The Experiement (620 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 0.18 on 14 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Clare <ignorethesmallprint.at.hotmail.com> (View user info) at 2004-08-03 12:47:52 EDT
Hi :)
I know this is kind of long but I've been working on it for quite a while
and wanted to know what you all think. I'll be grateful for any feedback.
__________________________________________________________________________
Aim: Death.
Hypothesis: That once dead some may miss me, however it will have no
discernible effect on the world at large.
Plan: When my parents leave for their weekend in the country tomorrow I will
steal my mother's prescription sleeping pills. So not to arouse suspicion I
will call my friend Wendy and tell her that I have decided to go with my
parents, just to make sure no one comes looking for me before Monday. By then
I will be dead. At approximately 3oclock I will record my suicide note,
simply 'Goodbye, love Janie', on our answer machine - my parents always check
it as soon as they get home. Then I will dress in my comfiest cords and
favourite jumper, just in case there is an afterlife and I have to wear what
I die in forever. Turning on the radio I will lie on my bed and swallow all
20 of the round white pills in the little glass bottle. As I slip out of
consciousness the radio will be my last contact with the world. Within minutes
I will be completely unconscious, and soon after will leave my life, and all
that it entails, behind in a silent corpse lying still and cold in my bedroom.
Once dead I will either have no conscious thoughts and therefore be
unable to carry on with the rest of this experiment, or, as I hope, I will
enter some kind of afterlife and so be able to observe the after effects of
my death both on people I knew when alive and the rest of the world as a whole.
By doing so I will be able to either prove or disprove my theory that
although some people may miss me, my death will have no obvious effect on the
rest of the world.
Immediate Results: I have carried out the first part of my plan as outlined
above, and feel the experiment so far has been totally successful. I am, as I
had hoped, not only able to remember my old life but also watch events
happening in the world and so evaluate the consequences of my death. I have
found that there is not an afterlife as such, because to be honest I cannot
do anything. I just sit, watching the world. I'm not looking at the physical
reality of the earth, but neither am I watching it like a television, instead
it is as though I am having a vision. It is hard to explain. In front of me,
seemingly suspended in mid air, are moving images of events happening in the
world, the subject of each shifting and changing over the course of time. I
don't have any way of commanding the images, and so cannot choose what, or
whom, to watch, however I feel like there may be some part of me subconsciously
manipulating them, since I always seem to be looking at things relevant to me.
I will now continue with the rest of my plan and hope that by watching the
ever-changing images in front of me I will be able to decide whether my
original hypothesis is correct. I will catalogue the results in detail below.
Long Term Results: My parents have just got home, and, as I expected, they
press 'play' on the answer machine the second they step through the door.
"You have two new messages," it tells them in that happy but stilted voice
that all automated systems seem to have, "message number one, received
Saturday at 2.58pm". Then comes my note; my voice maybe not as calm as I
thought it would sound, but seemingly casual none the less. My parents look
at each other, trying to understand what it means. I can almost see the
thoughts running through their heads; have I run away, gone to a friend's?
Not for one moment do they entertain the idea that simply I might no longer
exist. Not waiting for the second message to begin, my parents pick up the
phone and call Wendy, presumably thinking that if I was at a friend's house,
or even if I had run away, she would know where I was. After a short
conversation, establishing that Wendy thought that I had gone with them for
the weekend, my parents put down the phone and decide to check in my room.
Maybe there's some clue as to where I am up there?
Of course when they do push open my bedroom door, the sight that greets them
is slightly different to the one they expected to see. I do, in fact, look
very much like I'm sleeping and so seeing no cause for alarm, my mother walks
over to me. However as she does so something attracts her attention - the
empty bottle that once contained her sleeping pills. The pills that were now
half digested in the stomach of what was once my body. At this point she
begins to shake my lifeless corpse, her annoying, tinny voice screeching my
name; a sound 'loud enough to wake the dead' you would have thought, but not
me. My father then walks up to my bed, and takes hold of the wrist of his
dead daughter to check for a pulse, just like any self-respecting doctor
would do. Then, putting his hand on my mother's shoulder, he leads her away
from my dead body, what was once my neatly combed hair now in complete
disarray. And right there you have my father in a nutshell, always one to take
charge of the situation, and never one to show his emotions (if he ever has
any).
Once the formalities that follow the discovery of a dead body have been
perfectly executed by my father, both he and my mother display the range of
emotions that I expect all parents go through after finding out that their
daughter had 'committed suicide'. I use this term loosely however, since I
feel that it has connotations of me being depressed and maybe even mentally
ill; of course this was not the case, although I suppose my parents don't
know this.
One such emotion meant that my parents decided that they should have noticed
that 'something was up' and that there must have been 'something they could
have done'. However I don't feel particularly bad about them feeling such,
since after a couple of chats with their friends and neighbours who came to
offer their condolences both seem to have dropped this idea, accepting that
there was little they could have done. Coming to this conclusion was easy
since the routine investigations that were carried out by the police, in an
attempt to find an obvious motive, were all inconclusive (what a surprise).
