The Great Starvation Experiment by Todd Tucker

Author:Todd Tucker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Scholberg barely noticed the Thomas talk. He had come to Minnesota to escape the hospital and the craziness he felt growing inside him. Now the hunger was starting to crawl inside his head the same way the insane laughter of the inmates had in Maryland. In the food line, he insisted that everything he ate be served as hot as possible. He felt that his exhausted body could convert the heat from his food directly into energy. Henry was also drinking as many as fifteen cups of coffee per day. It did nothing to help Henry’s growing problem with controlling his temper.

One day after the Thomas visit, Henry somehow ended up at the same table in Shevlin Hall as George Ebeling, a situation he normally avoided. Ebeling had become something of a scapegoat for the guinea pigs, with his overly dramatic ways and his insistence on being at the center of attention at all times. Many of the men when discussing their condition would punctuate their self-evaluation by saying, “well, at least I’m not as bad as Ebeling.”

Henry was one of the last men in the food line that day, though, and there was nowhere else to sit. Henry weighed 121 pounds, down from his original weight of 145 pounds. He was cold all the time, his butt hurt when he sat for more than five minutes, and he found sleep didn’t even offer him relief; he slept uncomfortably without the energy to turn over. The dinner that evening was Henry’s least favorite: 250 grams of potato soup and 285 grams of turnip stew. All food tasted delicious to Henry at that point, but that particular supper seemed to him to be the least substantial of the three dinners they were served in rotation. Henry prayed before every meal, and that evening he asked God to keep George Ebeling’s thespian mouth shut.

It was not to be. “So sharp are hunger’s teeth,” said George. He was looking straight ahead. As usual no one had chosen to sit across from him because of his frequent recitations. He was speaking in that peculiar fake British accent that he reserved for his most dramatic orations. “That man and wife draw lots who first shall die to lengthen life.” Ebeling’s loud voice annoyed Henry so much that his eye began to twitch.

There was an uncomfortable silence in Shevlin Hall as the guinea pigs realized collectively that the most annoying man in the experiment had somehow ended up sitting next to the most high-strung. They tried as a group to will silence upon Ebeling.

Henry shook off George’s last comment. He tried to put himself into a state of yogic calm. He raised a watery spoonful of turnip stew to his mouth as George remembered another line.

“Let’s leave this town; for they are hare-brain’d slaves…And hunger will enforce them to be more eager.” George was speaking louder now, oblivious as always to the grating effect his dramatics had on everyone around him. Henry was grinding his teeth and staring straight ahead.

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