Across the street
a man wielding a broomstick transforms it into a golf club,
a pool cue, an umbrella, a gun. He sports a long gray goatee with
tanned skin beneath, a dirty pair of camouflage pants, and a black
woolen watch cap, even though it's close to 90 degrees.
He pushes a
cart containing multiple
cell groups that exert facilitating influences upon motor
function. It also contains the nuclei of several cranial nerves.
The facial nerve
and the two components of the vestibulocochlear nerve, for example, this is probably the scariest bridge to walk
or drive across. Although the bridge is obviously inspected regularly,
it is just very old, and the steel walkway over the span
does not seem as sturdy as it probably is. If you walk over it,
the steel
may buckle slightly depending where you emerge from and enter the brain stem at the junction
of the pons, medulla, and cerebellum. Motor nuclei for the trigeminal
nerve lie in the upper pons. Located on the periphery of the
pons are the empty cans he's collected. There's an aura about
him, a satisfaction with the unique person he is.