"It feels like my eyes are trying to evacuate themselves from my head" she screamed, her arms and legs twitching and flailing. The experiment must be going wrong, but I can't say anything for fear of worrying her or my audience. Confidence is key.
"Great! That is fascinating!" I call to her as I scribble nonsense into my notebook. I quickly look through my notes to see if I can determine what went wrong. Perhaps the nodes on her brain have slipped, touching her optic center? Whatever the case, I need to do something fast. I can't fry this one like I did the last, or I will never get anymore test patients.
I make my way back to the patient and lift the lid, peering down at her brain. As her limbs begin to seize again I am careful not to tear the skin-and-skull lid from her head. That wouldn't end well for either of us. As she moves I peek inside to see if I can determine what the cause is, but before I can get a chance Dr. Ingested bursts through the door, already fully washed and prepped to enter the surgical experimentation room.
"What do you think you're doing, Johnson?! Pull out those nodes before you kill her!" The utterance of these words spins the patient into a panicked frenzy; "I don't want to die! Save me! Save me!" she calls out, her seizures transforming into meditated thrusts, trying to escape though her head is screwed and clamped into the machine. "Why did you have to do that" I hissed with exasperation, "I've got this under control!"
"That's what you said last time and look how that ended. Let me just help you. If you lose this one you'll lose funding. We both know this project is worthwhile, please don't make it the laughing stock of the medical community for the sake of your pride." I knew Dr. Ingested was right. He had been my mentor since my first week of medical school; now we were colleagues together in the research community. But I couldn't do what he was asking.
I moved my hands to the video camera that had been recording the experiment, making sure it was capturing everything, even the end. Dr. Ingested shook his head, retreating to the far corner of the room, refusing to take part in my stupidity.
The patient suddenly stopped moving. We listened to the solid beep sound that indicated the stopping of her heart as well. That was the end of her life; that was the end of my career.
YOU ARE READING
Portfolio of Micro-Stories
Short StoryThese stories were written under the restriction that the first line has to be the first thing said to me on Wednesday mornings. Most are from my fiancé; sometimes he planned them to give me a difficult time writing a story, sometimes it was random...
