Madhouse Fog by Sean Carswell

Author:Sean Carswell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Manic D Press, Inc.

19

Dr. Bishop sat on a small metal stool facing a squirrel in a cage. The squirrel skittered around half mad, knowing what was coming. I sat behind and to the right of Dr. Bishop, clipboard on my lap, pen in hand. She held a small gadget in her hand: a three-inch metal tube with a button on top and a wire running from the bottom. It was like the buzzers that game show contestants use when they have an answer. When Dr. Bishop pushed the button, an electric current flooded the squirrel’s cage. The squirrel leapt. The leap didn’t help him much. The current ran through him. His short hairs stood briefly on end.

Prior to putting the squirrel in the cage, I had tested the shock. I tested it first with a voltmeter. It barely registered. I tested it second by putting my hand on the wired bottom of the cage and pushing the button. The shock felt like static electricity. It wasn’t pleasant but it was far from painful. I realized, of course, that my threshold for pain was much higher than the squirrel’s. Still, there wasn’t enough juice in that cage to do real harm to anything.

I had also fashioned a wooden platform in one corner of the cage. The platform was exactly big enough for the squirrel to stand on, but no bigger. Because the platform was wooden, it was impervious to the electric shocks. A wise squirrel would seek solace there.

After the squirrel leapt, I made a note in Dr. Bishop’s notepad. We were investigating whether or not the squirrel would figure out when the jolt was coming and react prior to the jolt. It was an alternate take on Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiment. Instead of setting off a buzzer to warn the animal that a shock was coming, Dr. Bishop sent a mental warning. She thought to herself and hopefully to the squirrel, ‘Okay, little fellow, I’m going to shock you in three… two… one… Jump!’ Then she pushed the button. My job entailed watching the squirrel to see if he jumped onto the platform before the shock hit him. Dr. Bishop went through the ritual of thought, countdown, shock twenty-five times. The squirrel never made it onto the platform at the right time.

Dr. Bishop stood from her stool and set the buzzer down. The squirrel darted around in his little 2’ × 3’ cage. He clearly had no idea where the shocks were coming from. Dr. Bishop reached for my clipboard. I handed it over. She examined the notations.

The sheet on the clipboard contained a simple chart. On the top was written the date, the number Dr. Bishop had assigned for the squirrel, the time, and various codes about where and how this experiment fit into Dr. Bishop’s larger research project. The body of the page had fifty rows and three columns. The first column was labeled ‘shock.’ Each row in that column contained a number, starting at one and ending at fifty. The second column was labeled ‘anticipation.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.