor in the worst possible way. The human should have died there. And yet there was this still, small voice, deep in the recesses of the body, hiding in some unknowable corner.

“Do you want to die?” asked Survival Instinct. “Do you want to die, because that’s what you’re deciding now, human.”

The human girl paused, dropping a few more pills as she began to shake. Anxiety was always able to see her moments to strike and now was no exception.

“What are you thinking!” she screamed. “You want to die? What is wrong with you? Something must be, no one is supposed to think something like that!”

Logic didn’t love the tone, but he couldn’t exactly argue with her right now. That had already caused enough trouble. While those two were making some progress, it would be up to Logic to put the final nail in the coffin.

“This isn’t right,” he said softly. “You can’t do what you are planning. You should call your family. Don’t let yourself be alone right now.”

The human let the entirety of the small pills fall to the floor, and she quickly collapsed next to them. She was hugging her sides, back to crying and vomiting onto the carpet as the reality of what just happened hit her. She grabbed her phone and dialed her mother, openly sobbing into the phone. The violent sadness was a million times better than the blank slate she had been moments before. Logic and Anxiety relaxed. Survival Instinct slinked back into its dark crevice.

The brain was quiet for a few seconds before Anxiety lightly chuckled. “You like metaphors.”

The comment was completely out of left field. “What?”

“We’re all parts of the human. I am you as you are me. I heard what you were thinking. ‘Put the final nail in the coffin’ is a pretty common one.”

“Oh, shut up.” There was no heat in his words. He was too relieved to start up any more fights. Deep inside the brain, underneath sinew and muscle and fluid, a flame lightly flickered back into existence. It was small, but it was there. That was all that mattered to Logic. Perhaps this event would repeat itself in the future. There was no way to tell. But he would do everything to keep the fire alive, even if it meant working with parts of himself he had sworn to never acknowledge.