The Doors Closing chime snaps Dayne out of his trance. He sat for who knows how long, staring blankly through the train windows, barely aware of the people filing in and out of the car.
Where was I the last few seconds, he thought to himself. An answer did not present itself. He slowly blinked his eyes into focus and turned his head towards his fellow passengers. He noted each individual's expression, tagged them with the names; 'nice smile', 'big nose', 'pretty eyes', 'high-maintenance', 'great legs', 'curly hair', only briefly wondering why he only gave names to the women.
Perpetual Judge, he thought. The caveman instinct within him is far better at determining the genetic deficiencies in a person than a full DNA workup. Men have been culling the women with 'superior' genes mentally for tens of thousands of years, why question the habitual nature. His reptilian brain noted the compatible mates within the crammed vehicle and passed the relevant data up the ladder to the higher brain functions, merging it with the information those neurons maintain of the fluidity of 21st Century society, '10s don't date 6s'. The simplicity of the statement is harsh enough to be true and painful enough to be followed with nearly exacting precision. Through this filter passes few of the candidates offered by the lower functions; human society has taken the fundamentals of reproduction and species propagation and has added layers upon layers of prerequisite objective and materialistic measurements and mounded on top of that endless courtship ritualism. Civilization slows evolution. After seven seconds, Dayne's two-tiered elimination round had banished all of the potentials as incompatible or unavailable.
Seven seconds, he snickered, that's exactly the interval offered to define the rate at which men think about sex; when it is actually the amount of time it takes for the male brain to classify a group of the members of the opposite sex before moving on to the next group.
The females of the species should be thankful, Dayne thought. Seven seconds is nothing but the briefest of moments, but without those seven seconds this species would go of the way of the dodo, or the carrier pigeon, or the sperm whale.
"Or did we kill off one of those," he turned his head and almost said aloud to his seat-mate.
His thought processes stopped. Seated next to him on the narrow bench seat was a woman he had somehow missed. He furrowed his brow in query, Where did you come from? His brain nearly began churning through the processes again but stumbled at the outset. 'Cute', was the only word to come to mind as his eyes quickly examined her feature set. The brain tripped on its initial objectification of the unwitting woman and had failed at procuring a noun to which it could attach the adjective cute. The brain wasn't at fault however; the heart had decided to tender its unsolicited opinion on the girl. The brain with its entire calculating prowess is no match to the power of a cardiac muscle reaction to another individual. The clinical, cold absolutism of grey matter turns to mushy hysteria when the commanding heartbeat pulsates blood to every reach of the body, demanding attention to the wholly unscientific, or at least not scientifically explained, raison d'être of the heart in matters of mate selection.
Dayne forcibly removed his eyes from his neighbor, leering at a woman is definitely a no-no in civilized society, but despite the milliseconds of capture time, the image of her was still visible silhouetted in his eyes and quickly etched itself onto his mind. Her light brown hair was short, wavy and messy from the removal of her sock hat. Her bright blue eyes were as clear as glass when seen from his vantage point at her side, and seemed to reflect and absorb all manner of light in existence. Her delicate nose had the slope of an Olympic ski ramp with a gentle curl at the tip, and pierced with a small diamond just above the nostril. Her rose-glossed, partly open lips were the impossibly perfect combination of thin and pouty; surely dangerous when turned upon an unsuspecting male.
'Cute,' again crossed his prone-stricken mind, as the brain recaptured its composure from the shock of the heart’s potent suggestion. Immediately, though sluggishly, the brain began to churn through the procedure. Slowly the body reported readiness and responded to the brain's commands; with the heart's interest in on this evaluation, special care must be taken. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Rose colored lips. Nose ring. Slender fingers (lack of wedding ring). Red hat. Black shoulder bag. Features are noted, and meticulously left unjudged, for the heart accepts no up or down approval on checklist items, only raw data. The heart rejects superfluous and societal-norm relative characterizations as meaningless and retakes control of the body; pursuing actions the brain would consider taboo in polite company. The heart is the benevolent overseer of the human body, lacking the corruption of the brain's knowledge and influences and is capable of being personally, and seeing in others, the "true person" as much as it exists in the species. The heart, and the metaphysical connection only it seems able to comprehend, has as its motive something more profound than the simple continuation of the species; it looks to provide the being over which it presides a sense of worth and security and presence which can only be achieved through the approval of the heart.
The brain carefully accumulates the information gathered by all of the sensory organs, tedious in not presuming to attribute a smell as ‘good’, or a blemish as ‘bad’, but simply as existing. The brain knows its work doesn't attribute to any decision the heart makes on an individual; the heart seems to require no real information, no true genetic data. No, the brain knows the heart uses the gathered data to, in turn, convince the brain of the assets of the candidate. The brain's approval is not necessary when the heart decides on a candidate, preferred perhaps, but not required. No, the brain knows this exercise is neither for the convincing of the heart nor for its own use, but rather for the brain to become accustomed to the potential mate, thereby making its acquiescence easier and to make the brain more malleable to the heart. Only a handful of the heart's choices had passed the brain's test for acceptability, the heart knows nothing of genetic aptitude, but the brain does what the heart feels; the brain knows what happens when it chooses alone, without the heart, pain awaits down that path, the pain of knowing life without the heart. Far more damaging is the hurt of that particular journey than that of following the heart with no compatibility match.
This instance however, is not one of those times. The brain's barrage of matching genetic markers with pre-formed ideals based both upon the lower brain attributes chosen since the before the stone age and those of modern, contemporary behaviors and society acceptability has come back green, the genetic superiority of the candidate is clear, the brain is in agreement. The heart warms. The pulse quickens. Times when such an accord is reached are occasions indeed; very few, less than a handful even, of the scores appraised over the lifetime of this decision matrix, approach the critical mass of this event so quickly.
Little in this world is as awe inspiring, or as energy shifting, as a heart and a mind in harmony. Civilizations have been created with far less, mountains moved by far less and even the most inert of matter (including man itself) can be brought into vibration by the simple, elegant synergy of heart and mind.
Dayne, his mind and body for the first time in years working in concert, turns to her, extends his hand and says,
"Hi, I'm Dayne."
"Hi, I'm Melody." She responds, taking his hand into hers.
"So, Melody, what's on your agenda for tonight?" He asks.
She smiles politely, too politely and utters, "Sorry Dayne, I'm seeing someone."
Dayne blinks, "Ah, that's cool, thanks."
The train rumbles to life and begins its trek down the infinite line of tracks. Dayne's head and eyes again turn towards the windows, staring further out into a distance than can be viewed through the city buildings and park trees. His mind again wanders out into that far-off place, searching as if for a lost pair of glasses, on hands and knees feeling nothing but cold floor beneath his fingertips, sightless.
Doors open on the right at Damen.