The Process

I walk into the laboratory - white, shiny, clean, and authoritative, like the comforting cleanliness of a hospital. Like a hospital it emits a sterile smell that makes you feel the power of controlled circumstance. It is a circular auditorium with progressively raised seating; the encompassing white walls are windowless, but the room is lit from above by spotlights that dot the slant of the ceiling from down at the lab bench, all the way up to the last row of seats. At the bench The Professor is seated on a stool in his white lab coat and goggles. His head is shaved bald, and waxed to a shine. His upper lip, greyly and neatly mustachioed. He sits pensively before the bench, hands folded on his lap and eyes focused on the members filtering in through the door behind me at the top of the isle, as I walk down it and take a seat in the middle of an upper row. (I hate when people sit at the ends of rows, because then you have to squeeze past them to get to unoccupied seats in the middle. People who sit at the ends of rows are assholes of the highest degree. Furthermore, why would anyone want to put up with people squeezing past them anyway? It results in either a crotch or an ass to the face, so in addition to being an asshole, an end of row seater is most likely a pervert as well. I wonder if they sniff as people squeeze by). The digital clock above The Professor’s head stands out against the white wall, with its large green numbers, and milliseconds tick away. They will continue to do so until 18:00:00, when time stops (symbolically), and The Process begins.

The retractable cord set into the seat in front of me beckons, and I reach down and pull it out. The plug at the end goes into my hand, and I’m connected to the sub-Network that will be used. The last time I was in one of these, the last time I went to an actual Process, must have been right before I told them I didn’t want to do my First Titration. 3, 4 years ago. Nostalgia, the random firing of memoronic neurons in the gray matter of my skull, that’s what I’m feeling.

“Status: Processing,” I try to type into the screen in my hand to update my homepage, but the connection to the cord prevents it. Once taking part in a Process, one must devote their entire attention to it, and the Network is full of distractions, so they block it. Instead of my homepage, I am confronted by a Procedure for today’s Process.

1. opening audio: a postulation for the population
2. first lecture: the chemicals that control you
3. secondary audio: you can never really know
4. second lecture: physical predestination
5. Titration and Consumption
6. group recitation of The Hypothesis

The spotlights begin to dim. The clock reads 17:58:46. A few last people shuffle in the back door and a silent murmur floods my ears. People talking to one another before the Process, while I am alone, in the middle of all the sound. Professor O’Brien remains still before his lab bench and all his instruments. His head shines in the spotlight that focuses on him and the bench. The titration burette, filled with carbonic acid awaits step five. Below it, the solution to be titrated sits clear, and unknown to all among the audience. Erlenmeyer flasks, glass stirring rods, and a Bunsen burner accompany the titration set, along with various other instruments I would probably know the names of if I were more devout.

The back door locks shut behind one more member who enters, now at 17:59:30. She rushes to a row, my row, and sits down right next to me, when there are about six other seats available. I look forward, pretending to focus on the lab bench, as if I don’t notice her presence, but she whispers to me.

“Hello Karth.” And immediately the smoky seductive emission reveals her identity, even as the dimness of the room hides it.

“Megan,” I reel to my left, and whisper in response, now becoming a murmur among the crowd. “What are you doing here?” I continue quickly, but before she can answer, the clock stops at 18:00:00, and Professor O’Brien rises. The crowd falls silent.

“Welcome everyone, to this week’s Process,” he begins in a soft, trembling voice, “I reason that you are all ready to expand?”

“Precisely,” the crowd, myself included, responds strongly, as we all know we’re supposed to.

“Very well then,” his voice becomes a bit more steady, “we shall begin,” and he lowers his head and spreads his arms to maximum width. His lab coat unfurls like two giant, white, dove wings, glowing underneath the spotlight. He stands for a moment, the room is silent in anticipation. I look over to Megan, she’s watching with eyebrows raised.

Clap. The Professor flaps his wings once, ending with a single clap above his head. The room goes dark, except for the green glowing digital 18:00:00 above the lab bench. Then the music, an erratic, electric piccolo melody, starts in an unexpected blast, coming from the circular wall that surrounds. A bass thump works its way in so loud that it probably alters the crowd’s heart beat, as we all bob our heads to its command. On the wall behind the lab bench a red blur illuminates, and it too starts to beat with the bass, like a giant heart. The blur then comes into focus, and forms the shape of a giant pair of lips. The lips open, and start to rap to the music. At the same time, my left hand vibrates, and I look down - the lyrics appear on my screen. The same is true for the rest of the crowd, and together, with the red lipped leader, we all stand and rap the opening song, all whilst Professor O’Brien skips back and forth before the lab bench, flapping his lab coat wings like a pleasant dove.

