The Bad Specimens

CHAPTER 1

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He was one of us. I think they killed that madman. They dragged him out like he was trash. What else would they have done with him? He was one of us, but he would not (or could not) stop ranting and raving. I covered my ears so I wouldn’t catch his madness. He’s gone, and they haven’t brought him back.

I’m not the only one who wanted him to be quiet and to hold still. We all wanted the same thing. I just wanted to be alone to hoard my own thoughts. I want to gather my thoughts and put them in a pile like the chocolate-covered coffee beans I am craving.

I never wanted him to die, but I really think they killed him. It’s quiet now, I got what I wanted. I’m alone. I never knew his name. He was one of us.

Humans left alone, without hope for an audience, will still talk to themselves. I’m doing it right now. I’m telling myself a story about an imaginary prehistoric man. He’s grunting and howling at the other prehistoric men, as they all sit around a campfire. Suddenly, he’s eaten by a predator because he didn’t know when to shut up.

This devoured prehistoric man, I imagine he could have been my direct ancestor. I don’t know him, but I despise him. It’s his fault that I’m here. He was a fool. He deserved to be violently consumed.

I will learn how to time travel, to go back in time, and pummel him for his obtuseness, and for his over-abundance of innocence.

My mind goes wandering because it can. Unlike me, it’s not locked in here. It can travel through time, and it can go home if it wants. Right before that man was taken away, they forbade us from talking to each other, making eye contact, or even making gestures.

Now they have separated us from each other. All I want to do is talk about anything and everything: a recipe for shepherd’s pie, the rankness of my breath, the ugly gray color of these walls. I want someone to read me the same bedtime story over and over again.

When my mind wanders, a little bit of amazement sneaks in. Here and now, it’s like we are the first people, like we are special. Then I realize that’s stupid. We’re not the first people, we’re only the first people here, in this place. We’re not special. We are the most unlucky humans in the history of humans.

We’re like starving dinosaurs that keep trying to find food, unable to prevent our skies from filling with smoke, focusing on more immediate needs. This new world should be mine for the taking, but I don’t want it.

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I want to scream and growl, and weep and wail. Every thought and instinct I have wants me to open my mouth and to scream, LET ME GO! No, I don’t want to just scream it, I want them to actually let me go.

I have already been taught that even trying to ask a simple ‘what?’ would leave me bruised. Instead, I will talk to you, Dear Mind. You will forget what I tell you so that I don’t get into trouble. Agreed? You won’t tell on me because if I go down, we both go down, got it?

We have lots of free time, you and I. We don’t have to be up until it’s light outside. We used to say when the sun is up. There is no sunlight here, but something out there turns lights on and off at regular intervals.

I’m being forced to become acquainted with the limits of my body. I’d rather not be aware of my body. I feel like I would rather remain re-acquainted with you again, Thoughts.

Can I call you Thoughts? We’ll skip the re-introductions because you know where and when I was born, the first person I loved (other than myself), and my goals and aspirations. We were not on speaking terms for a while, but now we’re friends again. You and I go way back.

I would write instead of talk to you, but I have nothing to write with, and no one is going to read my thoughts, or are they? What I could do to these blank walls with a big, red marker. It’s a shame: what if I think of something profound? Tragic. No one will ever know except us, but we don’t count anymore.

I have no children to tell these unbelievable things to. When I get out of here, I’m going to make ten thousand descendants, and introduce them to you, Thoughts. ‘Without my Thoughts, I wouldn’t have made it.’ That’s what I’ll say about you if we get out of here.

I am thirty-five now (we know this), spending the declining years of my life in captivity, in this place, dried blood crusted on my face. (What did I do to deserve this?) Shhh, those thoughts don’t help.

My parents used to tell me that way back in the old, old, olden days, people were lucky to make it to their thirties. I always figured they were messing with me, and I kept meaning to verify their stories. I never remembered to check.

If I had died in my twenties, been born in that lucky generation, I would have completely missed out on this mind cluck. Seems like my generation has the thin end of the Kuiper Belt. We are Pluto. More passive and more voiceless than poor Pluto. What a joke.

My golden fifties: to see them in peace and comfort, that’s all I want. No, I would also like to see my parents again. I’m sure they miss me a little. I want to see them, but I hope they are not here, too. I hope they are back home on Earth and missing me immensely.

If I live to be fifty, it will be a miracle. See there? I am still hopeful. Maybe hope is important somehow. Maybe not. I’ve only been here three or four days; it’s too early to need hope. We should be able to fake bravery and mental fortitude, you and I. We need to keep our wits about us, to stay alert and positive.

This could be my greatest role: human man heroically meeting these creatures for the first time, rescuing his fellow humans and setting us all free. I would be the greatest paradigm of my species. Too bad the real me is afraid of being punished.

We should know how to pretend to be strong and brave. We were actors on Earth, and not even actors from the first or second golden ages of cinema. Not actors that were drowning in rabid fandoms and money, and a plethora of inventive roles. No, I was born too late for fame, or success, or being allowed to reach my damn peak.

