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All Seeing Eyes
by Ryan Willox
Experiment: Day Six.
Six days without light, the ability to wash and a lack of proper food was more
than beginning to take its toll but Doctor Ellis felt he could tolerate it; in the
name of medicine.
All drugs had side effects but Doctor Jordan’s seemed to be one of the
strangest. Ellis, a hitherto willing participant in the experiment, again ran his
fingers over the growth on his side that had appeared out of nowhere.
It was small, swollen and round and it hurt very, very much when he pressed
it even gently. He did not do this very often as it threatened to give when he
applied such pressure, and the pain was too great to test too much.
He supposed it was a good thing that he couldn't see it in this darkness. It
might be enough to make him change his mind about the experiment.
* * *
Quite why Ellis had volunteered to take part in this experiment he was no
longer sure, not that he ever had been. It wasn't as if he had needed the
money or anything: it wasn't that sort of deal.
At this stage, in moments of reflection, he wasn't even really that sure what
the experiments were designed to achieve.
Although he was a medical man himself, he was the sort usually given to
making rather than taking experiments. Perhaps it was the loss of control that
had first drawn him to the idea of taking part in Doctor Jordan’s' experiment.
In a perverse way it seemed kind of appropriate that, when a chance like this
had come along he should take it and have the courage to put himself in
another's hands. Instead of it always being vice-versa.
But the question he now found he had to ask himself was this: Had he
chosen the right hands to place himself in? No question, he was all for the
advancement of science in the cause of medical progression but Doctor
Jordan often had a skewed perspective of how that could be achieved.
Doctor Jordan had described the nature of the experiment itself plainly. That
part had been simple enough. Simple to explain that was. He was to be
locked in a room for a minimum of ten days, and he had been assured that the
maximum would be no more than fifteen, but he was not to be told where the
room was - lest he try to attempt an escape, perhaps.
However, Doctor Jordan had stressed most explicitly that he should only take
part with clarity of mind and, more importantly, of his own free will. On both
counts he had, though the former was waning.
Once inside the room he would only be allowed the most basic of comforts.
Doctor Jordan had emphasized that this meant only the minimum food
required, the minimum water and a toilet facility. Since the room was to be
sealed and kept in total darkness, absolute black, for the duration of the
experiment Doctor Jordan has done him the courtesy on the first day of
leading him to the food pick up point and the toilet, blindfolded of course.
Jordan had then issued simple instructions on how Ellis could get to them of
his own accord.
Although he wasn't quite sure he was always hitting the mark with the toilet
so to speak.
The food pick up point was easy, however, because Jordan arrived there
twice a day. With the first meal, if it could be called that, he would call out the
day number of the experiment.
He sometimes wondered if his temporary capturer wasn't past a little
deception and was trying to keep him in here for longer, perhaps to drive him
mad. But, in more rational moments, and admittedly they were becoming fewer
and further between, he would concede, though it wasn't beyond Jordan, it was
unlikely. Ellis estimated that Jordan would have considered such subterfuge
unbecoming.
As unconventional as his colleague’s methods were he still framed them
within set scientific guidelines. If Jordan said that today was day six then today
was day six. In the circumstances he thought he was bearing up rather well.
The science part, and what he supposed was the crux of the experiment,
arrived with the second so-called ‘meal’ of the day. It was a simple pill brought
with the food but to be consumed after it.
The purpose of his being kept in these conditions was to try and discover if
Doctor Jordan’s newly developed pill did what he thought it did. And what
Jordan thought his new pill did was to enhance and augment the resilience of
the human body.
Jordan’s intention, eventually, was to use it to help patients recover more
quickly from operations. Once he could work out how potent the drug was and
the correct dosage to administer, then Jordan hoped it could be applied,
possibly in tandem with the anesthetic, to ensure patients spent less time in
hospital. Good for them because nobody wants to spend longer than they
have to in hospital. Good for the people at the NHS because they could reduce
waiting lists if beds were occupied for shorter time periods. Oddly enough,
funding had not been a problem.
In the meantime, though, the first guinea pig was discovering what the side
effects were…..
Experiment Day 9
Had Doctor Jordan known what his subject had been thinking three days
earlier, he would have been in no doubt that the side effects of the experiment
would have been more than enough to put off Doctor Ellis.
And had Doctor Ellis mentioned these concerns about the "side effects" to
Doctor Jordan, Jordan would have lied and told him not to worry because, in
truth, the side effects weren't side effects at all. They were the purpose of the
experiment. They were ‘effects’. Doctor Ellis would discover that eventually,
though. All in good time.
