May 26, 2002
No one mentioned the tests, and I didn't have to take more today. Just as well, I've had enough for a while. But dad said I may have to take more on Tuesday. I'm sick of tests. I have enough at skool, but at least on those I am treated like a human, not some sort of lab experiment. I don't have any problems with skool tests, which seem to be geared toward those with few moving parts from the neck up. My homeroom teacher, Miss Sowerby, must be related to Miss Bitters from my elementary skool in some way. She must be over 200 years old, her bluing perm resembles an explosion, and her clothes are always wrinkled. Especially her stockings. Or maybe that's just her skin. It's hard to tell. (Not that I really want to) But class mostly consists of her insisting that we all know how to pronounce words correctly. Every day explains why she teaches at Extra Mile; she usually acts like one of us herself. Most of them are no different. The only teacher I can actually stand is Miss Palmer, my literature teacher. She is about the age of my dad, but considering her unconditional kindness, I can't imagine why she would choose this skool as her first job. I put full effort into my work so she will be proud of me. She is the only reason I do so.
The only time Miss Sowerby lets her "teacher act" go is when she goes off on me. She is convinced that I am emotionally disturbed, and acts like I'll suddenly whip out an axe and chop her head off. Since she started this whole nip Dib in the bud thing, that doesn't seem like a bad idea. Nothing I do brings it on. It just happens. I can't wait to get away from these classroom horrors as well as my dad. This experiment does not appeal to me in the least, although he is convinced it's for the best. The only good I can see coming out of this is people finally realizing that I'm not crazy. If there was scientific evidence that I am all here, then they would realize that listening to me is in the world's best interest.
Everyone I know thinks that. I have a job at Waldenbooks bookstore on weekends working the cash register, loading in new book shipments, and helping to keep the books organized. The best part of the job is just skimming the aisles, looking for a new read. I read whenever I take a break, and nothing could make me happier. It takes me away from here, and puts me in a new world, where I can be whoever I want to be. Tae and Rob, two of my classmates from elementary skool, work the same hours as me. It's a nightmare. I never know what they're thinking, and it always seems like they know what I'm thinking.
Zim works there as well, and he in particular doesn't see any problem with ordering me around like I am his personal property. He probably plans it to be that way: if he takes over Earth, he'll use it as his chance to spite me by making me his slave or something. I am not willing to see that day, as his presence is bad enough now. Everything I do is wrong. Today he yelled at me for not paying attention again. I was reading and lost track of time, and he found me leaning up against the bookshelf. It scared me shitless when he suddenly went off on me, "Dib, get your stinkbeast butt up here, we're swamped!" I feel like I always have to be looking over my shoulder for him; to make sure he doesn't catch me on break. Not that I don't anyway. It's like he's tailing me, trying to analyze my weaknesses to find the best way to get the better of me. But as long as I don't let him see me sweat, he may never find one. I hope not.
May 27, 2002
I should have known the testing wasn't over. Yet another chance for analysis of "the disturbed." Why me? I didn't want it to be me, and I don't give a shit about my dad's little projects! Why can't they just leave me alone? Gaz doesn't have to go through this, and she just sits around with a GameSlave all day! She knows about Zim's plans, but she doesn't care enough to tell the rest of the world. Her explanation of it would certainly be more accepted than mine, and could win over some listeners. How someone could stumble upon a secret that could leave innocent lives hanging in the balance and not care at all, I'll never know. I doubt that any amount of testing could ever explain Gaz anyway.
Once again, I found myself sitting on that horrible lint-chair and looking at Mark's smile of false teeth. It's not him I mind; it's just the environment and the purpose of all the discussions we had. Just when I thought we had gone through all the possible tests, we had to do another visual thing. Mark would hold up a picture from a magazine or a cut out from a book, and I had to make up a story about it. Was this a joke? Everyone thinks my account of Zim's mobilization is a made up story. Isn't that good enough?
Apparently not. Mark held up a picture of a man and woman holding each other under a bright sunset. "Tell me a story about these two people." I liked that picture. I wasn't sure why, but I wished I could be in that situation. Love. It was a foreign thing to me. I was more accustomed to aliens and all other paranormal beings than the emotion called "love." But it seemed far more warm and pleasant, as if it was something I should experience. So I told Mark about that. He sighed lightly, and answered, "No, Dib. A story." No one wants to hear my stories. I have written sci-fi short stories before, and attempted to get them in skool newspapers. I was often told they would be published, and every week, I would check the story section when the newspaper came out. They were never there. I even sent in an essay I had written, explaining Zim, and exposing him for what he was. Not only was this not published, but I was dissed for writing it in the Skool Society section! I never wrote any more stories, and I certainly didn't want to bring more of this on myself.