Instead, we had to be actors at a time when being delusional enough to want to be an actor wasn’t enough. We had to justify our right to live and work on the planet by also being writers, producers, costumers, set designers, editors, special effects artists, and choreographers.

We chose to be actors because there was something wrong with us. I admit it. Critics of our art were right. We have no common sense whatsoever. We aren’t useful. We’re selfish. We have grandiose thoughts, personality confusion, and a desire for poverty.

Pretending to be other people is not a skill that I can use here, but how was I supposed to know about this? I can’t regret my choices though. Fortunate people don’t get to the end of their lives and regret. I don’t regret anything. The end of my life wants to meet me early. It’s the last adoring fan, sitting in the dark theater, waiting to shake my hand.

I don’t want to regret. I just have to hang on.

No, I do regret! I have an unfinished film back home. I lived my life doing what I was compelled to do: to create, to entertain. I hope that satisfaction will be enough to carry me through whatever this is.

My grandmother always said, You only have one life to live so figure out what you want to do, do it well and like it. Don’t fuck it up. I was doing it well, wasn’t I? Grandma, there isn’t enough room here for you, too.

Damn, here we go again. I need to piss. To think this room smells better than the big room did. So much piss and crap in the big room where we were all packed in together. I’d relieve myself out of this window if this window could be opened.

Aiming out this window could be a game, a pastime. It’s not even a big window. It’s a small square in the wall that lets in that damn artificial light.

Right after we came here, when I was still with other people, those Things started giving us covered containers because we kept vomiting from the smell of our shit. Our eyes turned red, and our lungs burned from the stench of urine. My eyes are still slightly swollen from some kind of infection or the irritation.

Even with the containers, the air still reeked. Saliva washes down my throat, preparing to gag at the recollection. That level of stench, our brains can still recall it, taste it even.

I say our because I know there are others still here. I wouldn’t say I could sense them, but in my mind (hey, that’s You again), I detect other people breathing, or their presence, and their familiar despair.

Maybe this is the first step to madness. Maybe the madman thought he could sense despair, too. No, unlike him, I’m not insane because I have enough sense to say, ‘I detect a lingering stench’ rather than ‘I detect despair,’ right?

The stench! It reminds me of the stray cat with the limp that used to hang around my apartment. He loved his own urine so much, he would leave it everywhere. I imagine peeing with so much determination that I’d want to leave my urine everywhere.

But this is not my territory, and I have no desire to mark it. What is the opposite of marking territory? I wonder what happened to that cat. I wish I had a cat to talk to about things.

It’s cold in these rooms, and I have to pee all the time. Water in and water out, which means I’m still getting fluids in my system, or that my system is voiding all fluids. I wonder if they will give us blankets or clothes if some of us start dying from illness. Can we catch diseases in this place? If I survive, my prize will be a blanket. A blanket and thousands of descendants.

In the meantime, I am imagining warm baths, sunburns, candles, fevers and flames. I curl up into a ball and wait for the lights to come up. Not really a ball, more like a fat hedgehog trying to hide. I still have my gut, maybe that is what is keeping me alive. I’m living off my fat stores, like a gecko with a nice, plump tail.

I may be imagining it, but my gut is starting to sag. I couldn’t keep the so-called food down for the first couple of days. Hunger finally won out, or I got used to the stuff they fed us. I don’t think about food as much as I used to (mashed potatoes, mashed potatoes, mashed potatoes). I eat what they give me (clay mud).

I do not make a scene or demand my rights, or demand a blanket. There are no rights here. Before that nameless madman made his final stand, I witnessed one other commotion. It ended in a scream punctuated by silence. Human see, human won’t do: I will not make a scene.

I will not draw attention to myself. I am alive, isn’t that what’s important? Staying out of trouble seems to be working so far.

To sustain my mind, I think of the sun reflecting off the Pacific Ocean, warm sand under my feet, a searing sun (that I may not see again), burning down on my back, and sweat. A warm bath. An oven. A bonfire. This place up in flames. The creatures in boiling water.

The sun was turned on again this morning. Not a gradual fade-in like the sun did on Earth, but a finger poke in the eye. I am a lizard in a terrarium: the lights flick on, and this is how I’m supposed to know it’s morning.

However, my lizard brain knows something is not quite right, and knows without words that there is real sunlight back home. I would bask in the deadly sun, risk the burns and the cancers if only I could be back on Earth again.

CHAPTER 2

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The doors make a longer crackling sound when they open, followed by a short deep hum before they close. Outside a woman’s voice (she has an accent, Irish maybe) demands to know where she is going, and a door closes. Another door opens and closes. A child starts screaming.

Sometimes we can hear clearly, sometimes things are muffled, and sometimes we can’t hear anything. They must want us to hear these other people, to hear their stress. I remind myself not to get up and look, to be invisible.

Being invisible is no good today because one of the creatures is already walking through the door, and the door is closing behind it. The creature is prodding me towards the exit. We stand at the closed door, waiting in silence.