As he sat idly gazing away at printouts hemorrhaging silently and endlessly
from a laser printer in a room full of statistic filled screens and uniquely
modified keyboards, Jordan, dark-hair graying at the temples and side-burns,
wrinkled and tanned face betraying signs of endless sleepless nights and
travel to exotic climes in various scientific pursuit, considered the peculiar
relationship he had with his subject.
Peculiar not including the time they were spending together (almost) just
now. They had know each other from a very young age, had grown up
together from mid teens onwards. Although they could never be described as
being the best of friends, they weren't quite enemies either.
What they had enjoyed, since the age of about sixteen, was a kind of
unfriendly rivalry that never quite boiled over into dislike.
Jordan had been the one who excelled in his Highers, Ellis the one who got
to medical school first. Ellis had graduated first, while Jordan was the first to
have research published. And so on and so forth and so on and so forth.
They were never equals for long but no-one had outdone the other to any
irretrievable degree.
But although their professional lives had been so busy and they had spent
countless months, perhaps even years, attempting if not admitting they were
trying to best each other, they had both lived fulfilling personal lives too. It had
never been the kind of rivalry that had been all consuming. Not until a short
while ago.
It had occurred to Jordan - if not to Ellis - that while each doctor kept upping
the stakes it was clear, through the passage of time, that there would have to
be an endgame. With each achievement they were getting to the point where
one or other was going to do something special, possibly something even
Nobel-prize-worthy or greater. Somewhere along the line, sometime soon,
someone would have to come out on top for good.
Jordan had realized this while both men had been researching the field of
organ transplants. A diversion set out upon by Ellis no doubt, suspected
Jordan, with the intention of losing him in a subject he had hitherto had little
experience of. That was not going to happen.
He paused for a moment to consider that - had either of them, say, never
been born or, something less dramatic, like chosen another calling - then the
one left would have been amongst the pre-eminent scientists of their or any
other generation.
Alas, journals and other medical publications had often commented on how
tragic it was that these "geniuses" had frittered away swathes of their lives
engaged in a futile struggle to get ahead of each other, weaving in and out of
different areas of medicine to do it.
Now it was transplant surgery, and Ellis had had the upper hand, until now.
Ellis had started with simple things that had been done before - like growing
a human ear on the back of a mouse and progressed into other areas like
modifying a pig's heart so that it could be used for transplanting into a human.
Then it had taken a slightly peculiar turn. It had turned into a race to cure
the blind; transplanting eyes. There were obvious problems with such a task
and Ellis had soon given it up, after some research and minor experiments.
So it must have come as a relief to Ellis when he thought that his colleague
had also given up in favor of a new toy: human endurance and powers of
recovery.
He could see why Ellis would have taken the bait: it was a chance to monitor
his adversary, keep up with the game, be involved in the latest research and
generally to keep an eye on the competition. He would be able to do that well
enough, thought Jordan, smirking.
The trouble was that Jordan wasn't researching endurance. He was still on
transplants. Eye transplants, for the blind.
Those of the deceased often couldn't be used because of moral, emotional
and some practical, reasons.
So Ellis had attempted to grow fresh eyes that could be harvested, similar in
principle to the growing of an ear on a mouse's back, and had experimented
first on a fly.
It turned out that the developing, growing the eyes wasn't the problem- his
experimental insects had ended up covered in them - but making them see
was. That's why he had given it up. Jordan hadn't and he had found the
solution. But what use were the eyes of a fly?
Experiment Day 12
The growths were all over Ellis now and he had been screaming for medical
attention for days. What the hell were they? He had continued to take Jordan’
s pills in the hope that they would hasten some form of recovery. It had only
fleetingly occurred to him that they might be the source of the problem but the
promise of recuperation had turned his addled brain from this notion.
Jordan had promised to release him on day twelve and now it had arrived.
He had been beginning to worry that Jordan would go back on his word but as
the door opened and light filtered into the room he felt relieved. He could see
a real doctor.
However, as his eyes began to see clearly again, all his eyes, light flooded
his being from what seemed like a million different sources all at once,
electrical pulses being sent racing to a mind that had know nothing but
darkness for the last two weeks, and his thoughts of salvation extinguished
rapidly.
Immediately, there were forms of familiarity, the shafts of light shining
through the opened doorway, the silhouette of his captor bringing a merciful
break from the searing white light.
But soon perspectives became skewed as virgin eyes awoke for the first
time. The lighted doorway in three dimensions, then four, then more…. This
Ellis could have handled, maybe, but it was when the orbs on his back opened
that his once brilliant brain overloaded.
Ellis could see it all; the front of the room, the back, all four walls at once, his
shit stained toilet in the corner, his single bed, his captor; images searing into
his struggling cortex, signals, impulses, screaming at his eyes to stop, to look
away.
Signals, drowned out by the multitude of visual messages flooding to his
brain and the screams of a man gone insane.
by Ryan Willox
Experiment: Day Six.
