The Experiment
By Asia K. Batchelor
I find myself in a sterile, dimly lit lab, standing among about ten of my classmates. The man in front of us is grungy with a stubbly beard, wearing a white lab coat and silver wire glasses. He instructs us to pair up in groups of two and watch two videos back-to-back, giving each group a tablet and a pair of AirPods. My partner, a gaunt young lady who goes by the name Burkie, and I share the set of AirPods and press play on the first video, then the second. I can’t exactly remember the content of the videos, but they were strange and unsettling. A series of pictures flashed before us, and a sequence of letters and numbers left me feeling anxious and disoriented.
When it’s clear that everyone has finished watching their videos, a restless discomfort settles over the room. It becomes increasingly hard to stand still and remain in our pairs as the man re-enters the room and asks us our thoughts. Nobody can answer him. Nobody even looks at him directly. A pull toward the exit intensifies. One by one, people start to abandon their partners, driven by an unexplainable urge to leave. The man doesn’t object; in fact, he says nothing at all. It becomes increasingly clear that I must get out of here.
As I leave the room and head for the building's exit, I feel an eerie sense of dread, as if something or someone is following me and all the others who chose to leave. I’m not sure who would choose to stay. As I glance behind me in the midst of running, there is no one behind me but the other participants. Running ahead of everyone else (I used to run track), I reach the exit and notice a man barricading the doors. I see an emergency exit door to the side and open it, expecting a loud alarm to sound. Nothing. I am outside. The sun is dim, hidden by clouds; still, I am filled with an unshakable feeling of dread, as if I’m being chased.
The world feels wrong. It is unnaturally quiet and stiff. I slow to a speed walk. Every person I pass behaves strangely, either staring blankly in the direction they are heading or looking down at the ground as they walk, avoiding any interaction. No one speaks. It is eerily quiet. In a desperate attempt to break the silence, I make a funny face at an elderly passerby. No reaction. This deepens my fear so I begin to run again, feeling an overwhelming sense of being chased. I look behind me; nobody seems to notice or worry about my presence.
Overwhelmed by the state of things, I run and run until I see a bike up ahead. I’ve never been able to ride a bike. I tried to learn when I was younger, but the tire on my bike popped, and my family never got it fixed. I assume that my fear and dedication to flee propelled me onto the bike, allowing me to ride with ease down the street and away from the inevitable—death, I suppose. As I ride, the silence deafens my ears. I stop for a minute to put in my headphones. Music. Music has always been able to calm me down during times of anxiety; it has always been able to relax me and transport me into the different worlds each song describes. I begin to ride again. It’s not working. I can hear the silence through the beats. I turn the music up. My attempts to drown out the silence are moot. It lingers beneath. It gnaws at my sanity. The streets blur. The people in my sight begin to fade.
My ride is exactly as I’d expect it would be now, unstable and frantic. The oppressive atmosphere intensifies. Still, I ride, riding myself right into a metal enclosure. I’m closed in. Am I so skinny that I fit through the black metal bars? The bike is on the outside, me on the inside, standing upright. I have trapped myself. Was I not paying attention? Did the silence temporarily blind me? I try to escape, but the confinement holds firm. I watch people pass by. Nobody looks at me; nobody tries to help, even though I scream and fuss and struggle against the cold metal. I cry and fall to the ground. The tears sting my eyes, so I am unable to keep them open as I wail.
I rub my eyes and my vision clears. The sterile environment of the lab surrounds me. I lay flat on my back, strapped to a table. The antiseptic irritates my nostrils. A man stands above me dressed in a button up and white lab coat. His beard is full and dark, flecked with remnants of his last meal.