“Peter? Peter Emory? Can you hear me?”
Peter awoke from a strange dream, feeling sluggish and disconnected from reality. Once his eyes began to operate he tried to make sense of his surroundings but failed miserably. It was hard to focus—everything was milky and distorted, as if he was underwater, and he seemed unable to blink away the haze.
Suddenly, a grotesquely bulbous face floated into view.
“Ah,” said the face, “I see your eyes moving. You’re awake at last. Listen, Peter, I am Doctor Andrew Gould, and I have some exciting news. Well, shocking news, for you, but I think you’ll eventually reap the rewards.”
Peter tried to reply, to ask what the hell was going on, but nothing happened. His mouth was unresponsive. Nevertheless, Dr. Gould nodded as if he understood Peter’s concerns, which had the surreal effect of making the doctor’s forehead balloon like a reflection in a carnival mirror.
“I think you may remember, Peter, that you had an accident? You were riding your motorcycle very fast, much too fast for these backwoods. I’m afraid you were in quite a few pieces when I found you, just down the road from my house. And then further down the road. And a bit more, even further. Heh.”
What was he talking about? Peter hadn’t been…
Oh.
A quick succession of flashing images came to mind, like a video with missing frames. He remembered the pothole that had appeared in the road before he could react. He remembered the bike being wrenched out from under him, and the pavement flying up at his face. He remembered wondering if it would hurt.
He remembered that it had.
“Yes, well,” Dr. Gould continued, “by a happy coincidence I was close at hand. And luckily for you, I’ve been looking for a proper test subject. You were practically delivered right into my lap, in a most dramatic fashion, as if Providence was truly at work. I could hardly have asked for a more perfect opportunity to demonstrate my accomplishments. Oh, yes, fortune smiled on us both. And with your help, they will have to listen to me now. They must! There will be no denying the evidence. You, Peter, are undeniable.”
The more the doctor talked, the more Peter felt a growing sense of dread. All he wanted to know was the extent of his injuries, but at the moment he could only listen to this person who seemed far too pleased that Peter had nearly been killed.
“You see, my lad, after years of work, I think I have done it. This, er, goo that you are enveloped in? It has saved your life. Resurrected you, very nearly. You have no idea yet how lucky you are that I came along when I did, and that I’ve recently made so many advancements with my, ah, goo. I must find a better term for it. Something with ‘quantum’ or ‘nano’ in it, maybe. It’s exciting stuff, but due to its incredibly unique properties you may at first feel a bit… disorientated.”
Dr. Gould held a jar in front of Peter. He tapped it, making Peter wince inwardly.
“For instance,” Dr. Gould said, “you may experience unsettling sensations since your ears and auditory processing centers are in here. Meanwhile, your eyes are… well, your eyes are in there, as you can tell. In another jar. The rest of you is here and there, nearby. I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know I found most of you. All the essentials, anyway.”
Dr. Gould kept talking. And talking. Peter wanted to scream, but Dr. Gould would not stop, relentlessly explaining himself to his mute and impotent patient. It seemed his miraculous goo kept the various parts and pieces of Peter alive, and though separated by some distance and completely unconnected, many parts worked as if still united.
It sounded to Peter like mumbo jumbo, or the scientific equivalent to magic. Still, it was evident that his eyes were indeed here, the majority of his brain was over there, and his ears were currently on the move, in Dr. Gould’s hand. The old man carried Peter’s ears around as if dictating into a microphone, and to say it was “disorientating” for Peter to no longer be at the centre of what his senses were experiencing was an understatement. A colossal understatement. Peter felt that in this case, “disorientating” required many more modifiers in front of it, long strings of additional words such as “terribly,” and “horrifically.”
Despite Dr. Gould’s assertions, Peter did not grow any more comfortable with this living nightmare in the weeks that followed. He still had no voice and had found no other means to communicate, which left him trapped and powerless. He might have been able to blink “yes” or “no,” but with his eyelids apparently located elsewhere (or perhaps missing altogether), even blinking was impossible.
The doctor did not appear to be interested in establishing back-and-forth communication anyway. Peter was subjected to one arcane experiment after another, while also being forced to endure the non-stop monologues coming from this madman who finally had a captive audience to whom he could explain his acts of genius.
