Username: Piggg
Word Count: 2616
Title of Entry: In the Fugue
Entry:
In the darkness, my mind whirls. Some days, I lie there and remember. I’ll pick an age or a grade or a year and go through everything I can remember. These memories become so stale. I’ve gone over them so many times, I can’t tell if I’m remembering what happened or what I’ve become accustomed to recalling. Other days, I make things up. I start with a book I read when I was young and I begin to imagine. The Thousand and One Nights is my favorite. I can picture myself as any number of things: the prince sailing the seven seas after being cast out by his father, the all-powerful fairy who saves only the righteous men, or the king’s daughter who is inadvertently sacrificed to save the protagonist. But even that grows old.
In the end, there is nothing new or fresh or original left in my head. There is only a past and no future. In the end, there is just me laying on a cot in a darkened cell blinking my eyes, always being somewhat surprised that opening my eyes does nothing to change what I see. There is only darkness.
The tray of food comes in without a sound. The trapdoor they use is completely discrete. It lets in no light and makes no noise whatsoever. The only way I know I’ve been fed is when I inevitably trip over the tray.
The food isn’t bad. It’s repetitive, but not bad. I eat the stew and use the roll to soak up what’s left. I reach out for the cup of water and as I fumble for it, I feel it: the small capsule in the little plastic dish. A wave of nervous nausea climbs through my chest. There was a time when I feared the capsules and a time when I looked forward to them. Now, I dread them. They are too tempting. Even the worst are in a sick way pleasurable. They make the daily darkness all that much harder to return to. But I have no choice. Until I swallow it, there will be no more food or water.
I place it on my tongue, raise the water to my lips, and swallow.
I move back to the cot and lay down. Although it makes no difference, I close my eyes and wait for the quick snap of vertigo, the sense of falling.
* * *
I turn on the radio and tune it to the classic rock station. They’re playing Queen. I start humming along and eventually I’m singing.
Bicycle, bicycle, I want to ride my bicycle.
I get out a cutting board, open up the refrigerator, and take out a bag of carrots and two bell peppers. I rinse them and start slicing. I shake my hips a little to the music and then laugh at myself. I’m stupid when I’m home alone.
I hear the dog bark out in the yard.
Buster! I call. Knock it off.
He doesn’t. I wipe my hands on my apron and go to the window. I shield my eyes from the desert light. Come on, buddy, either quiet down or come back in. Buster looks back at me, whimpers, and then comes bounding in. I rub his ears and his back and then I go back to the counter. You want a carrot, Buster? I ask.
He wags his tail and I toss him one. He sniffs it, paws at it a few times, and then settles down to eat it. I go back to chopping.
I’ve developed a significant heap of vegetables when the knife slips and suddenly there is blood. There’s no pain at first, and then there’s a moment of recognition. Buster is barking and part of my thumb is off. Most of the first joint – off. I grab it off the cutting board and then drop it in shock that this body part has been sliced off.
An involuntary scream comes out of me and then I run for the phone, fumbling as I dial with on hand. I’m bleeding everywhere. It’s on the counter, the floor, my apron, my shoes. Pain is radiating and I drop the phone. I grab a dishrag from over the sink and press it to my stump of a thumb. I pick up the phone again and realize I don’t know who I’m calling.
I look down the hall and realize I don’t know where it leads. I pause. I don’t know what dish I was making that called for diced peppers and carrots and I don’t know who even lives here with me.
I’ve hit the break.
Everything stops and melts away back to blackness.
* * *
I’m back in the cell. My thumb is whole, there is no blood, but my heart is still pounding. I relax. And then my heart starts to throb for the dog. I never had a dog named Buster. I never had any dog. But I miss the warmth, the contact. I wish I had just spent a little more time petting him. Maybe he would have licked my face.
I stop myself. There’s no point dwelling over the false memories.
The speaker in the corner of the ceiling crackles.
“Is the patient ready for her post-test interview?” it asks me.
“The patient is ready,” I reply. I used to be snarky and say things like “the lab rat is ready,” or “the inmate is ready” but they elicited no response. The voice would just repeat itself over and over again until I responded correctly.
The questions for this test are short and simple. When did I notice the pain? Right before dropping the phone. When did I notice the dog barking? Same time.
“Thank you, patient.” The loudspeaker dies.
I roll over onto my side. They were probably testing the hormones the brain produces while in shock and in pain. How they affect a human’s ability to think clearly, to notice what is going on around her.
I force myself to open my eyes, to accept the blackness around me and forfeit the sunny reality I was just offered.
I have never met the source of the voice, or the scientists who prepare my tests. My only interaction with them has, in fact, been through the tests.
I remember my first one.
It wasn’t a capsule that transported me. They just put the drug directly into my food, correctly assuming that I wouldn’t trust a capsule. It was startling the first time. I was eating, and then I was sliding into the floor, melting into the cement.
Bright lights.
I was seated in a dentist’s chair in a small white room. A man, dressed much like a dentist, sat in front of me in a desk chair. There was no desk. Nothing but the two of us in our respective seats.
“Welcome,” the dentist said. “You are now a patient at a research facility and there are several things I need for you to understand.”
He spoke for a long time. He explained to me that there are certain experiments neurologists need to conduct, but they cannot be done on a person because they are too damaging. He did not specify whether the damage would be physical or psychological. But, thanks to groundbreaking developments, it is now possible to simulate these damaging situations. These tests would be voluntary. All I had to do was swallow a capsule that would be presented to me at selected meals. The tests were non-invasive, completely safe, and beneficial to mankind. “Think of the potential for progress,” the dentist said.