Six days without light, the ability to wash and a lack of proper food was more
than beginning to take its toll but Doctor Ellis felt he could tolerate it; in the
name of medicine.
All drugs had side effects but Doctor Jordan’s seemed to be one of the
strangest. Ellis, a hitherto willing participant in the experiment, again ran his
fingers over the growth on his side that had appeared out of nowhere.
It was small, swollen and round and it hurt very, very much when he pressed
it even gently. He did not do this very often as it threatened to give when he
applied such pressure, and the pain was too great to test too much.
He supposed it was a good thing that he couldn't see it in this darkness. It
might be enough to make him change his mind about the experiment.
* * *
Quite why Ellis had volunteered to take part in this experiment he was no
longer sure, not that he ever had been. It wasn't as if he had needed the
money or anything: it wasn't that sort of deal.
At this stage, in moments of reflection, he wasn't even really that sure what
the experiments were designed to achieve.
Although he was a medical man himself, he was the sort usually given to
making rather than taking experiments. Perhaps it was the loss of control that
had first drawn him to the idea of taking part in Doctor Jordan’s' experiment.
In a perverse way it seemed kind of appropriate that, when a chance like this
had come along he should take it and have the courage to put himself in
another's hands. Instead of it always being vice-versa.
But the question he now found he had to ask himself was this: Had he
chosen the right hands to place himself in? No question, he was all for the
advancement of science in the cause of medical progression but Doctor
Jordan often had a skewed perspective of how that could be achieved.
Doctor Jordan had described the nature of the experiment itself plainly. That
part had been simple enough. Simple to explain that was. He was to be
locked in a room for a minimum of ten days, and he had been assured that the
maximum would be no more than fifteen, but he was not to be told where the
room was - lest he try to attempt an escape, perhaps.
However, Doctor Jordan had stressed most explicitly that he should only take
part with clarity of mind and, more importantly, of his own free will. On both
counts he had, though the former was waning.
Once inside the room he would only be allowed the most basic of comforts.
Doctor Jordan had emphasized that this meant only the minimum food
required, the minimum water and a toilet facility. Since the room was to be
sealed and kept in total darkness, absolute black, for the duration of the
experiment Doctor Jordan has done him the courtesy on the first day of
leading him to the food pick up point and the toilet, blindfolded of course.
Jordan had then issued simple instructions on how Ellis could get to them of
his own accord.
Although he wasn't quite sure he was always hitting the mark with the toilet
so to speak.
The food pick up point was easy, however, because Jordan arrived there
twice a day. With the first meal, if it could be called that, he would call out the
day number of the experiment.
He sometimes wondered if his temporary capturer wasn't past a little
deception and was trying to keep him in here for longer, perhaps to drive him
mad. But, in more rational moments, and admittedly they were becoming fewer
and further between, he would concede, though it wasn't beyond Jordan, it was
unlikely. Ellis estimated that Jordan would have considered such subterfuge
unbecoming.
As unconventional as his colleague’s methods were he still framed them
within set scientific guidelines. If Jordan said that today was day six then today
was day six. In the circumstances he thought he was bearing up rather well.
The science part, and what he supposed was the crux of the experiment,
arrived with the second so-called ‘meal’ of the day. It was a simple pill brought
with the food but to be consumed after it.
The purpose of his being kept in these conditions was to try and discover if
Doctor Jordan’s newly developed pill did what he thought it did. And what
Jordan thought his new pill did was to enhance and augment the resilience of
the human body.
Jordan’s intention, eventually, was to use it to help patients recover more
quickly from operations. Once he could work out how potent the drug was and
the correct dosage to administer, then Jordan hoped it could be applied,
possibly in tandem with the anesthetic, to ensure patients spent less time in
hospital. Good for them because nobody wants to spend longer than they
have to in hospital. Good for the people at the NHS because they could reduce
waiting lists if beds were occupied for shorter time periods. Oddly enough,
funding had not been a problem.
In the meantime, though, the first guinea pig was discovering what the side
effects were…..
Experiment Day 9
Had Doctor Jordan known what his subject had been thinking three days
earlier, he would have been in no doubt that the side effects of the experiment
would have been more than enough to put off Doctor Ellis.
And had Doctor Ellis mentioned these concerns about the "side effects" to
Doctor Jordan, Jordan would have lied and told him not to worry because, in
truth, the side effects weren't side effects at all. They were the purpose of the
experiment. They were ‘effects’. Doctor Ellis would discover that eventually,
though. All in good time.
