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01/15/2003 Entry: "short story....kinda silly"
the lizards made him uncomfortable. they wouldnt leave. they just hung onto the walls like dead paint ready to fall but never falling when you look always waiting till you were away on 'business', or in the other room baking a cake or in bed trying not to think about the things you were not supposed to be trying not to think about. but there they were every time he looked up from his book....still there. you would hope they had something better to do than just stare back at you like you're the one thats not supposed to be there. one time he said bugger off and decided to stare at the lizards untill they moved. after a while he couldnt tell if they had moved or not because he couldn't remember where they were when he had first decided to stare at them. so of course he gave up and said bugger off. at least the other people had the decencey to stop staring at him when he stared back at them. it was like a game he used to play.
he'd walk around the neighborhood he hated to live in and wait till he saw some people walking towards him. then he would stop and stare at them. not walk, not talk, not move, just stare. no expression that would give away his motives. there were a couple of things that could happen. sometimes the person being stared at would turn around, or just twist the old neck around to see who was being stared at, and then because there was no one else being stared at they would then make another decision. it was like a road that he would go down, and every time there would be new alleys and avenues and exit ramps. sometimes the subject would try to act like it wasn't any bother, being stared at. but they would speed up, or slow down, or stand up straight, or look down at their belly, and it would give them away. that was the usual reaction. if two people were walking and talking, they would immediatley lower their voices, or even stop talking altogether untill they were past him. this was in addition to the speeding up/slowing down/self concious action phenomenom. But he found all this rather boring except for the 15% of the time when the other person would return his stare. that was what he waited for, the return of the stare. then it became a game. usually at this point the subject would hold out for 10, 20, 30 seconds. hah. nothing. he had a special treat for anyone who would hold his stare for more than 150 seconds. first, he would stick his head out, from his neck, like a giraffe almost. then he would bug his eyes, open them as wide as possible. he would take one step towards the subject, then another, then another, all the while raising his arms very slowly like wings. he would accelerate his steps when his arms were half way up, then came the oscar winning performance. he would flap his arms, move his head back and forth away from his body and make the most hideous bird noise he could imagine. it started with a 'gah' sylable and ended with an 'e' sylable, and eminated from the front of his throat, sort of like a traichiotomy patient. of course, at this point the subject of this spectacle would hear a 'pop' sound in their brain that signalled that 'this is very suspicious behaviour' then 'the president warned me to be on the look out for very suspicious, or was that subsequies?...no suspicious, the president wouldn't be able to pronounce subsequies...THIS PERSON IS COMING RIGHT AT ME! WHY IS AL-QUEDA IN PEPPER PIKE???' and would run for cover.
and when he thought of those days he invariably ruminated on the cause of his stopping this experiment, and the subsequent court ordered psycological evaluations, hearings, and other ballyhoo that proved that the pleasure he derived from his experiment was inversely related to the displeasure he derived from spending hour after hour in the small dusty room that was Dr E.M. Getty's office, discussing the most trivial of affairs. while Dr Getty would blather on about the problems he wasnt having in school ("but you say the other boy may have looked at you crossly?"), the fights that never occured at home between his mother and non-existent father ("ah! so you were abandoned as a small child"-"actually, i think the sperm bank is still on Archer Avenue"), or the drugs he never took with friends ("honestly, Dr Getty, the only drug dealer i've ever known is you") he would contemplate whether it was his pleasure or displeasure that was inversley related to his experiment. eventually he decided to look it up in the dictionary next time he thought of it and was also near a dictionary. which didn't occur untill he was 37 and no longer had to worry about anyone meddling in his experiments. But that hasn't happened yet, so he still has to see Dr Getty once a week for 1 and one half hours to prove that he's not on drugs, doesnt' get into fights, and has a perfectly normal family life. the first session he had he actually tried to explain his actions in the hope that Dr Getty would understand it was just an experiment, but he soon discovered Dr Getty was the only one qualified to conduct experiments, not some 19 year old pepper pike brat.
"what good is it experimenting on mice and chimps and cats? i'm not a cat. you're not a cat. what will we possibly learn about humans from experimenting on cats?"
"but of course it is valuable! we learn how muscles respond to stimulus, how the heart opperates, etc"
"its pointless. they have no free will. its pointless to experiment on animals with no free will, the actions will always be easily predictable! if we experiment on our own species we might get something done, we might learn how to operate ourselves better if we have a manual for operating. it seems to me that only a few people have tried to read their own manual, and they're one in a million. what if everyone had the same access that einstein, plato, christ, buddha had. do you see? i was just trying to see how people react when they observe behavior that doesnt' necessarily fit the norms and mores of standard society!"
"well, that may be so, but that's still no reason to go squaking about at 6 in the evening to every person you see walking about. Now, tell me, does your mother ever look at you crossly?"
add your thoughts...