I got a postulation for the population
What?
It’s in your left hand, did you feel the vibration?
What?
Now you may say to me that that was just a sensation
What?
But sense is all you’ve got in this life’s duration
Yeah!
Yeah, sense is what you feel, it lets you know what’s real,
But what’s real for me, you might not see,
So it might not be, the same reality
We nothing mo’ than cells, in which a conscience dwells
By the facts that is supported, but it’s just what’s been purported
And one day we might abort it, so don’t be too quick to just retort it.
Yeah!

And the song ends as abruptly as it began, and it feels good to have sung it with the crowd. It feels good to be a part of something, so I look over to Megan and smile. She smiles back, but it’s forced – judging, or maybe off put by the Truth. The lights come back on and O’Brien stops his skipping and takes his place before the lab bench.

“Members,” he trembles, only this time a little louder than before, “that was a very accurate rendition of The Postulation. I feel that feeling of pride, and you should feel it too, but if you don’t, don’t feel the feeling of worry, for worry gets you nowhere, except in an early grave.”

“Precisely,” we respond in unison.

“It is a grave thought, to think about the grave, a thought that can perhaps evoke the feeling of fear, am I right?”

“Yes,” about half the crowd responds in an unofficial, offset unison.

“But you’ve got to realize that fear, like pride, and worry, and any other feeling that you may feel, is just a product of the chemicals.” He pauses, and his tremble fades away to a stronger, clearer tone. “The chemicals, that control you. What’s funny, or should I say, what creates the chemical reaction that makes something feel funny, is that even the realization that you are being controlled by chemicals inside of you, is just another product of those very chemicals. The chemicals that control you, are you. And what are we, but what we believe! And what is a belief, but a chemical reaction!”

“Precisely,” the entire crowd lets out to relieve the mounting tension of the lecture.

“And what is your response?” O’Brien probes.

“A reaction!” We, the crowd react, or respond, or in other words, let the Professor know that we’re still on the same page (whatever being on the same page means) and we still comprehend (chemically) the message that he’s trying to get across. I, contained within this crowd, within this Process, am just a process myself. It’s a lot to process, and as a younger man, I couldn’t handle it, and left, but now, well now, I’m more familiar with uncertainty.

“All so apparently true,” O’Brien goes back to a tremble, “But remember, what we now call chemicals, they once called elements. They once believed the Sun was their maker, then they believed it was God. Now we, we simply say, we don’t know, but we know how it works, and maybe one day, we’ll know what makes it work.”

“Precisely,” and with that the room goes dark, and our left hands once again rumble. A spot light shines on O’Brien, and he spreads his lab coat. This time, instead of flapping and skipping, he decides to do the Can-Can, and he kicks his black booted feet chest high as the song opens up with a sitar, jumping around a tambourine beat. The rhythm reminds me of what I believe India must be like, and the red blur comes up on the wall above the 18:00:00 and starts to beat much faster, as the sitar twangs with a panic. The red lips form, open, and move, as do mine and the crowd’s.

Ooooooooooooooo
You neva, no you neva, no you neva really know.
No you neva, no you neva, no you neva, can really show
That what you think, is how it is
That what you say is true
What’s hers is mine, what’s yours is his
The sky ain’t even blue
Cuz you neva, no you neva, no you neva really know.
No you neva, no you neva, no you neva can really shoooooooooooooooooooooooow!

This song takes about 30 seconds to sing, and when I say about, I mean I really have no idea, because time has been “stopped” within The Process. Maybe it lasted a minute, maybe it stretched to two; for all I know it was an hour long, but it did seem rather quick and my heart is beating rather fast. People around me are even sweating. Yes, people are sweating. From a song. I don’t know what disgusts me more, the very sight of the glistening sweat, or the fact that the people who are sweating must be so incredibly out of shape that they break a sweat from singing (what I assume to be) a 30 second song.

Megan and I sit back down, she’s not sweating, but when I look to her, she looks back and shakes her head. She reaches down to her hand, as if to text me what the shake means, but is automatically frustrated when she realizes that texting, like Network access is blocked. I lean over into her personal space, a bold move, and my heart rate picks up faster than anyone else’s in the room. I start to sweat from my pits more profusely than the fattest bag of human chemicals in the whole laboratory.

“What is it,” I ask her in a quick whisper.

“You have a weird religion,” she looks me right in the eye from two inches away. The brevity of her statement doesn’t hit me until after I stop fantasizing about kissing her again. Her plump, pink lips mask the message that her mouth has conveyed, and for a moment we’re back in her single, Hooked-Up to a Program, and the suction pouch is suctioning away. Then I snap out of my adolescent sex fantasy, only to be fully offended by what she has actually said.

“Religion? You think this is a religion…” And I’m about to get into a full fledged whispering tirade, but an electric shock works its way from my left hand up into my entire body, completely paralyzing me.