"I don't know. I'm not good at making up stories." I couldn't tell stories about these people; no one would listen. They would just say, "Can you even tell the difference between your little fantasies and the real world?" I have heard that more times than I want to remember. My mom used to tell me stories, and that is what led me to write my own, but once she was closed her ears to me one day, I no longer had anyone to listen to them, or to me in general. The worst part is, I never even knew what happened to her. She was a major part of my memories, then suddenly, she was not there anymore. I can't even picture her anymore. All I see is blur.
That was that. He put the pictures away and the test was over. "You can go, Dib." He said. It bothered me when he said that. But at the same time I was happy that the test was over. I know I should have been glad to be freed from there, but seeing Mark disappointed with my stubbornness made me feel guilty. At least it may get me out of the experiment.
That test reminds me of something from skool earlier this year: in literature class Miss Palmer had us bring in pictures of us from when we were little. Then we traded with each other, and had to write poems about the pictures we were given. I ended up with a photo of a mindless-looking boy digging in the dirt with a stick. I wrote:
"This is a photograph of me
Empty of all thoughts
This Frees Me
From pain
Time
Spent searching
Is completely wasted
In the wretched hourglass
Of this atrocious paranormal world."
I hated that poem. It hit too close to home for my liking. I feel like the boy in the picture, dazedly searching through nothing to find some phenomenon no one even cared about. When I turned it in, Miss Palmer asked me if something was bothering me. I said no to get her off track, but of course something was bothering me! I could end up being a human guinea pig, an alien is trying to take over the world, and my dad is making my life miserable. But other than that, nothing is wrong.
May 28, 2002
Called back for more testing today. I thought I had gotten out of it yesterday! Bye bye guilty conscience, hello inhumane testing. Mark was waiting for me, still seeming happy to see me. (Why, I don't know) Today, he said, "We're not going to stay here today. This time we're going to the lab for a test." He didn't sound terribly excited about it, either. We went out the door, and down several halls and through a large steel door. Once inside, we were surrounded by the latest works of science. It was incredible in a horrible, twisted way, when I considered what it might have in store for me.
We passed vials of bubbling liquid in various sickening colors, metal creations beyond the confines of the imagination (second only in magnificence to Zim's handiwork), and finally we came to a separate room filled with countless animals. Some appeared normal and content, while others had hair or appendages missing, others lay dead in their filthy cages, unwatched and unwept. It broke my heart to see anything left to such suffering, which was made worse by the fact that this was at my dad's hands. I could be next on his list. And he doesn't even care.
Mark shook his head as he eyed the still form of a dead monkey. Death had certainly come upon it days before. Patches of its hair had fallen out and lay on the floor of the cage. I crouched down next to Mark for a closer look. Pulling on some rubber gloves, Mark reached in and lifted out the stiff monkey. A lump burned in my throat when I caught a glimpse of the monkey's hand. It was contorted and disfigured beyond all recognition. It was hairless, and where several fingers were missing, sharp spikes remained, and odd protrusions extended from the remaining fingers. Blisters covered the hand as well. I turned my head away, nauseous, only able to picture my own hand there, twisted into some horrible scientific creation my dad's crooked mind had managed to dredge up. Possibly the best monkey for the Scary Monkey Show.
The monkey was placed in a box and went back into the main laboratory. I followed Mark on this expedition, because the idea of being alone in that animal room was more than I could stand. I would rather face my dad himself than the bloody empty eye sockets, robotic limbs, and human organs growing on the backs of hairless animals that existed in that hellhole. It was too easy to imagine myself in their place, locked in a cage, and being dissected for some heartless experiment.
Mark laid the monkey box on a table and labeled it "Specimen-583-hfa." He saw my questioning eyes and answered solemnly, "Here-For-Autopsy. That's happened to most of his test subjects lately. Very few things last long after he 'works his magic.'" I was still staring at the monkey box, only half listening. "But," Mark continued after a pause, "There is one that has been doing better than ever since its experiment." Mark led me back to the animal room. I didn't want to go, because the thought of seeing those animals again In pain Dying He seemed to understand and continued into the back of the room alone and retrieved a small animal in a cage. He kept going, and I followed him down a hall until he stopped at a large metal table. He set the cage on the table, and sat in a chair on one side of the table. I sat on the other side and looked into the cage. When Mark first carried the cage past me, I was sure that this was a mouse or rat, but now I could clearly see that it wasn't. It was a hamster.
