~~~
“Good evening, Mr. Foster.” The door opened and shut. I held back the urge to open my eyes and search for him, sensing the light still in front of me.
“No it isn’t.” Can’t let him see how scared I am. Maybe he wants me to be scared before he kills me. “I’m tied down to a psycho’s bed for God knows what. Just get on with it, okay?”
Metal shifted, slid across counters. “I observe that you went against my advice yesterday, and attempted to escape. I hope that you did not overly injure yourself.”
How the hell can he tell that from there? I thought about cracking my eyes open to look at my wrist, but refrained. It must look like hell if he can see it across the room.
Small clangs as he placed things onto…a metal sheet? A tray?
“Have you heard of Lamarck? A predecessor of the famous Charles Darwin.”
I didn’t move. My stomach gurgled, and, for the first time, I became aware of the ache gnawing at me. When was the last time I ate? Is he going to feed me, or let me starve to death?
“I thought as much.” Footsteps came towards me, and a light warping of metal near my head. Liquid sloshing. “Education these days is sorely lacking. Overaccessibility of information makes it so that young people don’t realize its value anymore.”
What the hell is he talking about? My captor’s voice filled my ears, almost drowning out the other sounds. He can’t be that old. The memory of his hands from the previous visit flashed across my mind. His hands weren’t even wrinkled.
Something cold touched the crook of my right arm. The sensation forced my eyes open; those same hands were applying a cotton ball to the forearm muscle, spreading a cold fluid that smelled strong and familiar.
Alcohol. I shut my eyes again.
“Lamarck believed that organisms could pass on acquired traits to their offspring, that, for example, a giraffe could, by stretching its neck to reach better food, have children with longer necks. When Darwinian evolution became accepted, Lamarck was ridiculed. His ideas are now taught as classic examples of mistaken science.”
His fingers brought the ball up toward the clotted cuts in my wrist, and the stinging of the alcohol drew a hiss and wince from my lips. “My apologies, Mr. Foster. These look fairly deep. I need to make sure they don’t become infected.”
The cotton fibers scraped the blood clots, sending spasms that made my hands clench. I ground my teeth together, trying to keep my face smooth. “Isn’t this supposed to be a clean lab or something? Do you really need to do that?”
“Of course I do. It removes doubt that any significant effects are due to the experimental variable, you see.” After what seemed to be forever, he removed the alcohol swab. “Now, please understand that I wanted that to sting, Mr. Foster.”
My eyes opened a crack before I regained control of them, holding them closed against the light. “Why?”
“Punishment for your escape attempt, I suppose. For disregarding my advice. I found it fitting that you should feel pain while I tended the wounds.” A metallic scraping sound filled my ears, steel on steel. “But trust me, I am not here to observe your suffering. You will feel nothing as I work.”
All sensation left my body. I couldn’t feel the bed beneath me, or the cuffs on my hands and feet, or the heat of the lamp burning into my face. The shock drew my eyes open again, and this time the overwhelming light did not force them closed.
“I would advise against staring into the lamp, Mr. Foster.” My head turned toward the voice; his head was still obscured, but I could see the light glinting off of the medical knife in his hand. “While you may not feel anything, damage can surely be done to your eyes.”
“Who are you?” I moved my fingers and toes, trying to feel something; I could sense their movement, but no friction, no touch of any kind registered on my skin. “How are you doing this?”
“With the tools available to me, as would any scientist.” The blade came down, resting on my forearm. “Please observe closely.”
My brain recoiled in shocked horror as I watched, but did not feel, the sharp edge part my skin and muscle tissue. He cut all the way down to the bone, blood flowing around the knife, and lengthened the incision until it reached the cuff at my wrist. As he worked, he would stop to dab the extra blood with a towel, then continue.
This is a dream. The thought was sudden, but comforting. How else can he be cutting into my arm and I don’t feel it? I must still be asleep, and this part is a dream. Maybe I’m drugged or something and haven’t woken up yet. Maybe—
Steel clinked on steel again. “As you can see, your muscles are quite well developed for your age, Mr. Foster. You take good care of yourself, spend time exercising, maintain a healthy diet.” His hands dipped into the incision and worked their way down the same path as the knife, peeling the flesh back from the skeleton. “I’ve avoided cutting any major blood vessels, so you needn’t be concerned about hemorrhage or excessive bleeding. Coupled with the avoidance of trauma caused by your…anesthesia, you should experience minimal negative effects from the procedure.”