This, unfortunately, simply could not console Wendy. After receiving the
'dreadful news' (my father's words, not mine), she took it upon herself to
accept the blame for my death. It seems that she became sure that she, as my
best friend, could have realised that something was wrong, which of course
would have been a very difficult task, since there wasn't. Apparently, after
going through the conversation again in her head, she decided that there was
something 'strange' about my voice when I spoke to her, although I maintain
that this was nothing more than the after effects of a nasty cold, which I
had contracted two weeks before.
As for the rest of the people who knew me, distant relatives, class mates and
such, once they had recovered from the original shock of being told the news,
and had quickly tried to remember any clues as to why I may have killed
myself, things shortly went back to normal. They turned up to the funeral to
pay their 'last respects' of course, and some even shed a few tears as my
corpse was incinerated. But once they had eaten a few canapés and downed a
couple of glasses of wine at the wake there was little left to do but console
my parents one more time and shuffle out the door; a couple of 'happy
memories' implanted in their brains for old time's sake.
And the rest of world? Pretty much the same I guess. But who knows, if I had
still been alive I might have stopped that multi-car pile up that happened on
Tuesday. I used catch the bus that swerved out of that junction a moment too
soon. What if I had held up the driver while I fumbled in my purse for loose
change? Apparently if the bus had come to the traffic lights a couple of
seconds later they would have been fully on red, and the driver wouldn't
have taken any chances as to whether he could nip across the junction in
time. Oh well, I guess that's life (and death).
User Reviews
Submitted by NetProphet (user info) at 2004-09-06 15:36:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
A decent post.
Submitted by Timmah (user info) at 2004-08-17 11:01:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by Ignore_the_Small_Print (user info) at 2004-08-03 13:18:13 (#)
Ranking: 0
I just thought I'd mention that actually this was my GCSE original writing coursework and I got an A* for it - do you think it was worth this
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Hmmm no use of paragraphs, inability to spell experiment. Im guessing they were pissing up your back. D+ for you !
Submitted by Freight_Train (user info) at 2004-08-17 10:38:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Ignore_the_Small_Print (user info) at 2004-08-08 15:13:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
thanks for the concern stin but I really am fine :) i just thought it was an interesting subject.
i originally was just thinking generally about what would be an original suicide note, and it came to me that it would be some thing like - 'aim: death, hypothesis: no one wuill miss me, method:overdose, results:see for yourself'. but then a few days later we were told about our coursework assignment which could be about absolutly anything. i'm not the most imaginative of people but remembered this general idea and took it from there, the result you can see above :)
Submitted by Stin (user info) at 2004-08-07 11:27:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I have to admit that as your teacher, I wouldn't have given you an A* for it. But then I sat my GCSEs in '99, so things have probably changed since then.
I wonder what set you thinking like that, what made it a good topic to sink your teeth into, if you like. Many people who are depressed think very long and hard about how they will commit suicide, what they will say in their leaving note, where they will be, how they will look to the outside world.
The majority of people who make a plan as detailed as that don't follow it through. it's a kind of comfort to them to know that they could, if they wanted to.
I guess what I'm really querying is your mental state - are you ok?
Submitted by runninginplace (user info) at 2004-08-03 15:17:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
well written. try to space the paragraphs out so it easier to read.
Submitted by Thanatos (user info) at 2004-08-03 13:55:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by gibberish (user info) at 2004-08-03 13:36:41 (#)
Ranking: 2
Actually what would have clued your mother into the fact that you were dead not just "taking a nap" would have been the god awful smell-- you lose control of your sphincter muscles after ODing on pills.
Its not just after taking pills. I think(correct me if I'm wrong) a few hours after death rigor mortis sets in. This entails essentially all your muscles clenching at once, and staying that way. Rigor mortis lasts a few hours, then all your muscles loosen again. ALL your muscles, including bowel control. You'll soil whatever you're laying on/in.
On a side note, this is why it was so important to bury the dead after battles. Thousands of rotting corpses with their last bowel movement laying around isn't good for your health.
Submitted by gibberish (user info) at 2004-08-03 13:36:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Actually what would have clued your mother into the fact that you were dead not just "taking a nap" would have been the god awful smell-- you lose control of your sphincter muscles after ODing on pills.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2004-08-03 13:26:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
So, are we gonna do it, or what?
Submitted by Ignore_the_Small_Print (user info) at 2004-08-03 13:18:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I just thought I'd mention that actually this was my GCSE original writing coursework and I got an A* for it - do you think it was worth this because personally I was really suprised when I was told this!!
Thanks for the comments btw :)
Submitted by OneCheapGeek (user info) at 2004-08-03 13:08:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Better than most of the crap on here.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2004-08-03 13:05:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I sure hope that this is a true story so I don't have to read any of this broads' depressing drivel anymore.
Submitted by Yams (user info) at 2004-08-03 13:00:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
So you're saying...you never made a difference whatsoever? Hmm...Kind of sucks, doesn't it?
+1 for some thought, which is seldom shown anymore on Uber.
Submitted by UniBrowZIT (user info) at 2004-08-03 12:58:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Not too good or bad so here's a rating to reflect that..