Brain Food -a short horror story

The brethren of the Freemason Good Hope Lodge in the little town of Taiping may well have all disagreed concerning their respective objects of interest during the course of dinner, but when it came to the subject of Brother Dr George Lim, there was the most uncommon unanimity even amongst the most fastidious nitpicker that the man in question – could always be counted never to forget his lines during his floor work. The man had a brain like a steel cage. A seemingly flawless capacity to memorize and reproduce with what can only be described as supernatural ease and incomparable fidelity, every word, punctuation and sentence on command like a human tape recorder. On numerous occasions, when a wayward brethren had either chickened out at the eleventh hour or simply failed to do his homework and decided on skip the once a month lodge meeting so as to excuse himself from discharging his duties. George was the man of the hour and tasked to stand in. According to the senior warden, he just read the passage once and thereafter performed the delivery flawlessly…..like a machine. This would be repeated time and again. There was of course no shortage of gossip concerning George seemingly limitless capacity to memorize all manner of subjects ranging from the most serious to the trivial along with faces, names, birthdays, anniversaries, tabula data, snippets of history and even the mundane along with the forgettable. When George was asked what might possibly account for his excellent memory all he did was tap his temple and whisper ‘brain food’ only to clam up like an oyster and say no more. Thereafter only the finality of George’s frozen enigmatic smile of silence put an end to further attempts to seek out a satisfactory answer. This cryptic response had the effect of setting into motion a storm of wild speculation – on one occasion when George was seen dinning on steamed Arowana fish all by himself in Kuala Sepetang. A brethren recounted this to the others, leading many in the lodge to proceed to dine on the same dish in the same restaurant, but instead of any noticeable improvements in memory retention, all they ended up with was mass diarrhea followed by a nasty bout of food poisoning….and of course a heavy bill that proved to be so injurious to their wallets and matrimonial felicity that they were all barred by their wives from ever visiting that eatery for the rest of lives under the threat of divorce. On yet another occasion when George was spotted carrying a heavy sack to the top of Maxwell Hill along the hiking trail, a brethren surmised this early morning exercise regimen was certainly the secret and again many proceeded to follow suite, only for some to suffer herniated and slipped disc and back ache that necessitated expensive visits to the chiropractor. There was however one particular brethren who went by the name of Parai Singh who remained quite aloof from the fray. As an accomplished criminal lawyer. Parai prided himself with the gift of seeing the world clearer than what he condescendingly termed lesser mortals and he remained convinced there was much more to the subject of George’s extraordinary memory than meets the eye. He had even been heard recounting to a fellow brother, I am sure George is taking some sort of mind enhancing substance to keep himself sharp as a rapier but it cant be just vitamins or just a brisk walk around Taiping lake early in the morning….Parai Singh’s conviction to unravel what he often described as that ‘delightful mystery’ led him to the extraordinary effort to engage the services of a private investigator at considerable expense with the specific instructions – find out everything about George….I want to know everything about that freak of nature. His fervor to resort to such covert methods may have been due to what he believed to be his own cognitive decline. It had started a few months after turning sixty when Parai observed much to his own consternation and others how he would often forget his keys and names and dates and places and on one particular lodge meeting, he had stumbled so pathetically on his floorwork delivery that he resembled a man who had just been rudely awakened from a nightmare only to have to go thru yet another. When he was compelled to sit down only for George to stand in to deliver the rest of his lines. This was the proverbial last straw that broke the camels back. That one singular episode presented such an effrontery to Parai Singh’s sense and sensibilities as a long serving Master of ceremonies that he could hardly bear the thought of recounting it to himself or others and as if seeking some perverse recourse for redemption Parai Singh swore to himself – his singular life long imperative must be to ferret out George’s secret…..at any price and opportunity, no matter how difficult it may be! The break thru came at the end of the week when the private investigator, a pudgy fellow who blinked at least six times before commencing a sentence mentioned that George seem to have a penchant for buying monkeys from hunters which were brought to his estate. Upon reviewing the photographs Parai Singh exclaimed in a tone of unalloyed knowingness – Yes, this must be it, did you know that in some cultures its common practice to consume monkey brain to increase one’s wisdom. The private investagor upon hearing this blinked another three times before being excused.In a rare moment of elation Parai got off his chair and mounted his desk and proceeded to dance. It was not only a victory dance, but it represented the culmination of all his worldly efforts to reverse his cognitve decline, now that he was convinced he had the truth in the palm of his hands. He planned to use it to blackmail George. At the end of one particular meeting when he caught George stepping out to take a breathe of fresh air. Parai Singh confronted George with photographs of monkeys in cages, he went directly for the jugular so mercilessly that a causal observer of what transpired that night, had there been one present might have concluded George was very much like a trembling rabbit before a terrifying cobra….for the coup de grace, Parai Singh presented George with a final ultimatum – share your secrets or I will report your penchant for dinning on illicit monkey brains to the RSPCA!

