Pet Project :His Dissertation

Personal Journal - Subject-3 - Entry 1

The camera flicks on and focuses on a small bedroom. There is a window on the far wall but, showing through the gap in the curtains, you can see black paper taped with brown packing tape to the window frame. There is no light coming into the room despite the time stamp on the feed showing it to be 10:23am.

The walls of the room are painted a beige color and free of any personal items. However, there is a lighter square of painted surface over the bedhead which hints of that maybe, sometime in the past, a large framed picture once hung there. The bed is a small double, made up with a dark pink, plush cotton, 1970's style bedspread. It hangs to the floor with its little rope tassels touching the brown carpet. At the head of the bed is four pillows all in slightly different colored cases, like they were once the same but were washed and used at different times. The headboard is blue-green velvet, princess style with covered buttons puckering the surface. There are two buttons missing.

The camera seems to be sitting on a shelf and is no more than a meter off the floor. Somewhere off to the left side of the view, a door shuts and there the soft click of it catching. A person comes into frame, she is standing, and her head is cut off by the top of the camera angle. Her body turns back in the direction she's come from, her hands clench by her sides, then she turns towards the view frame and but doesn't move for almost a whole minute.

She releases a deep breath as she lowers herself to sit on the bedspread. She frowns as she stares at the lens. She is dressed casually in faded blue denim jeans, blue t-shirt and no jewelry is showing. Her hair is a mousy brown, tied up off her face in a way that implies she did it quickly without a mirror. And her face is free of makeup which shows her skin to be clear, pale and free of any blemishes or marks.

Swiveling again towards the place she entered from, she braces as if she is about to get up, her arms ready to push her up off the bed. Instead she freezes, as if she's heard something that the microphone has failed to pick up, then relaxes back to a forward position. Her shoulders drop as she looks at the floor.

"He's told me that I have to make a personal journal," she whispers without looking up, "He said that it needs to be a private confessional of my inner thoughts and emotions."

She looks off to the left before glancing at the camera. She frowns then drops her eyes again.

"He wants me to be honest and open about what I'm thinking and that he won't look, it will be confidential, until after the research phases have been completed. He seems to think that this will give him an in-depth uncensored insight into my thoughts, and that viewing it during the week could affect the outcome."

She looks towards the left side of the room again.

"I'm not sure what he meant by that, but I suppose if I criticize him then it would change the way he approaches me," she glances up to the camera again, "He's told me to start with talking about the interview process, my motivations and how I got to this house today, while he's setting up the lighting and the cameras."

"It feels silly," she bites her lip, "Talking to myself. And I feel stupid. I know he's going to listen to this but I can't help feeling like he's standing at the door listening in. I can hear him in the other room. It doesn't even matter if he's listening now, because eventually he'll watch this recording. I'm just being paranoid."

She looks at the door, exhales and then shakes her head.

"Sorry," she mumbles, "I should start."

She closes her eyes as her hands rub the plush pile on the bedspread up and down.

"My friend Penny told me about the advertisement," she smiles at her friends name, "She wanted to apply but they were looking for untouched, naïve, innocent girls, and she doesn't tick any of those boxes. It said it was a research study about the psychological effects of becoming a sexually active woman."