Like many people suffering from enormous heartbreak, and bereft of real, close friends to help weather the capricious storms of memory and regret, I turned to drugs.
Not the normal complement of common, over-the-counter cuts, or street pharma – injectables, swallowables, smokables – no. I, from the fevered, shadowed depths of my suffering, began a daily scan of the SEEKING SUBJECTS section of my city’s various periodicals.
I pored over the details of these ads, looking for something anomalous, something suggestive of supreme intoxication and affect, some magical elixir that, I fantasized, would grip tight in a fist of pain brighter and more penetrating than the sun, and then render me whole again, somehow cleansed of the psychic stain brought on by a deliberate and unconscionable act of callous betrayal, my life, no longer in the ruins of years of beautiful memories.
I suppose I was ahead of the curve on this, because memory-erasers hadn’t been invented as yet, merely theorized.
So, I searched. Not for the fountain of youth, or a phial to armor me against existential crises, but for a way to forget, obliterate completely and totally, the memory of years of my ex’s horrific abuses, their cold exploitations of me, my life, and our relationship. Not merely to bury, but destroy, without destroying myself.
The first foray: One study, located in a modern clinic decorated in industrial beige, showed promise, but ended up needing subjects to test a new, “less addictive” morphine derivative. I declined.
Another study, across town in a seedy medical office, wanted volunteers to test fast-drying liquid condoms. As I had no partner, I declined.
Another study sought persons with a specific type of brain=- trauma. I got a free MRI from it, but did not qualify.
Months passed in this manner, where I would take random days off work and travel across the city either to refuse, or be disqualified from participating in some exceptionally odd medical research. My job performance suffered. I became reclusive.
Then, late one evening, on the verge of capitulating to drinking myself to death, I saw a particular advertisement:
**SEEKING HUMAN SUBJECTS FOR TRANSFORMATIVE MEDICAL STUDY** **SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY**
**FINANCIAL COMPENSATION GUARANTEED**
The address of the clinic was literally across the block.
I pledged to call the provided number early the next morning and spent the rest of that evening gamely trying to sleep, my thoughts a whirlwind of differing possibilities and potentialities. Eventually, dragged down by exhaustion, I slept.
I woke into dawn’s twilight fading to a bright and unseasonably warm morning. After waiting until the clinic’s regular hours, I scheduled an appointment with the clinic’s nurse over the phone for later that day and spent hours in a sudden, new-colored funk: What if this was another marginal disappointment? What if this offered nothing but another pedestrian research? What if this was exactly what I needed and I was rejected? What if I was accepted, stayed the course of the study and it didn’t produce the desired results? The compensatory nature of the study meant little to me, though my finances had suffered along with my spirit. (Self-abuse isn’t cheap, you know.)
After what felt like an interminable wait, I left my ill-kept bedsit and walked around two corners to the office of Dr. H , located in an anonymous beige four-story building with a pair of silvered doors facing the street. Behind the doors was a pale minimalist lobby, with a wooden door for the stairs, dull metal doors for what seemed a modest elevator, and a stark white-on-black placard listing the businesses upstairs under a map of the fire exits hung between the two. The office I sought was the only listing for the second floor; I opted to use the stairs.
The office entrance was situated on the opposite side of the stair door according to the map abreast the exit door. I followed three long sections of a checker-patterned linoleum floor to a ceiling-high black metal door, behind which was a warm-colored, well-lit waiting area with two low gray couches staged facing each other across the lobby’s width. At the lobby’s center was a high wooden circular counter administrated by an elderly, handsome, slender nurse. She greeted me with a graceful wave which silently glided towards the couches as if to indicate that I sit. The couch to her left looked less lumpy than the right one, so I sat on the edge of the cushion seat, pensive. The nurse bent her face towards a screen that she tapped at frequently with a bemused expression on her face.
A few minutes later she glanced at me and gestured that I come to the desk. I sprung off the couch and slow-walked to the desk. She pointed to a door outlined by light that appeared in what had previously been the blank back wall of the lobby.
“Hi. The Doctor will be ready to see you in a moment, so please go through that door, follow the hallway all the way down, make a right at the end and, enter the exam room marked 9C. It’ll be near the end of the hallway on the left”, she said in a whiskey-grained voice. She waved me in closer and half-whispered, “Doctor H works wonders. Don’t be afraid of what happens. This isn’t my professional opinion, and I’ve never been a patient, but I’ve seen what happens with the test subjects. It’s… it’s… miraculous.”
