The Sleep Experiment Page 12
Sharon continued reading her book.
◆◆◆
That night Dr. Roy Wallis stopped by The Hideaway on his way home from Tolman Hall. He continued his mixological voyage with two new rum libations and found himself both desiring and dreading a run-in with Liz of the tight green dress and gold stilettos. When he didn’t find her at the bar—or during a very roundabout trek to the bathroom and back—he decided she wasn’t there and that this was for the best.
At home he built a Dark ‘n’ Stormy but only took one sip before climbing into bed with all his clothes on and falling into a deep, dreamless slumber.
Days 8-9
Logbook communications by Dr. Roy Wallis, Guru Chandra Rampal, and Penny Park (Exhibit A in People of the State of California v. Dr. Roy Wallis)
Subject 1 initiated conversation with me today while Subject 2 was watching a movie wearing headphones. She refused to speak, instead using a pencil and pad to communicate. She reaffirmed her concern that Subject 2 was spying on her and had some sort of nefarious intention in store for her. However, when I asked if she wanted to end her participation in the experiment, she emphatically opposed leaving the sleep laboratory, appearing determined to complete the twenty-one days. Later, she complained of insects in her hair, noises that I couldn’t hear, and a smell like burning food. She described the sleep laboratory as a magical, ever-changing forest, filled with creatures that speak to her and a meandering path that unfolds before her in whichever way she wants to go. I wonder if it is this forest and path she is seeing when she paces the room for hours on end?
-Penny, Monday, June 4
Significant changes in both subjects were observed today, including increased psychomotor activity, emotional liability, accelerated speech, and inappropriate smiling. Subjects have begun to exhibit paranoia, cognitive disorganization, and psychotic symptoms including auditory, tactile, and olfactory hallucinations of varying degrees.
-R.W., Monday, June 4
Subject 2 has become fully immersed in the vivid and sustained hallucination that he is the actor Eddie Murphy. He repeatedly performs scenes from the actor’s films and bits from his stand-up comedy routines, effectively adopting the actor’s mannerisms and manner of oral expression. The test subjects have not spoken to one another during my shift. Subject 1 mumbles to herself and is prone to interchangeable bouts of laughter or crying, nervousness, and excessive excitability. She has also displayed perplexing and concerning behavior such as throwing objects around the room, spitting on herself, and pulling down her pants. She continues to experience instances of paranoia. Although she believes Subject 2 to be spying on her, I have observed no evidence of this. Contrary, it is Subject 1 who frequently and fervently glances at Subject 2. Neither have eaten any food for more than eighteen hours.
-Guru Chandra Rampal, Monday, June 4
Physical examinations today documented weight loss, pupillary dilation, lacrimation, rhinorrhea, fever, and sweating in both subjects. Other changes noted were variances in body temperatures, decreased thyroid hormones, increased metabolic rates, high pulse rates, high plasma norepinephrine levels, an elevated triiodothyronine-thyroxine ratio, and an increase of an enzyme which mediates thermogenesis by brown adipose tissue. The changes in body temperatures are attributable to excessive heat loss and an elevated thermoregulatory set point, both of which increase thermoregulatory load, while the other changes can be interpreted as responses to this increased load. These data indicate sleep serves a thermoregulatory function in humans and suggests continued total sleep deprivation can result in flu-like symptoms.
-R.W., Tuesday, June 5
Day 10
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
Chad was becoming worried.
He’d been working so hard memorizing his lines, feeding the right amount of emotion into them, really embodying the character of Axel Foley, the street-smart Detroit cop trying to solve the murder of his friend…and now it could all be for naught if fucking mushrooms started sprouting from his head.
Martin Brest would never cast him with fruiting fungi all over his face, and the role of the lifetime, the role that would catapult him to stardom, would go to some other actor.
Chad ran his fingertips over his forehead for the hundredth time, feeling for the bump he’d noticed earlier.
There it was, over his left eye, right between his hairline and his eyebrow.
He applied pressure. The bump mushed a bit, or at least he thought it did.
Was there even a bump there?
Yeah, there was. The mushroom wasn’t big yet, but it was there all right, and it could pop up fully grown at any time, just like the fuckers did after a heavy rainfall.
Chad was tempted to check himself out in the two-way mirror, but he didn’t want the professor or his two fruitloop assistants asking him what he was doing. They might call up Martin Brest and tell the director Chad wasn’t fit to make it to the casting call.
He rubbed the bump again and noticed Shaz watching him.
“What the fuck you looking at?” he asked her.
She quickly returned her attention to her book.
Chad glowered at her for another few seconds, then turned his back to both her and the observation window.
He continued rubbing the bump on his forehead.
◆◆◆
Sharon tried to focus on the Dean Koontz novel open on her lap, but the words weren’t making any sense. They hadn’t been for a long time, but she kept staring at them and turning pages so everyone spying on her would think she was okay.
But she was definitely not okay.
Not only was she hot all the time lately, like she had a fever, she was getting a pretty bad sore throat that made it painful to swallow. Her stomach wasn’t great either. It felt bloated and full even though she couldn’t recall the last time she had eaten anything of substance.
