#finishthestory Week 38: Feelings, Nothing More than Feelings
Once again, we have a #finishthestory contest brought to you by @f3nix and @bananafish
“The Taste of Chicken” by @f3nix "What do you feel now?" The scalpel of a monotonous voice, cold as the halogen light blinding him.
"Let me go".
A sudden electric shock followed and almost broke the arched vertebrae of the specimen n. 19-B, while penetrating his limbs.
"What do you feel?"
"The ... the taste of a chicken".
Dense whispering, silent annotations, white everywhere.
He was floating in that white, for hours, perhaps days. Subtle lines, at the corners of his eyes. The last bulwark of Euclidean geometries. Over him, the ceiling was like an enormous virus. Not alive, not dead. Up there, all the gluttony of a pulsating white blasphemy was unfolding over his impotent being. A dodecaphony, ever hungry of new semitones in the musical scale of his moribund ego.
He felt his soul's entrails slowly peeled like an onion. That non-color was slipping inside him, like a sickly glucose sludge, inside every cavity, along every neuron, hair, capillary. It was a profound evil, different from pain. Pain is a vowel. If you're good enough, you can observe it from the outside of yourself till you inevitably lose consciousness.
That, instead. That was nothing less than a grinding profanation of his soul.
"Now. Some feelings?"
"Feeeeeeelings ..." was the mumbled answer, the sound resembling the broken lung of a deflating accordion.
Silent annotations following.
The synaptic stimulation was proceeding well, soon they could present the product to Mother Unit. It was said that, in prehistoric times, the human being populated the nano-swarm, when it was still called Earth. According to certain niche schools of thought, this.. thing.. could have been at the top of the food-chain. Go figure.
A new product, very efficient in its own way and not missing that pleasant touch of chaoticness, this human. No doubt that the Mother Unit would have liked it and find it entertaining, if not even useful.
The chief demiurge gently closed the skullcap of the specimen n. 19-B and left the room with its cohort of servile apprentices in tow. Enough for today.
by @Michaias
Minutes later, Specimen n. 19-B heard the familiar whoosh of doors opening and closing. The patter of feet approached. 19-B inhaled. He knew the ritual. The demiurges were done; it was time for children to play.
Their tiny fingers dug into the incision around his skull. A soft sucking sound reverberated through his sinuses as his skullcap popped off. 19-B heard fumbling bodies, followed by the suction-like splat of his skullcap landing on the floor. 19-B winced.
“No, you pick it up,” a tinny voice whispered.
“No. You!” another insisted.
“Okay, we’ll both pick it up.”
19-B heard them shuffle into position. He imagined their grimy fingers tangling into the hair of his severed scalp. A moment later, another splat.
“Ewwww!!” a child hissed.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“No, not yet,” the first said. “I want to touch it.”
“No. Mmhn-uhn.”
Despite his friend’s protests, the first child approached--slowly, until he hovered over 19-B’s supine body.
As the chief interpreter of all nervous system input, the brain itself lacks sensory receptors. It is the author of pleasure, pain, disappointment, and shame, but it the brain itself remains ironically oblivious to any direct sensory input.
But the head can feel.
Pressure mounted in 19-B’s sinuses. His ear canals felt bloated. At the back of his head came the downward force of too eager tiny hands, and the sound of squishing gray matter brought 19-B to the verge of vomiting.
19-B shouted in frustration. He jolted. Startled, the child backed away, and the pressure in 19-B’s skull subsided. The children scampered away, not bothering to replace his discarded skullcap.
19-B laughed uncontrollably, then wept pitifully. He was a scientist--or rather, had been a scientist. Now, he was a lab rat.
Truthfully, he no longer knew how many of his memories had been invented, scrambled, or even genetically encoded with science beyond his comprehension. Most days, he was certain he was just another clone dumped from an assembly line.
What a cosmic joke that his species, with its positivist scientific bias, its playful curiosity, should fall victim to another species just as vicious. Was this the fate of all advanced beings? To torture, maim, and murder, all in the name of science?
Wasn’t this all just a Grand Experiment, then?
An hour later, the whooshing doors announced an aide’s entrance. She spotted 19-B’s fallen skullcap. She mumbled unconvincing apologies in between musings on “ethical and dignified treatment of subjects.”
The aide hovered over 19-B, turning his skullcap in her hands. She blew dust off the sticky side of the rim, then secured it back onto his head. In a voice one effects for dogs or babies, she assured 19-B she would see to securing the door. Satisfied with her good deed and even better intentions, the aide whisked out of the room. Again, 19-B lay in darkness with nothing but his manufactured thoughts for company.
[Photo by oldskool photography on Unsplash]
That's killing them with kindness. LOL
The 39th Edition stands ready for another journey through dreams and imagination. You've until next Wednesday to weave your tale. Will you share your story with us once again?
I'm wrapping my head around it. Thanks for the call to action, oh Potassiumed One!
..Gregorian chant in the background..
Ah, the field museum example of torture. Poor sap had to experience it all, play the same memories on loop, feel the same objects in the list of randomness and get pity help from the aide. All is pain, very Schopenhaurian I say. Like the person wished to never be borned, desires to be free and gets pain from both what causes it and clinging on fruitlessly to a free life. Must say the poor sap cannot be faltered even on the line of what even comes out.
For it doesn’t even have the conscious security to feel differentiable and definite. Instead it feels lonely and estranged for its life will begin and end with experimentation, regardless of where it truly came from. A horrid life it lived and a horrid life it’ll continue to do so.
Reminds me much of the “untold” fate of VG characters that “lose” a game. And his species lost the biggest game of all. So much that it’s indistinguishable their current self to the things they dominted all those years ago. Now comes this pseudo-tolerant culture that can humiliate and never get called out for it, yet at the same time demands that no one judges them. Hypocrisy at the helm, but the blade lies not.
I had a sense of repulsion, which is quite uncommon if you know me. I'm repelled and admired about the direction you took. There's evidence of mastery in your detailed and clear writing style. You also have the capability of embedding the story with non-banal ethical reflections, irony, and paradoxes on mankind's nature. Also, in doing this there's never that common tradeoff between musings and plot at the disadvantage of the second. Instead, what I see is a plot enriched and reinforced by the existential questions of the third person omniscient you chose. This is a clear example of a though piece where the raw scenes are functional to convey a message and make the reader think. My same way, when I write, to intend horror and in general "strong" passages.
Here are some of the key points which I took into consideration for my analysis:
ewwwwwww! terrifying
Right!? I'm glad it had the intended effect. @f3nix's story creeped me out, so I thought I'd share the joy of that creepiness with you all. :o)