I continued on into the book-stuffed office of Dr. H____, a tall, soft-spoken woman with bland features and short chestnut hair. After a perfunctory greeting, and the signing of an NDA, Dr. H____ led me into an adjoining examination room, where she subjected me to an efficient and thorough psychological and physical evaluation. In the midst of smoothly drawing my blood into more than a few sample tubes, she said, almost casually, “You appear to be under some strain. Has something happened recently that could have induced it?”
“I…” hesitant, not really knowing whether to lie, then deciding against it, “…broke up with someone. They broke up with me. A while ago. It was bad. Nasty. Abusive. I think I’m… still… recovering. From that.”
“I see,” said Dr. H____, placing the last of the tubes in a box on the counter and closing it; the box then traveled along the counter and into the wall. She pulled a pair of black-rimmed glasses from a pocket in her coat but didn’t don them.
“Well, I suppose I should tell you about the experiment, while we wait for your blood work to come back.”
“Doesn’t that usually take a day or so?”
“At labs where there are a lot of patients, yes. Here, no.” Hand-with-glasses gestured to a door in the examination room.
“We’ve got very efficient machines here, and we’re looking to see if your tissues fall within specific parameters.”
“Ah.” I sat upright, slightly chilled, in my examination gown. “Do you think…”
Dr. H__ unfolded and refolded the temples of the glasses, and said, “I’m very confident that you’ll qualify, which is why I’m willing to discuss this with you.”
She sat languorously in a nearby chair. “What will happen, if I am indeed correct about you, is we – I – will administer two injections. One is a cocktail of amino acids and a lot of vitamins, mostly B, to re-balance your system, move you towards something like your optimal health. The other…” she started, then turned towards a curious knock from the closed door.
“Hold on.” Dr. H___ strode swiftly to the door and opened it a crack, withdrew a small sheet of paper extended towards her which she rapidly examined and returned to the fissure. Dr. H___ turned to me then, smiling widely. “Sorry about that. Your labs look good, so you qualify for participation. Where was…”
I was tense. “The other injection?”
“Ah…ah, yes.” She sat gracefully again. “The other injection is a cocktail of my own devising, a similar composition as the first, with the addition of an experimental mutagen.”
“…Experimental?”
“Experimental, and very slightly carcinogenic, but in doses much, much larger than what I’ll be giving you.”
I scratched at my arm. “Which does what, exactly?”
Dr. H___ leaned back in her chair, placing the glasses into a different pocket. “It transforms you. That’s the experiment.
Two injections, and in a week you come back and we see what has happened.”
“Sounds risky”, I said.
“Not at all. All the previous subjects have reported nothing but positive results.” Dr. H___ counted them off on her fingers:
“Better rest, sharper senses, firmer skin, weight loss, better digestion, stronger will, improved libido – you name it, and it’s come back as an experimental return.”
“But what’s the point of the experiment?”
“We’re testing to see if the mutagen has any side effects. So far, none.”
“Will it cure heartbreak?”
Dr. H___ cocked her head to the side for a moment, her face in a quizzical expression, then she quickly returned to her usual nondescript demureness. “If it did, that would be… tremendous. But no one has reported back that… kind of result. Maybe you’ll be the first!
“Really, though, I do expect your stress levels to drop, and this…” she almost couldn’t say the word, “heartbreak that you feel you’re suffering from will become something like the memory of a lingering cold, or a badly stubbed toe. Some pain, then your system will rectify itself.”
“Ah. Well, okay.”
“Let’s get your injections out of the way.”
Dr. H___ pushed a button and a new box slid forth from the wall. She produced two hypodermic syringes from it and carefully injected me in the same arm with both, one site above the other.
“Before you leave, the nurse will give you a card with your patient ID code and a number to call in case of emergencies, and set up an appointment for a week from now.” She smiled at me and I could see the smile barely touch her eyes. “I expect by this time next week you’ll feel like an entirely new person.” Dr. H__ stood and left the room through a door that appeared as she approached the wall, and I got dressed, feeling the residual irritation of two injections in my arm as I moved.
The nurse smiled as I exited the hallway door, and waved me over. “Hi! How’d it go?”
“It went okay, I guess.” I was anxious to go home and resume my spiraling into grief. She brandished the card like a magician. The numbers were printed under minimal information in jet matte on high-quality card stock.
