Desire
By Casey Douglass
for #fridayflash
Project Heaven 17–
Day 1:
Ramsey managed to find
a suitable test subject last night, thank goodness! Who would have
thought that a city with such a large population would soon be milked
of its homeless transients. He said that he found him asleep behind
the warehouse on sixth street, although he almost missed him as he
was almost totally covered in broken cardboard boxes. The poor guy
jumped at the chance Ramsey presented and no sooner was he through
our door, he’d signed the wavers and was causing serious damage to
a large buffet table while we readied the room. In all seriousness, I
wasn’t sure if the food was reaching his mouth or if his beard was
being fed like some strange creature.
This morning, after a
much needed bath and spruce up, our subject was escorted to the room
and told to do what he wanted. The first few minutes were spent with
him pacing around staring at the white walls, probably not really
believing what he had been told. Ramsey, ever the patient one, soon
had his finger pressed tightly on the microphone talk button. “Just
try something simple, it doesn’t have to be anything fancy!”
The subject looked at
his hands and after a short pause, there was a small pop. A box of
southern fried chicken appeared, which he promptly dropped in alarm.
The whites of his eyes scanned the room, the poor fool obviously
suspecting some kind of trickery.
“That’s it!”
cried Ramsey. “Keep going!”
He did. That first day,
we saw millions of pounds of luxury goods appear, cars, jewellery and
fancy chocolates. In fact it was only at this point that we thought
to show him how to get rid of things or the unfortunate soul would
have drowned under a mountain of metal and plastic. Around eight
hours in, the subject complained of a headache and said that he felt
extremely tired, so we called it a day. Tomorrow we will introduce
the concept of landscapes.
Project Heaven 17 –
Day 2:
The subject fed himself
this morning with a manifested breakfast of fried eggs, hash browns,
chips and chocolate cake. He was most eager for the days experiments.
As were we.
“Try to produce a
scene,” Ramsey urged. “Something you remember maybe.”
With that, the vista in
the small white room changed almost instantly. Sparkling sand covered
the floor and golden rays of sunlight bathed the subject in a warm
glow. We could only see part of the scene as the subject walked, the
Movement Inhibitors doing an admirable job of making him think that
we was really moving. Moments later his feet were splashing through
white flecked seawater, a giddy smile on his still unshaven face.
Shortly afterwards we
were treated to varying scenes, ranging from a barren monastery in
Tibet to rush hour in the middle of London, all the his smile
stretching from ear to ear.
Once more the subject
became fatigued after a number of hours so we broke for the day.
Tomorrow it’s people.
Project Heaven 17 - Day
3:
It is the end of day
three and there is little that I can write that would not be
censored. Ramsey raised the topic of manifesting people, although he
made it very clear that anything would just be a copy, not THE
person. We have since been treated to fourteen hours of sex and
depravity, with film stars, singers and random other females that
were obviously known to the subject. I can’t say that I blame him,
it’s a natural impulse and I admit that I might do the same if I
had the power to. Soon, we may all have the power to.
Project Heaven 17 –
Day 4:
No practice today. We
had scheduled it as a rest day, but it happens that the universe
conspired to make it a certainty. The Dampener field malfunctioned
last night while maintenance and calibration was being performed. The
whole room had to be dissolved and re-substantiated, which took our
ageing Quanta PC the best part of six hours. I dread to think what
that will do to our electricity bills.
Project Heaven 17 –
Day 5:
Today, we have given
our subject free reign, he can do as much or as little as he wants.
The experiment now starts in earnest.
Project Heaven 17 –
Day 23:
I apologise for the
apparent jump from five to twenty three. I have taken the decision to
summarise as the apparent changes on any given day were very small,
but taken as a whole, they make more sense. Anyone wishing to read
the full version of the report is more than welcome to request it at
the usual place.
The subject continued
the pattern of the first few days for around a week, manifesting
everything that he had ever wanted, visiting the places that he had
always dreamed of; some imaginary, others based on the real places.
Around day ten, his creations became more mundane, and focussed a
great deal on apparent childhood events, people and places. His
mother featured many times, often to put an arm around his shoulders.
It was very touching, even Ramsey looked to be stifling the odd
sniffle.
Approximately day
seventeen, the subject’s dalliances twisted into something more
sinister. Violence began to feature heavily in them, firstly
inflicted by him onto others, and later, by others onto him. A number
of mythical creatures began to appear regularly, werewolves, vampires
and some kind of living gargoyle. During this time, the subject
seemed to be unable to control his sobbing and often shuffled around,
his eyes always focussed on something in the distance.
On day twenty three,
the experiment ended. The subject manifested an incredibly tall
mountain, so tall that it made Everest look like an ant hill. He
stood on the snow encrusted apex for around an hour before suddenly
spreading his arms and hurling himself into the void. We watched as
he fell, the wind ripping at his clothes and hair, twirling him
around and around. His fall lasted around ten minutes, as I said, it
was a monster of a mountain. He hit the ground with a sickening thump
before vanishing from sight as his insides covered the cameras. The
room is currently being sanitized and an appropriate container has
been found to gather him up in.
Conclusions of Project
Heaven 17:
We have observed
nothing that has changed our previous hypothesis. While the
methodology of the earlier experiments could be questioned, on the
settings of the machine and various other factors such as
psychological make-up of the subject and unintentional observer
interference, we can conclude that the human mind cannot survive in
an environment that gives in to its every need and desire. Without
struggle and striving, the human creature creates its own problems to
fret and worry over, eventually turning to the morose and the
harmful. We will continue our line of research, and some fresh ideas
involve limiting exposure to the room for pure recreation times of no
more than an hour, but that phase of testing will not achieve
endorsement before the new year.
Credits:
Emett Hesky - Lead
Researcher.
Ramsey Smith –
Technician.
Subject number 17 –
John Doe 17