When, at long last, the doctor appeared to be satisfied by the results of all his tests, Peter found himself being packed at random into dozens of shipping boxes, all bound for a prestigious university. “Proof of theory,” Dr. Gould called this step, with obvious relish. He saved the jar that contained his patient’s ears for last, and as he carefully went about boxing and sealing the rest, he explained how Peter would soon be the most famous medical wonder in history. With more help and funding, the world would watch as Peter’s full resurrection was completed.
“We will be rich,” Dr. Gould assured him, “and everyone will forever remember the names of Andrew Gould and Peter Emory. And you will be whole again, of course! Your present state has laid the groundwork and shown me the way, and very soon we will be able to regrow you exactly as you were. Or you can make new selections. Yes, consider that during your coming journey—as a reward for your patience I will tailor your body however you wish. Would you like to be taller? Would you prefer fair hair to brown? A chiselled jawline? You have but to request your idea of physical perfection, and I will make it so!”
For now, Peter could only endure; he had no other choice. Dr. Gould picked up the jar that held Peter’s eyes, gave him a wink that made Peter yearn to have the same ability once more, and sealed him into yet another box.
The trip almost turned out to be more unnerving than the days Peter had spent listening to the doctor. He heard loud noises, and some of his disjointed parts felt the rumbling vibrations of take-offs, handoffs, and deliveries. More than once his stomach dropped as the planes he’d been loaded onto accelerated, which was a familiar sensation except that his stomach also felt like it was ten feet away. More maddening were the changes in pressure that gave him an insatiable urge to scratch his big toe, a simple task that was currently impossible and which only got worse the more he tried not to think about it.
He had no idea how long the trip lasted, but after what felt like an eternity of discomfort and darkness he heard a new voice. The voice of a young woman.
“Euurgh! What is this, ears? And a liver? Look, there’s a kidney in this one. You get disturbing mail, Professor.”
“Oh, lord,” said an older voice. “Don’t tell me, they’re from Andrew Gould, aren’t they?”
“Looks like it. Who’s he?”
“A one-man circus. Sorry, I usually warn new assistants. He’s been annoying the whole medical sciences department for years, claiming he was on the verge of the biggest breakthrough ever. Practical immortality, that sort of thing.”
Muffled laughter was followed by playful sarcasm. “Oh, come on, Professor. We must use the scientific method and examine his proof! Otherwise, how do you know he hasn’t found immortality?”
“Because a heart attack proved him wrong,” came the grunted reply. “They found his body right off campus last week. I heard he was trying to gargle some nasty smelling goop when he died.”
“Oh. Jesus, now I feel like a jerk.”
“Yes, well… he was irritating, but I don’t think it was intentional. I must admit I’ll miss his rambling letters and emails full of pseudoscience. They were great for forwarding.”
“What do you want to do with these packages?”
“Incinerator.”
“Damn, that’s a lot of trips downstairs. Why’d he have to send so many?”
“Who knows? Hard to figure a nutcase. Don’t even bother, just toss them.”
Finally, thought Peter.
Though his eyes were still in the dark, his ears soon heard the approaching roar of the incinerator. He welcomed it. The blank void of nonexistence would at last be his, so much better than the freak show he’d been turned into against his will.
The university’s incinerator must have been a heavy-duty machine. In fast, sharp flashes he felt himself go, piece by piece, into death. He envisioned the boxes turning to ash, the glass jars splitting and cracking, and the milky goo boiling away in a sizzling hiss as his remaining limbs and organs shrivelled up like blackening bacon. Though the process took longer than his motorcycle crash, this time the fact that he wanted it meant it hurt far less.
Calmly, he waited for the end.
But the end refused to come. It was only much later that Peter came to believe he understood what had happened, and why the flames had not granted him the release he craved.
Somewhere, in an unknown location, he imagined there was a carefully packaged box that had gotten separated from its mates. Perhaps it was sealed with warning tape and sitting in the “Lost, Damaged, & Undeliverable” section of a giant shipping warehouse. Within that box was a jar, and within that jar was a brain, totally deprived of all sensory input. The almost magical connection between this brain and the rest of its body had extended further than even Dr. Gould had anticipated, and now the brain was all that remained of Peter Emory.
He wondered how long it would take before someone got around to investigating such a box. How long until he was finally incinerated? Or would his brain jar be donated, to end up sitting on a shelf and gathering dust? How long would it take life-sustaining goo to evaporate from an airtight seal? How insane was he going to be by the time he finally succeeded in dying?
Alone, with only his own thoughts for company, Peter had a feeling he was in for quite a wait before any of these questions were answered.
—
Credits to: IPostAtMidnight
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