“You’re insane, you know that?” I tried to pull my hand away, but the fingers and forearm wouldn’t respond. “You’re a goddamn psycho! Let me go! Let me—“
“That’s enough. Be silent.” The words stole my tongue again, and my mouth and throat could no longer form sounds. “Your verbal stress could damage the experiment.”
Like I give a damn! I couldn’t keep my eyes shut; the thought of what he might do if I wasn’t looking kept my attention on him. I could see the white of my forearm bone underneath the blood.
“Good, strong connective tissue.” His fingers continued to poke and pry at the incision, and he took a deep breath, inhaling through his nose. He drew a fingertip across part of the bone. “There’s an old injury here. I would estimate the healing at twelve years. Am I correct? Did you break this playing sports?”
His eyes flicked over. “Answer, Mr. Foster.”
Like hell I will! “You’re right about the time, but not about the sports.” Now my tongue was working against my will, forming truths I never intended to speak. “I tumbled out of an apple tree when my best friend jumped at me. We both landed on the ground, but he fell on my arm and broke it.”
“So prosaic!” A deep chuckle reached my ears. “I sometimes long for the white lies of yesteryear, the fish stories that everyone knew were false but permitted anyhow.” The fingers withdrew from my arm.
This is insane. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It was my arm, but removed from me—like a movie, or video game—and I had no control of it. To be fair, I don’t have much control over anything right now.
As if to make that clear, the voice spoke again. “You are fortunate in more than one respect, Mr. Foster. I have already completed my studies on the relationship between pain and the will, and so I need not subject you to what I’m sure is rather terrific agony.”
I tried to speak. “…Thanks.”
“So, let us begin.” He leaned down to my arm, and, for the first time, I could see his face. His hair was thin, blond, and his nose pointed. The white light made his skin shine, and his lower lip trembled as he examined me. “I want you to concentrate on closing this injury, if you will.”
Wait, what?
“Go on.”
I shook my head. “I…I don’t understand. What are you doing? Why—?”
“Please don’t start with those questions again, Mr. Foster. I enjoy your company much more when you are not speaking inanities.” He waved me off with a blood-covered glove. “Just focus on the injury and concentrate on healing the flesh.”
“That’s…that’s impossible. No one can heal just by thinking about it.”
He sighed. “Mr. Foster, you will now begin to feel sensation in your arm again.” As he said the words, they came true—my arm tingled, and I could sense the metal on my wrist and the mattress on my skin. “In a few seconds, your nociception—forgive me, your ability to perceive
pain—will return. You will be screaming a few moments after that, then incapacitated and in shock. The shock may kill you.”
I started to hyperventilate.
“Or, you can simply agree to fully participate in the experiment.” The incision site began to itch.
“All right!” I screwed my eyes shut. “Fine! Just…just don’t let it hurt.”
“Very well.” The sensations remained, but the itching subsided. “Now, as I said, concentrate on healing the injury. Imagine the wound knitting back together, the skin sealing shut, the muscle reconnecting…”
I did as he asked. I pictured the bone-white being covered over again by blood and tissue. My other senses dulled until my entire consciousness was focused on that wound. I could feel the individual cells kissed by the air, feel them stretching out for each other, feel…
“That should be enough.” A scratch of pen on paper broke my reverie, and I looked his way. “Quite excellent progress for our first session, I should say.”
For a fleeting moment, I saw my arm healed and whole again, before the mental illusion dissipated and left the gaping wound where it had been. “What do you mean?” Tears threatened. “Nothing happened!”
“Not so, not so.” The writing continued. “You simply lack the visual acuity to see what I see.”
I didn’t respond. I was too busy fighting down the surge of emotion. Can’t let him know.
“I expect that you are hungry by now.” He walked out of sight and rummaged