A few weeks ago, (or however long it’s been), I would have tried to talk to this thing. I know better now.

From a distance they look like us, but when I’ve seen them up close, their skin looks waxy, or synthetic, almost like they’re wearing flesh-colored body suits. They’re all the same bland and pale color. Did they see some old paintings of a human and try to replicate that faded tempera egg color?

They haven’t got the eyes right though. Their eyes have large dark irises, with grayish-white halos. And their legs look disproportionately long, as if they wanted to be as tall as us, but didn’t know where else to make up for the height difference in their conceptualized idea of our actual bodies. As an attempt to mimic our clothing, they have cloth stuck on top of their skin.

The door opens, and I’m lead into the corridor. The screaming kid ahead of me is trying to grab onto the woman. They are immediately separated. I am caught looking at them and zapped to keep my eyes from wandering. It doesn’t hurt as bad as being struck. I exaggerate the pain so they will think their punishment hurts more than it does. My goal is for them to believe there is no need to ramp up the punishment, and that I’m compliant.

These other humans are still naked like me. If we wanted to be modest and cover up, we can’t. The creatures put patches of cloth on their bodies, but we get nothing? When my muscles unclench from the initial shock, I resume feeling sorry for the kid.

He’s going to pass out, or have a breakdown right in front of me. I’m going to have to step over his body after they punish him. He’s drawing too much attention to himself. If he gets punished, we all look bad. We all might be punished, too. I want to stay away from him, as does the woman. I saw her dodge the kid when he tried to grab onto her.

They lead us into a room with a bowl-shaped hole in the ground, filled with translucent blue liquid. It’s maybe ten or fifteen feet in diameter, but I can’t tell how deep. There are three more of the creatures. They are all the same uniform size, watching us from behind windows in an observation area above the blue hole.

I think I see someone being dragged out a door. I don’t know if he is dead or merely unconscious. Which would I want to be?

The woman asks, What is this? What are you going to do to us? Doesn’t she know to be quiet? She’s pushed in the water first, then the kid, and now they’re pushing me.

After I hit the water, a sensation of thawing-out spreads over my skin. This water probably isn’t warm, it’s simply not as cold as the ambient air in this place. I look at the creatures for a clue as to what they want me to do. Nothing. They’re just starting down at us. I start trying to get my bearings, trying to gage how deep this pool is, but the kid cannot swim.

He’s flailing and coughing and trying to latch on to me. I dodge him. What will happen if I help him? He’s close to the wall! He needs to stop panicking and turn around. I go under, and my eyes burn after contact with this water.

When I surface, the kid’s head is going under the water. I grab him and bring him to the edge of the pool. He is choking on the stuff and crying, but I force his hands into contact with the wall. I look at him, I stare him down, trying to stop him from panicking.

He is gasping for air and rubbing his throat. I want to tell him to be quiet. They’re going to come over here. I grab his chin and turn his head to look at me. I subtly shake my head left and then right. His sobs slow to hiccup-like breaths. I’m counting the seconds until I can swim away.

My skin feels like it’s burning. It was barely perceptible at first, but the irritation is gradually increasing now that I’m aware of it. The liquid we’re in turns warm. This kid! Did he just pee?

I hope the creatures can’t tell I helped him, or communicated with him. I tried to be sly. They aren’t punishing me... at least not yet.

CHAPTER 3

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From the other side of the pool, the woman is throwing side-glances at us. She looks at her hands and arms, which are turning pinkish-red, and she grimaces.

A cover or something begins sliding out of the side of the wall where I am. The kid gets knocked off the wall, and I grab him and the cover, which is still moving. I let go of the cover– if I don’t, I’ll be crushed between the cover and the other side of the pool, where the woman is. This is a mistake, I had some time before any crushing would happen.

I start treading water as the cover goes over our heads, and the kid starts panicking in my arm. I go under with the kid and resurface. I try unsuccessfully to hold him away from me. The woman comes off the wall and floats on her back.

This kid is scratching me and pinching me, trying to latch onto me.

On your back, I hiss at the kid. Like this... He tried, but he’s not getting it. Now he’s staying as stiff and vertical as a table leg. I can’t keep this up: treading water, trying to keep this kid and my nose above water. The woman is not helping.

The pool is completely covered, maybe three or five inches over our heads. Float! I yell at the kid, half hoping the volume of my voice will force them to open the cover, even if it would be to punish me. I go under again, but gulp a bunch of this water, and feel it burn my tongue and throat. I can feel it travel down into my stomach, too.

The kid is trying to kick, but mostly trying to grab me. On! Your! Back! I command as loud as I can when I surface again. I bang on the covers and shout, trying to incite punishment, which means they’ll have to remove the cover. Nothing.

I try to help him get into a position to float on his back (away from me). The kid seems to get it for a second, and then goes back to panicking when water goes into his mouth and up his nose. He’s coughing and choking, and crying again.

I sink under the water to rest from the exertion of treading water. How easy it would be to ignore him. I have to! He can’t catch me if I swim away.