As he sat idly gazing away at printouts hemorrhaging silently and endlessly
from a laser printer in a room full of statistic filled screens and uniquely
modified keyboards, Jordan, dark-hair graying at the temples and side-burns,
wrinkled and tanned face betraying signs of endless sleepless nights and
travel to exotic climes in various scientific pursuit, considered the peculiar
relationship he had with his subject.
Peculiar not including the time they were spending together (almost) just
now. They had know each other from a very young age, had grown up
together from mid teens onwards. Although they could never be described as
being the best of friends, they weren't quite enemies either.
What they had enjoyed, since the age of about sixteen, was a kind of
unfriendly rivalry that never quite boiled over into dislike.
Jordan had been the one who excelled in his Highers, Ellis the one who got
to medical school first. Ellis had graduated first, while Jordan was the first to
have research published. And so on and so forth and so on and so forth.
They were never equals for long but no-one had outdone the other to any
irretrievable degree.
But although their professional lives had been so busy and they had spent
countless months, perhaps even years, attempting if not admitting they were
trying to best each other, they had both lived fulfilling personal lives too. It had
never been the kind of rivalry that had been all consuming. Not until a short
while ago.
It had occurred to Jordan - if not to Ellis - that while each doctor kept upping
the stakes it was clear, through the passage of time, that there would have to
be an endgame. With each achievement they were getting to the point where
one or other was going to do something special, possibly something even
Nobel-prize-worthy or greater. Somewhere along the line, sometime soon,
someone would have to come out on top for good.
Jordan had realized this while both men had been researching the field of
organ transplants. A diversion set out upon by Ellis no doubt, suspected
Jordan, with the intention of losing him in a subject he had hitherto had little
experience of. That was not going to happen.
He paused for a moment to consider that - had either of them, say, never
been born or, something less dramatic, like chosen another calling - then the
one left would have been amongst the pre-eminent scientists of their or any
other generation.
Alas, journals and other medical publications had often commented on how
tragic it was that these "geniuses" had frittered away swathes of their lives
engaged in a futile struggle to get ahead of each other, weaving in and out of
different areas of medicine to do it.
Now it was transplant surgery, and Ellis had had the upper hand, until now.
Ellis had started with simple things that had been done before - like growing
a human ear on the back of a mouse and progressed into other areas like
modifying a pig's heart so that it could be used for transplanting into a human.
Then it had taken a slightly peculiar turn. It had turned into a race to cure
the blind; transplanting eyes. There were obvious problems with such a task
and Ellis had soon given it up, after some research and minor experiments.
So it must have come as a relief to Ellis when he thought that his colleague
had also given up in favor of a new toy: human endurance and powers of
recovery.
He could see why Ellis would have taken the bait: it was a chance to monitor
his adversary, keep up with the game, be involved in the latest research and
generally to keep an eye on the competition. He would be able to do that well
enough, thought Jordan, smirking.
The trouble was that Jordan wasn't researching endurance. He was still on
transplants. Eye transplants, for the blind.
Those of the deceased often couldn't be used because of moral, emotional
and some practical, reasons.
So Ellis had attempted to grow fresh eyes that could be harvested, similar in
principle to the growing of an ear on a mouse's back, and had experimented
first on a fly.
It turned out that the developing, growing the eyes wasn't the problem- his
experimental insects had ended up covered in them - but making them see
was. That's why he had given it up. Jordan hadn't and he had found the
solution. But what use were the eyes of a fly?
Experiment Day 12
The growths were all over Ellis now and he had been screaming for medical
attention for days. What the hell were they? He had continued to take Jordan’
s pills in the hope that they would hasten some form of recovery. It had only
fleetingly occurred to him that they might be the source of the problem but the
promise of recuperation had turned his addled brain from this notion.
Jordan had promised to release him on day twelve and now it had arrived.
He had been beginning to worry that Jordan would go back on his word but as
the door opened and light filtered into the room he felt relieved. He could see
a real doctor.
However, as his eyes began to see clearly again, all his eyes, light flooded
his being from what seemed like a million different sources all at once,
electrical pulses being sent racing to a mind that had know nothing but
darkness for the last two weeks, and his thoughts of salvation extinguished
rapidly.
Immediately, there were forms of familiarity, the shafts of light shining
through the opened doorway, the silhouette of his captor bringing a merciful
break from the searing white light.
But soon perspectives became skewed as virgin eyes awoke for the first
time. The lighted doorway in three dimensions, then four, then more…. This
Ellis could have handled, maybe, but it was when the orbs on his back opened
that his once brilliant brain overloaded.
Ellis could see it all; the front of the room, the back, all four walls at once, his
shit stained toilet in the corner, his single bed, his captor; images searing into
his struggling cortex, signals, impulses, screaming at his eyes to stop, to look
away.
Signals, drowned out by the multitude of visual messages flooding to his
brain and the screams of a man gone insane.
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