tHe ExPeRiMeNt

    “If you ask me Number Two, someone is running out of ideas!”
    “No-one asked you Number Fourteen.”
    “If Number One isn’t very careful Number Six will out think and out manoeuvre all of us, and then where will we be?”
    “In queer street I shouldn’t wonder.”
    “Something has to be done about Number Six, he’s a troublemaker, always sticking his nose in where it has no business. Number One is too soft on Number Six, he should be taken to the hospital and given the rough treatment. What does it matter the reason why he resigned, it don’t make no difference whether he tells us or not.”   
    “Number Fourteen, your words against Number Six should be guarded very carefully.”
    “Yes Number Two.”
    “You never know who might be listening, and careless words will avail us nothing.”
    “Yes Number Two.”
    “You should realize by now that Number Six isn’t like the others, he has to remain whole, unbroken, no extreme measures are to be employed. He has a future with us you see, it’s all been planned out very carefully.”
    “If that’s the case why are we here?”
    “To teach Number Six the errors of his ways. He must be taught to accept, to respond, and to wear his number!”
    “He’s not worn that since the day after he arrived here.”
    “Really, that was almost fifty years ago.”
    “I know, I’ve read his file.”
    “So how do we go about this?”
    “You’re asking me?”
    “Well you’re the one who suggested we’re running out of ideas, so now it’s your turn.”
    “I don’t know, according to files everything has just about been tried, something’s more than once.”
    “We could isolate him, put him in solitary confinement.”
    “He’d enjoy every moment of that.”
    “Put him in a sweat box for two months, turn up the heat.”
    “Rather crude wouldn’t you say?”
    “Perhaps, but isolating him from the rest of The Village would be a start.”
    “Then what?”
    “Use the public address system to feed him none-stop music, or just noise, white noise.”
    “Non-stop for a few hours then................”
    It’s gone quiet, but it’s a relief, how many days has it been, four, I remember keeping a note of it on the jotter on my writing bureau. The noise, it was deafening, now the silence it’s just as bad I never realized how deafening silence can be.
    “He’s not ready to talk yet.”
    “Why not?”
    “I asked him a question, he couldn’t hear me.”
    “So turn up the heat a little, hour by hour until he goes to sleep, then turn it off and freeze him.”
    Why is it so hot, water, water. The Prisoner goes to the small sink in the corner of his cell. He washes his face and fills a tumbler from the cold water tap even the cold water from the tap is warm! Sleep must sleep, so tired. A couple of hours later the Prisoner wakes up, he shivers with cold. Wrapping the bed sheet about him he gets to his feet, walks about the cell the tumbler of water is frozen!
    “The Prisoner wants to know why we’re doing this to him.”
    “What did you tell him?”
    “I told him that his stubbornness is the cause of his pain and suffering.”
    “The light of his cell, leave it permanently switched on.”
    “Yes sir, you mean to deprive him of sleep.”
    “If he doesn’t bend he’ll break, in his mind he’ll break and that’s

what will give him to me.”
    The light burns so bright, the Prisoner goes to the light switch, he turns it left, right, and left again he cannot turn off the light. He goes to his bed and buries his face in the pillow. Why, why are you doing this? I know you can hear me, even see me, I’ll tell you what you want to know, just turn off the light.
    “I do not want you to tell me anything, all I want in return for turning off the light” boomed the voice “Is for your complete obedience.”
    The light was switched off and left off.
    I cannot see in the dark, so please, leave the light on!
    “Do I leave the light on?”
    “Have him taken to the room next door.”
    “The room next door.....but no-one comes out of that room the same as they went in.”
    “It’s our last chance, the final experiment.”
    “It’s a last resort, and an experiment too far.”
    They came for the Prisoner in the night, they generally came for prisoners in the night, well they’re guard is generally down then. They strapped the Prisoner onto a tilted table. There were men and women standing about in white coats, each wearing a white face mask. There was electrical equipment, surgical tools, tools for torture, canisters of gas.}
    “Is he prepared?”
    “Yes doctor.”
    “Is the subject aware?”
    “He has been given two injections, but he can hear you doctor.”
    “Listen my friend, you can scream should you wish to, there is no disgrace. The last man in this room screamed, but then he had every right to scream. We put him into a particle accelerator, now he’s travelling at the speed of light into the future. But for you my friend there is no future, well not as yourself but as...............well I’ll leave it to your imagination!”

Be seeing you