When she had been sick as a kid, her mom would stay home from work to take care of her, making her chicken noodle soup and letting her have ice-cold cans of her dad’s Canada Dry ginger ale. At nighttime, she would tuck Sharon in beneath her bedcovers and apply Vicks VapoRub to her chest and read to her until she fell asleep.
Sharon missed her mom and her dad and her brother so much, but she knew she would not be able to see any of them again until the Sleep Experiment finished. She simply had to deal with the fever and sore throat and bloated stomach until Dr. Wallis told her she was free to leave.
You’re not a prisoner, Shaz. Just tell him you want to go. He’ll let you.
Yeah, right. As soon as I step out of the sleep laboratory, I’ll fall asleep. And who knows what he’ll do to me then. I’ll probably wake up strapped to a table with my stomach cut open.
Why would he want to cut your stomach open?
To see what’s inside me.
What’s inside you?
“Shut up!” Sharon shouted abruptly, launching the paperback novel across the room. She leapt off the bed and began pacing.
Someone was speaking to her. The Indian. Asking what was wrong.
“Leave me alone!” she shrieked, grabbing an avocado from the basket on the kitchen counter and smashing it against the ground. It kept its pear shape. She crushed it with her heel. The green skin split and the fleshy golden meat squished out from both sides of the fruit like lumpy mucus. The big seed rolled across the floor, stopping at the base of the oven.
The destruction made Sharon laugh, and when she laughed, she stopped thinking about missing her family and what was growing inside her and all that other stuff she didn’t want to think about.
◆◆◆
A few minutes later, sitting stone-faced on the kitchen floor, the fever and other symptoms returned, the feeling of being spied on returned, the darkness of her thoughts returned.
All worse than before.
She wept.
◆◆◆
Guru checked the gold-plated Casio wristwatch his mother had gifted him upon his acceptance to the University of Cali
fornia. It was 5:45 a.m. Another fifteen minutes to the end of his shift. He yawned. It was getting harder and harder to remain awake throughout the night. Neither Chad nor Sharon spoke to him anymore. In fact, they didn’t do much of anything lately. Chad sat on the weight bench or the sofa staring at a middle distance, while Sharon sat on her bed staring at whatever book was open on her lap, sometimes not turning the page for extended periods of time. Every now and then they’d do something noteworthy. Chad would jump up and begin rehearsing a scene from Beverly Hills Cops. Sharon would spontaneously crack up laughing or crying, like she’d done earlier in the morning. But for the most part they just sat around doing nothing, which meant Guru was just sitting around watching them doing nothing.
For eight long hours.
Nevertheless, while Guru and Penny might have been reduced to little more than babysitters, Dr. Wallis was still conducting important cognitive tests on the Australians, bolstering his research into the effects of the stimulant gas on human subjects, and Guru remained proud to be a part of the experiment.
He heard footsteps approaching. A moment later the door to the observation room opened and Penny appeared dressed in one of her eccentric mix-and-match outfits that made Guru think of how a six year old might dress a Barbie doll. She was smiling and seemed to be in a spunky mood.
“Morning, Guru!” She rubbed his smooth head. “I wish for a new Lamborghini.”
“I wish you would stop doing that to me every morning.”
She skipped to the observation window. “How’re our little rats doing?”
“Unfortunately, Sharon had another meltdown earlier.”
“I really mean it,” she went on, as if she hadn’t heard him. “They’re just like rats, aren’t they? Put a person in a room for a long time with nothing to do, and they lose what makes them human. They just sit around like dumb rats. Why do we think we’re so special?”
“You sound as though you might be having an existential crisis.”
She turned to look at him. “Why do you talk like that?”
He frowned. “Like what?”
“So formal all the time. And so fast. Your speech pattern—way too fast. Gobble, gobble, gobble. You need to slow down.”
“You are giving me speech advice? You cannot even pronounce my name properly.”
“Gulu?”
“It is Guru! Guor-roo!”
“That’s what I said. And what kind of name is Guru anyway? Isn’t ‘guru’ a common noun?”
“‘Guru’ is a Sanskrit term for a teacher of a certain field.”
“So, like, you’re some kind of teacher?”
“I am not a guru, Penny. Guru is simply my name, just as Violet or Rose can be a woman’s name without any connotation to the flowers.”
“I bet you’re a sex guru.”
Guru stood. “I think I will be leaving now.”
“But we haven’t done the handover yet!”
“Yes, well, if you will be serious for once—”
Penny dropped in the now vacated chair. “Actually, I don’t care about the handover,” she said, putting her sneakered feet up on the desk. “I need to ask you a question.”
“Yes?” he asked, eyeing her feet disapprovingly.
“Do you know where the professor lives?”
Guru blinked. “Dr. Wallis?”
“What other professor would I be talking about?”
“Why do you want to know where he lives?”
“I’m just curious, that’s all.”
“I am sorry. I do not know.”
“But you can find out online, right?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re Indian, and Indians are really good at computers and stuff.”