“Don’t worry, hon, you’ll probably be feeling much better before we call for your follow-up,” she said, honey-voiced. “The ID number is your case-file, so don’t lose the card and we’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Have a good day!”
“You too.”
Once out of the office, I shoved the card into a pocket and followed the winding hall back to the building’s stairwell.
As I stepped out onto the sidewalk, heading back to my tiny, grubby apartment, I was hit with a warm, healing flush from within – probably the first injection. Dr. H__ had said it would work quickly.
That same inner glow carried me around the corner and back to my bedsit, which I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, feeling better than I had in… forever. Only certain childhood memories possessed such verve, such immediate vitality. The day stretched into clear evening, and after an early supper I lay on my bed, still feeling amazing.
I slipped into a deep, restful sleep.
For three days.
Waking to answer the phone, get fired, and then fall back asleep.
Four days out – according to my watch – I awoke feeling different – heavier, or thicker, with a pressing need to relieve myself. I shambled from my bed and into my tiny bathroom, where I passed what seemed like an enormous amount of bodily waste into the toilet – I had to flush twice.
I almost didn’t look at myself in the mirror while washing. Scratch that – I didn’t look at myself in the mirror. I looked at a different person: one significantly taller, hairless, no nose or ears whatsoever, red-black irises on blue-black scleras in enormous turquoise-lined eyes, speckled black and gray skin roiling like oiled leather, a tri-part mandible over several rows of slitted mouths, lined shark-like with rows of tiny, knife-edged teeth. Me, but not me, but me.
The image in the mirror fazed me a bit, like waking up the day after a haircut. But I still felt good, though heavy.
Sleepy.
My hands were webbed. But I still had fingers (no nails? all nail?), so I called the emergency number for Dr. H__.
“Hello?” The nurse answered, sounding like she was trying to hide her surprise. I suspected no one had ever actually called this number.
My voice was a gravel chorus. “Something’s gone wrong.”
“Wrong how?” I noticed in myself an ability to discern the exact tonality of a voice. The nurse sounded tentative, skeptical.
“I’ve turned into a thing, that good enough for you?” As weirded out as I felt, I wasn’t angry. I couldn’t be angry. I somehow shaped the basic tone of my voice to sound more pissed off. “Get Dr. H__ on the line.”
“She’s not in right now.” A lie. I could hear a slight quail of panic. And also, the good doctor, standing not too far from
the gesturing nurse. “I can have her call you back…”
I modulated an unfelt impatience. “She’s standing right behind you. Give her the phone.”
There was the soft susurrus of the receiver fumbling from one set of hands to another, then “Yes?” Dr. H__, I noticed, had an icy quality as the base tone of her voice.
“This is Chauncey. I came in last week?”
“I’m sorry, who?”
I read the ID off the card: “I’m subject AHX42042. I’m part of your experiment. Something’s wrong.”
“Wrong how? Can you describe the symptoms?” Despite the false concern I could detect something in her voice that lay between fear and disdain.
“I look like a movie monster. Is that wrong enough?”
“Err…” Dr. H__’s hand covered the receiver, but I could still hear her order the nurse to pull up my records. “Do you want to come in so I -“
“I can’t. If I leave the house like this, someone will call the cops. Or animal control,” I almost giggled. Why wasn’t I angry? Or upset?
“Okay, well, there’s not much I can do over the – “
“I live a block from your office. Just walk over,” I said and hung up.
Quickly, I examined myself. My skin was smooth, but appeared scaly up close. My senses were amplified – I could hear the doctor’s crepe-soled shoes as she came around the corner, mixed with the sounds of light traffic, day-traders yelling into cell-phones, babies crying and gurgling and laughing all around me in my building, the couple three floors above me having sad, slow sex, could smell the brewing of coffee from the building down the block, the distinct chemical elements of the dust coating my apartment, including all the metal proximal to me – the doorknob and the bathroom fixtures, every screw, and nail, and stud, all the appliances and wires and pipes – Dr. H___’s knock almost came as a surprise.
“Door’s unlocked. Come in.”
She entered cautiously, expecting something untoward – there was a syringe of something potent in her coat pocket, next to some keys, next to a scalpel, the rattling of which I somehow heard like notes in a chord, and smelled, the same way I could smell everything in my apartment – “Are you – oh, Jesus.”