There were many things that were not mentioned. It was not mentioned that if I did not volunteer, I would not be fed. I was not told how long I would be held at the facility. I was not told what had become of the others in my crew. They never told me that they had already plumbed my memories and that bits and pieces of them would be used in these tests. After all, how else could they measure my reactions as I attend the funeral of a lifelong friend or discover that in my absence, my fiancé has cheated on me?
No, the key things were never illuminated. Just useless trivia. My cell is kept “stimuli-free” so that the tests seem vivid and real in comparison. Every object is bolted down so I cannot distract myself with it. The walls and floor soften to the pliability of rubber when hit with large amounts of force so that I cannot accidentally harm myself.
I pull myself out of this memory. There is no use dwelling on it. There is no use dwelling on anything.
I find myself tired from the test and I drift off into sleep.
* * *
Flames, screams, a shrill siren, silence. An impact.
* * *
I wake covered in sweat, the crash still pounding through my head. I dream it most nights. I think this is the memory that the scientists would most like to recreate. It is more vivid and real than anything than can fabricate. There is the fear for my life, for the lives of those around me, and the adrenaline, all coupled with the crippling knowledge of how this ends. A crash in enemy territory. Being taken as prisoners of war and then this. But I think they are too intimidated to measure me living through this. Maybe it would make them feel guilty for what they’ve done to me. It might make me into a human being.
I get up off the cot and feel around for breakfast. It’s there on the floor and it’s cold. I eat it anyway. I make it last. Taste and touch: the only stimuli they haven’t taken away from me.
I exercise after breakfast. It’s my routine. I walk one hundred laps around the cell and then I stretch. I do push-ups and sit-ups and planks and I try to do all the yoga I can remember from a few classes I took once when I was dating a hippie. I push myself further everyday, savoring progress I can actually track. I push myself from up-facing dog to down-facing dog.
My dog. Buster.
A wave of anger pushes through me as I catch myself mixing my memories with the false aberrations they plant in my head. I lunge up from my inverted position and pound my fist against one of the four walls. It yields a bit to my hand, which pisses me off even more. I kick it and slam my head up against it and let out a short scream of rage.
And then I see it. A slim crack of light just about a foot up from the floor. I dive to my knees. It’s an anomaly, a break, an error, an opportunity. I run my hands over it, letting my fingertips feast on it. And then I push. The wall yields and as it bends away from me to make up for the pressure I exert, the crack grows wider. I jam both of my hands into this opening and push at it, pull at it, trying to make it grow.
I pull away. The wall hardens, but the break is larger, it’s brighter. My heart pounds and I go at it again and again until the crack is easily three feet long and inches wide. I can see out of it. There is another room out there, and it’s not a cell. It’s a hallway.
I kick the crack again, and this time my foot goes the whole way through. I can feel a breeze. I pull it back into the cell and stick my head through instead. It’s beautiful. The walls are painted beige and the tiles on the floor are white with blue and green flecks. Fluorescent lights illuminate the passageway, and when I look to my left, I see a red exit sign. I push and manage to pull my arms through, and by using every ounce of strength in me, I yank my hips past and then let my legs and feet fall through as well.
I am lying in a heap in a well-lit hallway and no one is around. I rise carefully and then without giving it another thought, I run towards the exit sign. It points around the corner, to the left. I walk quickly and then I start to run, following the signs and thanking God that I have not seen anyone yet.
I come to a double door, the metal kind with the push-bars in the middle. I shove against the right side and it opens easily.
Sunlight. Grass. A parking lot. I can see a chain link fence, but it’s only waist high. I walk casually now, trying not to attract attention, and in so few steps I am there, at the perimeter, and then I am over it. I am walking along the side of the road.
A road. So absurd. There are roads in enemy territory. As I walk, I try to think of where I should go. I know I should try to make it across the border, out of this forsaken country. I think my best bet is north. I come to an intersection and I look to the sky, trying to see where the sun is.
I turn around in a circle with my head craned back, looking for the sun. Then I look down. There are trees, but they have no shadows. There is no sun. I look down each direction of the intersection and I realize that they go nowhere. I drop to my knees. I consider for a second letting a guttural cry of despair rip from my chest, but I am too tired, too defeated.
Things fade and a tinny voice comes over the loudspeaker.
“The patient has just experienced the new time-release test drug. Is she ready for her post-test interview?”
I don’t respond. I just quiver in anger.
“The patient has just experience the new time-release test drug. Is she ready for her post-test interview? The patient has just experienced - ”
“Yes,” I say. I don’t listen to the questions. I just say yes every time the voice stops.
* * *
There is no peace anymore. There is no distraction in pleasant memories or fairytales. The tests come over me with no warning anymore. They come while I sleep, while I eat, while I pace the length of the room. They fade with the same subtlety. No longer am I trapped in the dark, but in a strange fugue of light and sound and raging emotions. I am confronted by angry tigers and packs of wolves, the old flight simulator from school, and rapists in black alleys. Interspersed are carnivals and hikes in the mountains. My first kiss played over and over. Sometimes the endings to these are perverted. His lips are on mine, and then he is strangling me. The sun is beating down on the trail, and then flames erupt from the trees. I die dozens of times.
I welcome the blackness. It is infrequent now.
When it comes, I run my hands along the edges of the cell. I savor the sharpness of the corners and the way the texture of the concrete shifts when I push against it. I blink my eyes and find that it is all the same. This is real. Outside this room, there is nothing. Perhaps there never was anything before, but I know for sure that there will never be anything else in the future. Only the blackness is to be trusted.