Guru rolled his eyes. “You sound like my mother. And Indians are no better at IT than any other race. There are just more of us—”
“I’m kidding!” she said, cutting him off. “But you are good with computers, right?”
“I am no computer guru.”
“Oh God, please shoot me. You are so not funny so don’t try to be.”
Guru’s smile vanished. He thought it had been a pretty good joke.
“So come on,” Penny pressed. “Can you help me out or what?”
“I think we should respect Dr. Wallis’ privacy.”
“Aww, I knew you would be a huge nerd about it.” She dropped her feet to the ground and swiveled the chair so her back was to him. “See you tomorrow, nerd.”
Guru was surprised by the venom in her tone. He contemplated the predicament for a moment, then said, “Have you searched for Dr. Wallis on social media sites?”
Penny spun around. “Yeah, of course. He has a LinkedIn account, but I can’t see any of his personal information because the account is private.”
Guru shrugged. “Given we already have his phone number, we could try a reverse lookup,” he said. “If Google has ever crawled his number on a publicly accessible webpage, we might be able to pull it up, as well as any information related to it, such as an address…”
Penny cracked a smile. “Then let’s do it!”
◆◆◆
Dr. Roy Wallis hadn’t seen Brook since the night he’d slept over in her boathouse, and he was looking forward to their date this evening tremendously. After showering, he dressed in a simple monochrome outfit along with a pair of wool loungers with cream soles. He stepped through a spray of cologne, then added some pomade to his hair and worked a dab of cedarwood balm into his beard. In the living room, he played background music on the stereo, adjusted the lighting to a pleasing ambience, built a Dark ‘n’ Stormy, then went to the wraparound deck for a cigarette. He was about to light up when the doorbell rang. He returned the smoke to the pack, carried his drink inside, and opened the front door.
Brook, channeling a 1920s debutante with a long pearl necklace and beaded dress in bold Art Deco colors, looked ravishing.
“Welcome, my dear,” Wallis said, kissing her on the cheek.
“My, don’t you smell nice,” she said. “Woody.”
“Remind you of home?”
“Does my houseboat smell that much of wood?”
“No, it smells only of wood. Drink? I have a great California Syrah I’ve been saving for just such an occasion.”
“Sounds lovely.”
Dr. Wallis poured her a glass of the single-vineyard wine in the kitchen, then said, “Come on, I want to show you something.” He led her to the clock tower room, then looked at her heels. “Are you going to be able to climb three stories in those?”
“Three stories?” She frowned at the staircase. “Don’t tell me this place has three more levels?”
“No, only this tower.”
“Tower—?”
He took her hand and led her up the powder-coated steel staircase. She seemed pleasantly surprised by the man-cave-esque first level with its pool table, pinball machines, and city views through the four large picture windows. She oohed and aahed over the second-level library/office/garden solarium. But it was the third level—where star- and moonlight filtered through the four giant clock faces, setting the room aglow in an eldritch light—that took her breath away.
“Oh, Roy, I love it!” she said, peeking through a clear pane of glass in the east-looking clock face. “I feel like a princess in her own fairy-tale castle!”
“I’m glad you like it,” he said, topping up his drink at his second bar. “It’s what sold me on the place twenty years ago.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, Roy…how can you afford such an apartment? I mean, I know professors get paid well, but this must have cost millions…”
“I received a large inheritance when my parents passed away. I had to spend some of the money on something. Real estate seemed a good bet.”
“Oh, Roy,” she said, expressing regret. “I’m so sorry…I knew I shouldn’t have asked—”
Dr. Wallis pulled her close and kissed her on the lips. They continued kissing for
several long seconds until he stepped back to give his libido some space. He wanted to enjoy the evening with Brook, not rush right to the hanky-panky.
They returned to the main floor and set about preparing dinner. Wallis had stopped by the local supermarket that morning to pick up the ingredients to make a caprese salad, bruschetta, and the simple yet classic pasta carbonara. His enjoyment of cooking didn’t extend to baking desserts, however, and he’d opted to purchase a tiramisu cake rather than attempt to bake one from scratch.
They were finishing up their meal on the deck when his doorbell rang.
Wallis flashed immediately and horribly back to the evening with Brandy nearly two weeks before when Brook had come by unexpectedly.
Could it now be Brandy at the door in some karmic twist of fate?
“Excuse me,” he said, dabbing his lips with a napkin and standing. Unable to offer Brook any explanation, he promptly returned inside and went to the front door, trepidation expanding in his chest with each step.
He gripped the doorknob, paused a beat, then pulled open the door, hoping for the best, which right then would have been anybody but Brandy.
It was Penny Park, all K-popped up in an oversized sweater, frilly scarf, and miniskirt.
Dr. Wallis blinked. “Penny?” he said, careful not to raise his voice too loudly. He looked past her, saw nobody else. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to hang out.” She smiled. “You free, professor?”
“How did you get my address?” he demanded.
“Not too hard if you know your way around online.”
Wallis restrained a surge of anger at the blatant invasion of his privacy. “This isn’t a good time, Penny,” he said simply.