“Yeah.” I heard: her fear, her clothing twisting with rising breaths, the sharpened edges of her loneliness. It was something to which I could relate. “So, what was in that injection again?”
“Oh fucking Christ. Oh fuck.” She backed up against the closed door in quickening fright. Petrified. Heart hammering.
“I’m not going to eat you, Doc.” Mock comically, I looked down at myself and back at her. “Oddly, I feel great. I look weird, but I feel great.”
“Fuck. What the fuck.” She was about to lose it. Slowly, as casually as possible, I sat on my bed, reached over into my nightstand, withdrew a colorful knit cap, and pulled it onto my head.
“Is this better?”
“Yes. A little. I… I’m so, so sorry.” She genuinely was. “What… what do you need? What can I do? I’m suddenly at a loss
as to what to do here…” She relaxed her shoulders against the door and started patting at her pockets. “I could take tissue samples? I think I brought…”
I tried sounding comforting. “That sounds good. Take some samples, figure out what happened to me. Tell me what you can.”
“I, uh, okay. Extend your arm.” She approached as if I was on fire, touching my extended limb as little as possible, tamping her revulsion. She attempted to draw blood with a syringe but my new skin refused the needle. “Hell!”
“No worries,” I said. I looked at her, held up a finger. “How much blood do you need?”
The ice – professionalism, I suppose – crept back into her voice, winning out over the horror. “One hundred CCs will suffice.”
“Okay. Be ready.” Slowly, I leaned back from her and, just as slowly, made a small cut, with my fingernail, on the opposite palm. Bright purple blood oozed viscously from the wound, and she collected it in two sample tubes that she’d brought.
“That enough?”
“I believe so.” I made the cut close by thinking it closed. She leaned in and, with curiosity in her eyes, examined where the cut had been, feeling the fast-fading scar with a trembling finger.
“Holy shit.”
I smiled and I saw from her reaction that it was a horrifying sight, so I stopped. “I’ll probably get that a lot.”
“Are you in any pain or discomfort at all?” Genuine concern.
“None whatsoever. I feel great. I feel fan-fucking-tastic.”
“Fascinating.” She backed toward the door, never taking her eyes off me. “I’ll run this, and call you later. You’ll be around?”
I laughed at that, which seemed, according to Dr. H__’s vexed expression, more horrible than me smiling. “I’m not planning on going anywhere for a while. I’ll wait.”
“Okay.” I could hear her knuckles strain from clutching the doorknob. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
“Cool, Doc,” I said to the closing door, and to the sound of her running down the hall and stairs.
I laid on the bed, attempting to conduct an inventory of my expanded senses, my transformed self, and fell asleep.
The phone woke me a few hours later. It was Dr. H__, and she sounded panicked. “Look, I don’t… I have a hypothesis, but I need an additional piece of info.”
“Sure, whatever,” I drawled lazily. “What you need, Doc?”
“Do you have a scale?”
“Yeah.”
“Go weigh yourself.”
“Okay.” Simple enough. I felt heavier, so I surmised I’d probably be heavier. The scale disagreed. I reported this to Dr. H__, who said, coldly, “Aw, hell.”
“What?” Part of me was genuinely concerned now. The rest of me wanted to sleep more.
“You came in to cure yourself of heartbreak, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you still feel heartbroken?”
“No.”
“Do you feel,” she hesitated, as if seeking the right turn of phrase, “do you feel like you could love again?”
Reflexively: “No.”
“Do you feel like you won’t, or you’re unable?”
“I suppose it could happen. I feel… I feel unmarred. Less disconnected from…”
“From others?”
“Yeah. I can’t remember feeling quite so… open to the possibilities of people, even though most people now would think I’d eat them or something.” I suppressed a laugh so as not to ruffle Dr. H__. It was genuinely funny, the thought of me in this new flesh over a new heart.
“Okay. Well,” I heard the rustling of papers on her desk, the hum of a laptop nearby, “this is my theory. We’re still running tests, but I think that the mutagen has somehow activated some kind of… body overhaul, in conjunction with your own drive to heal, and altered you. Into… well, I don’t know what, really, yet, but I can tell you that it’s not bad. Permanent, yes, but not bad. Kind of interesting.”
“Interesting, how? What do you mean by that?”
I heard a smile that reached her eyes over the phone, the coldness in her voice warming slightly – “What are your thoughts on space travel?”
Lovely tale.