The cerebellum, or little brain, is also known geographically as the hindbrain. While not part of the brain stem, it is connected to the stem. It lies in the lower back part of the skull and regulates equilibrium and coordination of muscular movement and balance in walking. Injury here creates a staggering gait, palsy and slurred speech.
“ This shit may be helpful but it's written in such a boring manner,” he told himself. “There has to be something more lively on the subject.” He shook his head over this and surfed off toward another site.
He came across something on the “cosmic connection” of the mind, and this phraseology instantly caught his attention. Surfing through, he read:
Mind is the factor inherent in and underlying all things in the universe. In varying degrees, we find it present everywhere, even though some psychologists have denied its existence, dismissing mind as a mistake of language-that it was a semantical blunder to have put a name to it. Still, there exists a kind of psychic life that abides not only in mankind and animals but in plants, and in ail (so-called) inanimate ents (units of existence) or entities. This leads us to ask about the universal ocean of consciousness from which our minds are mere drips…
“ Drips indeed. Now that's interesting,” McPherson said to the screen. “We're all a bunch of drips.” His laughter caught the ear and the ire of a desk librarian, who now squinted vulturelike in his direction.
The Krandal family home, Calvert City, Iowa Same evening
Seventeen-year-old Jill Krandal opened the website she had become fascinated with, logging on as Chix whix. She had a soft drink and potato chips beside her, and she had settled in for a long party with others to chat about brainy matters on the Net. She hadn't logged on for a long time. She wanted to see if Surreal and Motor mouth might be online tonight with their funny remarks about the brain-Got brains?
They all agreed that the Webmaster was weird, but that didn't matter. If he really ate cat and dog brains, and if he really did once steal brains from humans in their graves- children-who cared? If he was allowed to set up this website and talk about cannibalizing brains, then it must be all right, she reasoned.
Still, she knew her parents would put an end to it, if they knew. She just liked the chat room and topics provided there. She didn't take the Webmaster seriously, and she and her friends online guessed that he had a problem with telling the truth.
Her heart leapt when she made contact with Surreal. She keyed in:
CHIXWHIX: Surreal… How've you been? Whataya hear from Motor mouth?
SURREAL: Hey there Chixie-wixie. Nothing from Motor, but lots from that guy who keeps hitting on me.
CHIXWHIX: What's he want?
SURREAL: Says he wants to get together.
CHIXWHIX: That Seeker guy? Don't even think about it. He hits on me, too.
SURREAL: Did he offer you a way out of Calvert City?
CHIXWHIX: Whataya mean?
SURREAL: He wants to send me a bus ticket, and it's tempting.
CHIXWHIX: Don't be a fool, Surreal.
SURREAL: I hate Lynchburg as much as you hate Iowa.
CHIXWHIX: A ticket to where?
SURREAL: He said anywhere I'd care to meet him.
CHIXWHIX: Don't do it, Surreal.
SURREAL: Wouldn't you do it? Use the ticket if he sent it to you?
In Calvert City, Jill stopped typing long enough to consider the question. Then she adamantly keyed in her reply:
CHIXWHIX: No, and you shouldn't either!
SURREAL: One way to get outta this hick town and away from my mom.
CHIXWHIX: You could be raped or murdered. Would that make you happy?
SURREAL: You've been watching too many repeats of UNSOLVED MYSTERIES. Don't worry. I'd be too chicken anyway.
CHIXWHIX: Promise?
SURREAL: All right already!
CHIXWHIX: Meantime, have you seen what Daryl the dick-head put on his news page?
SURREAL: No what?
CHIXWHIX: A photo of a G-D brain part!
SURREAL: I gotta go take a look. Be right back.
CHIXWHIX: I'll be waiting. Want to hear your reaction.
Canton, New York Same night
DAVID Byrd, superintendent for the Canton Public Schools, pulled his glasses from his eyes and tried to fathom what he was reading on his computer screen. It did not make a lot of sense, but it sounded an alarm in his head. This trash he was looking at might entice young minds. He had been hearing about a strange fascination many of his students at Canton had developed over a computer website. Word of mouth had fueled like a brushfire, and Byrd had pried information out of a problem kid who wore dark clothes, bleached his hair and sported jewelry and a tattoo. As a result, Superintendent Byrd had stayed late at the office to take a look at the Web page.
The page was filled with strange and disjointed information on the workings of the human brain and its relationship to the more spiritual mind, and how to expand the power of one's own brain by consuming the brains of other “ents” or “units of creation”-from chickens and other animals and even plants that “dream as we do.”
This immediately disturbed Byrd. He read on, wondering what steps he could take to bring an end to this frightening message board and newsletter, which even reported on the doings of the serial killer known as the Skull-digger the way others kept abreast of baseball and football players.
He scanned the reports and got to the Webmaster's explanation of why the Skull-digger fed on his victim's gray matter:
The Skull-digger knows about the cosmic mind. There is a thing we call the universal soul, and a gradation of mind in nature determined by varying degrees of awareness. The Skull-digger is more aware than any of us that there is a potency of mind from atoms to galaxies, and that all units of creation lead us closer to touching God in the sense that we touch on the universal mind. Such a touch or a glimpse will infuse us with a transcendent mind-aura beyond anything we might dream.
Mind even manifests itself in stone and other inanimate objects from particles to crystals and stars. Higher on the mind scale, we come to the mind that dreams in plants and proto-biological ents like viruses and amoeba. Unlike the inanimate, these ents are characterized by a vital mind devoted to metabolism, growth, reproduction and decay.
Finally comes the mind we see in animals, operating by means of organized neuro-atomic elements through senses and instinct. These we can consume in a symbolic and sometimes a real sense. In doing so, we have an opportunity to glimpse into the universal cosmic mind from which all minds were formed.
Superintendent Byrd took a moment to gather his breath and sip his coffee, which had gone cold. He girded himself and read on:
In other words, your present awareness is only a narrow band in a vast galaxy of mind awareness. You must learn to expand it. You do this by various means, and the Skull-digger is at the farthest end of that scale. You don't have to go out and kill someone for his/her brain in order to expand your conscious awareness of the universal soul. There are safer routes. I know because I spent time in prison for stealing brain matter from graves, but-
Superintendent Byrd recoiled at this last statement. “These are the rantings of a lunatic,” he said aloud. “I've got to expose this for what it is.” He wondered how widespread this bizarre site had become. He wondered where he might start to voice his objections: local authorities? State or federal officials? Scrolling down, he realized the man's rantings went on for limitless pages. He saw the photo of the Island of Rheil, the supposed center of the soul of an animate being-no, a human being! And he scanned the discussion on what this tissue from the brain meant. It was all madness. He determined to contact the local FBI and have their experts look at this.