Mark must have seen me smiling; it must have been the first time he had ever seen me smile for real. "You like her? Her name is Pepsi." Pepsi! As soon as I heard the name, I knew why the hamster intrigued me as it did. When I was in Mrs. Bitters's class, we had a class hamster named Peepi. I wonder if they are related. At least my dad's hamster experiment doesn't look like what Zim turned Peepi into.
By the time I had gotten this far, my train of thought was halted by Mark setting up something on the table. It looked like a maze, but it was brightly colored and full of holograms and optical illusions. "This maze requires you to think logically, and use common sense. Pepsi does this maze every day, but we change it a little so she is always thinking." Mark placed a hamster treat at the end of the maze and lifted up the door of Pepsi's cage, and she ran into the maze. She scurried through the unforgiving passages and soon reached a dead end. She didn't stay there long, and quickly retraced her steps and shot down another passage. In an instant, she reached the end! That was a complicated maze. How could a hamster figure it out?
Mark placed an old, chapped hand on my shoulder. "Now it's your turn to try it." I wasn't sure what he meant, but he explained it. "You get to race Pepsi. There is a big maze in the other testing room, just like Pepsi's. That's for you. We were supposed to run this test last week with the others, but it wasn't ready yet. Now that it's finished, we can see how you do."
We crossed the hall, and on the other side of the hall, there was a door marked, "Psycho-Analysis Maze." Mark opened the door, and we went inside. The room had to be close to the size of one floor of my house, and the maze was at the other end of the room. A table was near the door, and when Mark had retrieved all of Pepsi's racing equipment, he laid it all out on the table. Then he led me to the other end of the room where the entrance to the maze was. He opened the door, showing me the inside, which was plain white, not colorful like Pepsi's. I asked him about this, but he told me, "I haven't turned it on yet."
While I stood at the door, he told me, "You can't see what I'm doing when you're in the maze, but I will be able to see you. That is meant to help you concentrate on what you are doing and let me make sure you're doing okay. And when you hear a bell, that means it's time to start." He can see me, but I can't see him? I didn't like that idea at all. Anyone could come in and see me and I wouldn't even know! They could do anything, stare at me, study me, kill me
He shut the door, and there I was, alone in the maze. Everything was still completely white. It was blinding! Then, I heard a noise, and the whiteness around me disappeared and I was surrounded by colors, shapes, patterns, passages coming out in every direction. A bell rang.
Listening solely to my impulses, I ran blindly into the maze with no clue where I was headed. I was racing down a corridor that looked as if it went on for another 10 feet or so, but it was a dead end. I continued back up the way I came, feeling along the wall for an opening. As I did, I fell through a hologram that appeared to be a section of wall. I flailed my arms, trying to regain my balance, but I ended up on the ground. I looked up to see what appeared to be a modern work of art: shapes, bright colors, and protrusions extending from the walls. Or were those the walls? I'm not sure, because I was so dizzy from the look of it I couldn't even tell which way was up.
I rose to my feet, bracing myself against a wall, and feeling blindly along the wall for a door or something, anything. I continued crashing into things that I couldn't see, and I fell through doorways I didn't know where there. By the time I reached a wall that appeared longer at the top than the bottom, it felt I had been in the maze far too long, an eternity. I must have been so lost in my confusion I didn't hear Mark say Pepsi had reached the end of her maze. He told me later that she was done in only a few minutes.
I wanted to finish the maze. How could I let a hamster beat me? I leaned against the topheavy wall and looked around, trying to analyze my surroundings. There were doors everywhere, and from where I stood, it appeared as if the floor twisted up sideways onto the wall and ceiling. All the patterns and confusion I was trapped! How could I be trapped? I ran more aimlessly than ever through the passage, until my knees buckled and I collapsed. My body felt hot one minute, then I was afraid I would freeze. I shivered with the cold, and with the fear that I would suddenly jump up and try to break out of the maze. My hands and feet tingled until I could hardly feel them anymore.
My eyes had been tightly shut, but in a moment, I was sure I heard my name being called over and over. A hand touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes to find Mark standing over me, and the walls brought back to their whiteness again. He helped me up, but my numb feet didn't want to carry me out of the maze. Mark helped me get to the end, and led me to the table where Pepsi sat, happily eating treats at the end of her maze. Mark patted me on the back and said, "That wasn't bad. Pepsi was just like that her first time in one of those mazes." I smiled weakly, still regaining my composure from the run. I must admit, I'm impressed. If my dad's experiment could get a hamster from my level in that maze to a pro maybe this is better than whatever the monkey experiment was. Mark told me it was getting late, but I probably will be racing Pepsi again before long.