The following week as agreed. Parai Singh was invited for dinner in George’s Nibong Tebal estate. The plantation house was nestled five miles deep from the main road that were lined with a mix of coconut and palm trees. When Parai pulled up to the handsome creme colored estate house he was silently greeted by a stony faced Hainanese butler attired in a pristine white tunic who showed him to the drawing room. The room was elegantly furnished in the traditional style of a Straits settlement planter with its high ceilings that lent it an airy atmosphere from an evening breeze that blew thru the full lenght french windows that overlooked the emerald green of a well manicured lawn. Hanging on the walls were countless strange artifacts and memorabilia of an African origin. Browsing thru all these Parai surmised what many had gossiped about George must hold some measure of truth about the man – he had once overheard a knot of men at the bar of New Club mentioning that George had made an immense fortune from the dark continent as an arms merchant during the Ascension Wars in the moment of his youth. At the far side of the elegantly appointed drawing room was an archway covered by a vermilion velvet curtain, he moved towards this as if drawn by some inexplicable magnetic force and just when Parai was about to part the curtains. He suddenly froze to the sound of the stone faced Hainanese butler clearing his throat disapprovingly. At that point George made his entrance, he was attired in a work khaki bushjacket. George sensing Parai Singh’s curiousity as to what untold mysteries laid behind the heavy velvet curtain held out his hand invitingly towards the archway – please satisfy your curiosity Brother Parai, George exclaimed. When Parai drew the curtain. The first thing that struck him was the soothing hypnotic sound of glass clinking like wind chimes that came from an elegant art nouveau chandeliar resembling an oval arrangement of gravity defying glass daggers that danced languidly to the gentle evening breeze. The mix of soft yellowed light and chimes seemed almost like a mesmerizing appiration before the awe stricken Parai Singh and in the center of the room was a solitary marbled table set upon a large steel safe instead of being supported by legs.

In a while. The stony-faced butler brought out a live monkey in a noose. George handed him a golden key attached to his waist pocket. From the practised manner the stone faced butler crouched down and opened the large heavy safe beneath the table while deftly slipping the unsuspecting simian in. Parai surmised this had been repeated so many countless times that it had acquired the well oiled precision of ritual and after closing the heavy door of the safe with a soft thud, the expressionless butler stood up and bowed reverentially only to disappear behind the curtains.

Thereafter George got up and flipped opened a series of latches around the circumference of the heavy dark colored metal cover at the center of the marble table and lifted it revealing a hole while playfully tapping his temple whispering “one special order of brain food coming right up.”

Parai Singh remained singularly transfixed by the hole at the center of the table like a man who had finally discovered that which he had travelled an ocean of time in search of, his eyes widened with an indescribable collage of excitement, hopes and dreams…as he heard the slight rustling of the simian struggling somewhere beneath the table locked in the large steel safe. Parai looked on transfixed into the dark cavity. He could almost taste his reincarnation as a newly created man by sticking his tongue out like a lizard and sniffing the air in this mysterious room….right before him somewhere in that hole was salvation – as from this day onwards, he would never have to go thru the countless humiliation of forgetting names, places, faces and most importantly his beloved masonic lines ever again…then the bewildered monkey popped its head up and before it could even look around, the butler suddenly reappeared and with a practiced swing of a silver mallet struck the monkey’s head with a sharp blow to the middle of the forehead that rendered it semi conscious followed by steadying its head with a garrot. After a curt nod of approval from George. The man servant proceeded to expertly chisel around the cranium using a series of rapid taps like a drumbeat and finally peeled back the top of the animal’s head like a coconut shell to reveal its brain, gray and moist and still pulsating with all the fullness of life. George handed Parai a procelian spoon exhorting that they should tuck in while it was still warm all the while reminding Parai that he had fulfilled his part of the bargain…one serving of brain food in exchange for all the incriminating photos of the caged monkeys.

In the days, weeks and months that followed it would not be an exaggeration to say Parai Singh was handed a new lease of life. As not only had his memory improved beyond all his imagined hopes and yearnings, but he had even experienced a heightened state of consciousness that had not canaled thru his body since the moment of his youth. Strands of lush dark hair had even began to sprout like new shoots from his once barren head that resembled a dark smooth billiard ball. Even the cane that Parai regularly used to steady himself after an untimely fall during a holiday in Dubai that left him weak at the knees had been cast aside. His gait had by some miracolous force acquired the lightness of a teenager and walking could not be more joyful. He was even seen playing a vigorous game of football with the Malay boys in the Esplanade. As for his masonic duties as master of ceremonies, he had been recently recommended for promotion after a consecration of a new lodge where his floorwork was so stellar that it so impressed his fellow senior brethren who previously considered him ‘over the hill’ – Even his long suffering wife who previously looked like a sad one metric ton heap of cowdung had begun to burst out with all the fullness of life. She had begun to sport colorful dainty dresses complete with make up along with the latest hair do. She would often be heard recounting to the perpetually gossiping ladies in New Club Taiping who had all asked what might have accounted for her sudden infusion of joie de vivre only for Parai’s wife to respond coyly like a schoolgirl – you see ladies it is very simple actually, when a rose bush is tended constantly by the energetic and attentive gardener, it can only bloom with all the splendor of life……Parai Singh’s life was perfection unto itself…..so it seemed. But as the sages say, even in the seeming bliss of paradise a serpent lurks somewhere in the tall reeds. After the passing of the second month. Parai noticed a slow reversal in his fortunes. It had started with the nagging pain that had once haunted his knees returning like a thief in the night robbing him of a restful night’s sleep….if only he could remember where he stored his walking stick. His face had all but lost the freshness of youth and the dead fish parlor of his previous self stared back at him in the mirror like the return of an unwelcomed ghost. As for his memory, it was slipping thru his fingers like sand and he had been so absent minded of late that he even attended court proceedings one morning in his pyjamas, but the cruellest cut of them all was inflicted upon his knowledge that since he no longer possessed the vigor to tend to his lovely rose bush every night, his better half had begun to wither right before his eyes. Sensing his world was unravelling at the seams Paria drove frantically to George’s estate in Nibong Tebal in search for what he once found only to lose again.