“Mr. McCarthy,” The Professor rages. He knows my name by the same reason he can selectively shock any chattering audience member – we’re all connected. His bald head is beet red, and from all the way up in my upper row I can see multiple veins surging between his skull and thin scalp skin. The auditorium turns in my direction, and I can feel myself turning a similar shade of red, completely mortified, and paralyzed by the voltage pumping throughout my body. I want to get up and run, I want to say, “I’m sorry sir, but this girl just called the Truth a religion,” I want to cry and grovel and go back in time and not whisper to Megan, but time has been stopped (kind of) in this laboratory, and my tear ducts are in a state of paralysis.

“Do you understand the concept of time,” he asks as his tremble gives way to a tremendous boom that’s just as immobilizing as the electricity. The question is rhetorical, yet he waits for a response as if a response is his expectation, when we both know that I cannot physically provide one. Sitting here, writhing before him, while his head gets redder and the veins on his scalp pulsate faster and grow larger, I have no idea what to do. Our gazes are locked and O’Brien is either a) theorizing as to why I have chosen to speak out of turn during a Process or b) completely overwhelmed by the “feeling of anger” and is about to make an example out of me.
He chooses Option B:

“Because if you did, you’d realize that you’re wasting the time of every single person in this auditorium by speaking during The Process, including your own! It’s utterly appalling! If you wish to speak to the young lady on your left, you should do so on your own time. You didn’t come here to chatter, now did you?” He pauses for a breath, and the irony of the situation, the fact that during a Process, as is clearly shown by the giant green 18:00:00 above the lab bench, time is supposed to be irrelevant, hits me. “You are aware,” he continues, now becoming a time waster himself, “that you only have so much of it, hmm?” And I notice that the electric shock is gone, and probably has been for a few seconds. My paralysis is now a product of fear, but the fear subsides. I break his gaze, look over to the young lady on my left, who is equally mortified, and look back to O’Brien. He meets my eyes with his, and waits for a response, one that has the potential to be “Fuck You,” but takes the form of, “I’m sorry Professor.”

“Sorry means nothing, Karth. Sorry is to atone for a past event, but we all know atonement is not revision. You must think of the future, for…”

“The future is now.” The crowd reverently responds, now transfixed by the exchange between a small, pale, man boy, and a fuming, beet red, cue tip. I remember number four on today’s lab procedure, O’Brien hasn’t wasted a moment, he’s going to incorporate me into the lecture.

“Karth,” he continues, as if he’s addressing me and only me. I want to run down the auditorium stairs and punch him in the head. “You, and I, and everyone, and everything, Everything is a piece. Everything is connected. Everything is subject to the Laws,” he says this and everyone in the room lowers their head and interlocks the fingers of their hands before themselves as if they’re performing a solitary intimate hand holding, “and all that is matter, is all that matters! You are matter, therefore you have a trajectory!” He proclaims this as if he’s just made a brilliant discovery; the hidden personal frustrations at his own less than genius, but certainly intelligent mind coming through in the tirade. At this point, telling me I have a trajectory, a destiny, he’s probably realizing that he does as well, and it’s teaching Chemistry and preaching to college kids at a state university, not unlocking the mysteries of the universe through theorem like the scientists he idolizes and worships.

But I’m still curious what mine is, and as O’Brien turns to the screen behind him, and starts to calculate, I’m feeling very intrigued – but maybe that’s just because I’m supposed (those damn chemicals). I take the break in his gaze as he turns as a chance to look over at Megan. The calm composure of her relaxed green eyes has turned strained, her fake tan turned to a pasty pale white. Any chance that I ever had with her, let alone any chance I ever had of Hooking-Up with her again, is as gone as the moments that have just passed in which the previous events have unfolded. Although what is happening now, this crazy display of Truth, will fade into the past, I’m sure Megan will never forget it. She will dwell, and if she does wish to forget, she will have to forget me as well, to completely erase the trauma. Crazy songs, crazy ideas, the electrocution of a member, it must all seem too much.

“Mr. McCarthy. Karth McCathy, what an amusing name,” Professor O’Brien professes as he turns from the calculation board. The crowd chuckles and he allows it, watching me motionlessly writhe in anger. I want to run down the aisle and cause his gleaming bald head an incredible amount of pain. To take those goggles in a hand and snap them back into his face while forcing a strong guided toe into his sac, all the while cackling in rage. Or to punch him square in the jaw, something I’ve never actually done to anyone, but am confident I could pull off professionally before this crowded auditorium. Either of these actions, along with a multitude of other equally violent acts that race through my brain as he mocks my name would satisfy my bloodlust, and would probably shock the fuck out of entire room, but I am no shocker. I sit, cemented to my seat as O’Brien continues, on the brink of what I presume is an anger induced heart attack (that probably can be hypothesized to be the current condition of both of us, as O’Brien is still beetishly red).

