“Isn’t this torture?”
The doctor gave a wry grin. “My dear, this man is unsuited for society, and if freed would be a danger to himself and others. You want him to go free, right?”
“Well…”
“Of course you do.” The doctor finished. “You want that because you’re a caring, empathetic person… And soon enough our friend here will be one too.”
…
The woman’s purse dangled by a pair of spaghetti-thin straps… One quick, solid yank and the clasps would give.
Bryant slowly approached… Slowly…
…But he was suddenly overcome with a sudden pang of sadness.
He felt her grief… Rather, he felt the grief she would feel if he stole from her.
He quickly retracted his hand before wordlessly running back through the city.
A homeless man held out a sign, begging for change. Bryant often took such begging to be a ploy to satiate some addiction: Booze, drugs, eStims…
…But he felt the man’s isolation, desperation, and sadness. The world had abandoned him. He simply wanted scraps from the table. The feelings were like a punch to Bryant’s gut.
“Here!” Bryant shouted, reaching into his pockets and flinging his wallet at the man. “Take it! Take it all!”
“Thanks mister!” The man gushed. “God bless ya’!”
But Bryant didn’t need the man’s thanks, he needed to not feel the man’s pitiful destitution and loneliness…
He hobbled past a back alley, passing by a cat eating from one of the dumpsters.
“No!” He cried, reeling back from the site. The poor cat! He could feel its hunger… Feel its cold… Feel the babies it had probably lost. “It’s too much! No!”
The cat was alone… Abandoned… Unloved.
Tears began forming in Bryant’s eyes as he ran.
The smell of grilled meat filled the air… The smell of an animal’s death; an animal that had spent its life in captivity.
Through his blurred vision he made his way to the park…
…Stepping on grass that released stress pheromones in order to signal its discontent.
“No!” He cried. “No!”
He heard laughter… He heard jeering.
“Hey, quit it!” A high-pitched voice cried.
Bryant turned and saw a small boy teasing a smaller girl…Her sadness… Her pain…
“Leave her alone!” Bryant shouted.
The boy looked toward Bryant, gave an odd face, then turned away before continuing his bullying.
“I got your dolly!”
“Give her back! Come on!” The girl whined.
That poor doll… She must miss her owner… She must be so alone… So sad… So lost and confused.
Bryant rushed the boy, tackled him, and grabbed the girl’s doll. With a sense of triumph he turned to the girl to hand it to her, but found her running across the park… Across so much grass that cried out in so much pain.
“Mommy! There’s a stranger! Mommy!”
…
“I’m sure you heard the news?”
The doctor frowned but did not turn toward his assistant.
“Your little experiment is back behind bars for tackling and injuring a child.” The assistant continued.
The doctor continued ignoring her snide remarks.
“According to his lawyer, he-“
“Have you come here just to rub it in?” He snapped.
The assistant, well used to the doctor’s cantankerous ways, fell silent with a small, smug grin.
“Of course not. I simply felt it best we follow the research to its conclusion.
…
Bryant sat in a corner, trembling. Moving from his plastic mattress to the corner of the room, he imagined all the fungal spores he was treading upon… All the potential life he was quashing.
He was quickly losing weight. He refused to eat anything…
…Not meat, as it required an animal be butchered…
…Not vegetables, as it required the cruel cutting of floral life…
…Not even algae cakes… Especially algae cakes… Each algal organism, killed and dried and cooked, just to make a flat patty… Thousands of them… Millions… In each bite.
He scratched the part of his arm where the IV had been inserted. In order to continue existing, the medical staff had to pump nutrients directly into his body…
…Which meant needles…
…Needles that pierced and killed some of his poor, helpless skin cells.