As the sages say. The devil is in the details and in this case the devil was certainly lurking somewhere in the agreement forged between George and Parai where the latter had undertaken to hand over the incriminating photos of the monkeys in cages to the former in exchange for only one serving of brain food and no more…..and now Parai was standing in the drawing room flatly refusing to hand over the pictures and insisting instead on regular servings of brain food. George on hearing this let out a long sigh and turned to face Parai Singh. Then in a slow deliberate heavy voice he asked – do you Brother Parai Singh know what must come to past when one Freemason breaks his word like a twig to another?…. Parai shuddered momentarily as George stepped out of the shadows as the last lingering rays of light illuminated a single band of white streaked hair that ran across his immaculately combed head….. It reminded Parai of the glean of a diabolically handsome polished dagger. Then as if seized by a stronger undercurrent of indescrible emotions George cast his eyes beyond Parai into the far distance of the tree line of his vast estate and perhaps even further beyond the yonder to perhaps some distant tragic memory buried deep in the bowels of the dark continent where even angels feared to thread, it was only after a terribly long pause when the last rays of the dying sun had fully extinguished that George lowered his head and smiled to himself and broke out at first into a whimpering snigger that eventually gathered pace into an uncontrollable chuckle only to finally culminate in a rapturous crescendo of laughter that echoed thru out the cavernous estate house. When George had finished, he continued in a soft sympathetic tone of equanamity – Yes, you are so very right my dear Parai, once a man partakes of the mysteries of brain food, its impossible for him to ever go back to staid Mee Goreng (spicy fried indian noddles commonly served in Malaysia and Singapore). Its just impossible. I understand, believe me I do. I understand completely. Besides now that the cat is out of the bag. I must confess that I feel some what relieved as I cant think of anyone more suitable than you my dearest Parai who I rather share this secret with. Then breaking out in a school boy chuckle. George continued. Tell you what my dear Parai I want you to join me for another spot of brain food this very evening, but before dinner we should at least consecrate our secret pact with a toast with my best cellared wine. Hardly had George finished. Parai heard a bottle being uncorked in a discreet corner of the drawing room by the stony face Hainanese butler who had till then stood motionless melting into the wall, who now proceeded swiftly to serve two glasses of wine on a silver platare. Parai was over the moon as he emptied the glass with the full satisfaction that he had played his cards so very well that evening.

When Parai Singh opened his eyes. He suddenly found himself crouching naked in darkness. He was in such a tight place that he could barely move as all around him he felt the enclosure of four walls of cold steel pressing tightly against every part of his body. His first instinct was to scream for help and suddenly he heard a series of unlatching sounds above him. Then a soft yellow light poured in from above a circular hole and this was accompanied by the most delightful sound of windchimes. As soon as Parai raised his head thru the hole before he could even say a word, he felt an almighty blow to his forehead.

In the weeks following the unfortunate demise of Parai Singh who was involved in a car accident that ploughed so violently into the front end of the bayhoe that it sheered of the entire roof section of the car and sliced off the top portion of the deceased skull cleanly. During a visit to George in his Nibong Tebal estate. Many brethren in the Good Hope Lodge extended their condolences to Parai Singh’s family and whenever the subject of the dearly departed master of ceremonies of the Good Hope Lodge surfaced as it often did when the last of the bottles had been emptied in the dead of the night long after a meeting. George could often be seen staring into the night sky in deep thought. From time to time, he would lament to the others in a tone of solemnity and sorrow…… Brother Parai Singh was the most delightfully open minded freemason that I have ever had the rare privilege to know…..may I the lowly fellowcraft George Lim implore the Grand Geometrican of the Universe in his infinite wisdom to perserve his sweet and delicious brain till we next meet in the lodge upstairs high up in the stars….Sorry I meant delectable memory and let his spirit live on in our hearts forever. Only for the rest to chorus so mote it be.

Author’s Disclaimer: This short horror story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

(This document does not have an EP code at the time of publication. It is currently classified as a ‘draft copy’ filed under the heading ‘Straits Plantation Tales’ – authored by Dr G.Chong. kindly note readers an EP code is currently in the process of world wide generation by Eukanaba, for further info contact your read club admin 2025 / F990293882017443 Taiping)