Part 3

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The next morning my friend had left to give a lecture at the university. I sat at the window alone sipping slowly on my coffee and a curious thing happened. I found that I couldn't focus on the sea of people as I do every day. I noticed helplessly that my mind continued to return to the happenings of last night. My innocuous curiosity begat a less gentle fixation.

Shortly I found myself staring in wonder at the large case sitting in the corner of his room. It was curiously oblong in shape. I lifted the lid with a considerable effort only to drop it again in shock. I had peered in to find the body of a man floating in formaldehyde.

After recovering my senses I reopened the box and found the other end of the strange device connected to the skull of the cadaver. Upon closer inspection I found that the wire was attached to the temporal cortex of the brain. It was here that I came to the realization that last night my friend's convulsive fit was due to an overload of the brain. He had been sharing memories with the dead!

The next morning I awoke to find A---- back in his perch upon the stool before the window. Dawn's light hadn't yet meandered in and the empty beer bottles still told the tale of the previous night. Bodily I threw myself into the seat across the table and my friend jumped with a start.

"I take it that you planned to leave a dead man in our house without telling me?"

That glimmer of the eye betrayed his cool voice, "Ah, so you found my research partner! Lovely bloke... Not nearly as talkative as the company I'm used to keeping though."

I did my best to suppress a wayward grin. "Your friends down at the university are taking good care of you, aren't they? Few men have access to a morgue my friend. I would imagine you had to pull a few strings to get a hold of that body."

"Aye, a few."

With this he set out into the early morning air; an uneasy sense of mystery in his wake.

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