“You’re familiar with Physical Predestination, I take it? The prediction of future events through Physics?” I nod in agreement, imagining a laser beam shooting from my forehead and hitting him in the chest, blowing a hole through it with the fire of thirty-seven suns. “As one can predict the final destination of a rolling ball, given its attributes, the same can be done with the fate of a human life. And I stress fate, everyone, I stress it. Free will is a conjuration! A side effect of the human mind, which persists in believing that it is more than it really is!”

“Precisely,” the crowd responds as he addresses them. The explanation was unnecessary, as I did clearly nod that I knew what he was talking about, but O’Brien’s fate is that of one who enjoys to hear himself talk.

“Anyone can know their Physical Predestination, their ‘fate.’ It’s nothing more than a calculation. Granted, one must remain truthful of their actual attributes when plugging them into the formula, but if tabulated honestly, a person can know what they will be doing at any given moment of their life, up until death.” His voice trembles as it did before. Such a pathetic quiver, such a pathetic man, delivering his lecture as if he were the one who discovered the Truths he preaches, and not merely a man deriving pleasure from making an example out of a misbehaving youth, like he were a grade school teacher disciplining a rowdy child. He’s calculated my future up there on that white screen, his math, plainly there for everyone in the audience to see, and for the astutely mathematic to interpret without his aide, but he’s going to continue lecturing until ultimately delivering his final blow – a glimpse into my future.

“Using the Predestination Formula, I have taken a moment in the future and derived where you will be and what you will be doing. The math behind the formula is beyond the scope of this lecture,” he adds condescendingly. “To simplify it however,” with an emphasis on “simplify”, implying that I am nothing more than a simpleton, “I have merely mapped the trajectory of your matter, this is your wavelength, and it is what you interpret as your life.”

By code of the Truth of Science, O’Brien is not allowed to reveal this moment to me without my consent. He knows this, I know this, the whole damn room sans Megan knows this, and we all know that we all know it. One’s fate is some pretty heavy shit, you know? But I Karth McCarthy, the silent rebel, want to show O’Brien and this whole gawking room just how strong and rebellious and cool I can be. I’ll say, “Sock it to me motherfucker, I want the whole thing,” and maybe it will salvage Megan, and maybe it will even make me some friends, because we both know I need some of those.

“Would you like to know it, Karth, would you like to see your future, knowing full well that it is unchangeable…and most likely pathetic?” Some crowd members gasp at this insult. It’s apparent that O’Brien’s a little wrapped up in the feelings of contempt and hateful anger, perhaps derived from self loathing, and with that last syllabic tic, they were a little too much revealed. Emotion is a scientist’s worst enemy, and this is a fact that I use to my advantage.

“Yes I wooo-huld.” I attempt to vocalize firmly, as a man without fear of the repulsive red quack quacking before him about Physics and fate, but my voice cracks and I sound more like a scared boy asking his little crush to the 6th grade dance. (I’m afraid to tell her how I feel mom, and I’ve got this zit on my chin, and there’s just hair in strange places, and for the first time in my life I’m feeling the constant perception of myself by my peers!) The auditorium is silent though, not a single giggle at my crack, as would have happen in any high school classroom. I’m sitting among the silent and mature. I’m among those who have a solid grounding and know where their lives are going, and all that adult shit, but, as I ask for my fate, as I ask O’Brien to tell me where my life is going, all these young adults look as though they’ve seen a ghost. “The ghost of Christmas future! Hell no, keep that ugly son of a bitch away from us!” they (somehow) think (as half of them probably don’t even know what Christmas is). O’Brien freezes too. His mouth quivers instead of his voice, the lower lip vibrating up and down below the upper, making a soft patting noise – the only noise in the whole laboratory. He has turned from beet red, to a shade of pink, and his eyes bulge, bug like underneath his lab goggles.

I’m a god. I think I’ll make that my Status when, or should I say if, I leave this Process.

“Mr. McCarthy…” he responds, thinking for something to say, looking for some way to describe this anomaly, a scientist confronted with an exception to theory. “This has gone on long enough. We must move on.” He exhales and remembers that there are about 200 hundred other sacs of matter in the room, but as he looks away he leaves me with a contemptuous little smile. “We shall continue. Members, let us titrate.”

And while the electric shock has stopped and his eyes have moved on, I refreeze.

I can’t believe it.

Such build up and no resolution.

A roaring tirade ending with a casual brush to the side, as if nothing happened at all.

As if nothing happened at all.

I look to my left, to Megan, for some form of consolation, explanation, sympathy, or even a confused stare.

But she is gone.