The Experiment
Day 1: Our test subject seems both enthusiastic and relaxed about the experiment, reportedly looking forward to peace and quiet for the next few weeks. We shall see.
Day 2: Our test subject has become a bit irritated, complaining of general malaise and specific itchiness. He asked if he could use the phone to call his family. I feigned ignorance but said that I would ask. Meanwhile, I am beginning to get concerned with the condensation inside the jar and the potential for it to impede my proper observation of the subject.
Day 3: The subject looks haggard, primarily due one of the younger members of our staff shaking his enclosure. I have observed some abrasions, but it is not clear if this was from the shaking or something more serious. Needless to say, if this were an episode of The Walking Dead, we would likely ask the subject to leave our group, at the end of a shotgun.
Day 4: The subject has begun his transformation. He asked again about using the phone to call his family, and, again, I had to lie, stating that my supervisor was on vacation, returning next week. He also asked if there was some kind of medicine I could give him to relieve his headache and nausea. I let him know that I would talk to the medical staff. As I watched him there, lying in his own bodily fluids, with a thick, white, moldy foam growing on his side, I recalled social experiments that tested the limits of authority bias, wherein subjects were told to deliver increasing levels of electric shock to a participant in the next room, and did so even to dangerous levels when the experimenter demanded it. I wondered what this experiment says about me, but I have to provide for my family, and this is steady work. I dread the next few weeks and can only hope that the subject does not plead for mercy.
Day 5: The subject looks very tired and unshaven today. He has been quite still and has taken to staring at me, though, thankfully, has not been speaking. He has witnessed me eating a fair amount of fruit during my lab breaks, so I half-wonder if he has any concerns in this regard. I told him that he was as safe as an Alter Boy in church, but then immediately regretted the analogy. Needless to say, you would need to pay me $1 million (or even more) to eat this particular subject at this point. Even though I continue to feel empathy towards his suffering, he thoroughly disgusts me.
Day 8: Through unfortunate circumstances, the subject was left unattended all weekend. I thought that my colleague was working the weekend shift, and she thought the same of me, so when I breezed into the lab this morning with a cheery "Hello! How was your weekend? Did so-and-so take good care of you?", the subject flashed me a look of utter disbelief and disdain. It was as if he thought that my morning salutation was meant to excuse the neglect. Of course, an empty lab has no material impact on the subject, given that nothing can be added or removed from his enclosure, but, still, we like to make him feel as though he is being looked after, to prevent any attempts at suicide. There was just such an unfortunate incident with a banana at an Illinois lab back in the 1990s, and when that information leaked into the public sphere, there was a complete work stoppage in Cost Rica for six months, which is the very reason my colleagues and I still hoard banana chips to this day. I will try to establish a better rapport with the subject today, though, again, it is hard to hide my utter disgust with his moldy filth.
Day 9: The subject is starting to flatten and liquify. I have started wondering, when is a strawberry no longer a strawberry? Will it still be a strawberry when it is just a brown, moldy disc? How about when it is just a thick, moldy soup? How about when it completely evaporates? I am no Plutarch, and this particular strawberry is not my “Ship of Theseus”, most especially because nothing is being replaced here. I am no Alan Watts either, and this particular strawberry is hardly a flower, nor is it going through transfiguration. Entomologists used to believe that a caterpillar completely liquified in its chrysalis prior to transforming into a butterfly, but then they developed a detailed understanding of histogenesis and the imaginal disc cells that survive histolysis and actually feed off of the nutrient rich soup produced by that process. I have no hope of this kind of transformation for this particular subject, nor has any prior strawberry magically transformed into a red flower from its primordial soup, but there is always a chance, so we press on with our experiments. My only regret is that our subjects do not read the fine print on the back of the flyers that we post in the quad. After they voluntarily jump in the enclosure, however, my conscience is clear. I am just glad that they clean enclosures in a separate department. I am able to tolerate this job, only because I draw the line there.
Day 10: It is customary to administer a brief survey to subjects on their 10th day. All depending on the constitution of a particular subject, this can be an easy or difficult task. In the case of my subject, it was quite difficult. For starters, the only response he was able to muster to my initial set of questions was a faint moan, so I attempted to work out a different method for him to provide his answers: 1 tap for yes, 2 taps for no. However, when I tested this method, I got indeterminate results. I asked if he was a papaya, 2 taps. I asked if he was an orange, 1 tap. I asked if he was a strawberry, a long, drawn out moan. The survey had to be administered regardless, so I just pressed on. I did not, however, leave the CSAT questions to chance, opting instead to fill them out myself, as I had no intention of putting my bonus in his moldy, filthy hands. At this rate, I am not sure if I will even be able to administer the 20th day survey, as the subject appears to be deteriorating at an accelerated pace. I know this is going to sound horrible, but I hope he is gone before I go on vacation, as I would really like to finalize his paperwork before I leave for Bermuda, so I don't have to think about him while I am there. I am really looking forward to some much needed rest and relaxation. Lab work is hard work, after all. Just ask my subject. Just kidding.
Day 11: As I was evaluating the subject today, my supervisor stopped by to congratulate me on my perfect CSAT score from my recent survey. I could see the subject trying to motion to her with his eyes, but I quickly turned her attention to some of the numerical data I had compiled on the buildup of methane gas in the subject's enclosure. After she left, I had a quick pep talk with the subject: "Are you some kind of rat?" 2 taps. "Did you hear me talk through the buildup of methane in your enclosure?" 1 tap. "Do you want me to drop a match in there with you?" 2 taps. 2 taps. 2 taps. "Then keep your mouth shut and your eyes averted when my supervisor is around, got it?" 1 tap. After a while, I started feeling bad about what transpired between us, so I let the subject know that he was actually doing very well, and that I hoped to have him out of the lab very shortly. Of course, "out of the lab" means something quite a bit different to me than it does to him, but he was rather bliss in his filthy, moldy ignorance. I then commented on how surprised I was that his leaves were holding up so well. He flashed a half smile and attempted to brush them aside, but his arms were now fused with the rest of his body. This is a bad sign. The last time that happened was with a kiwi in 2020, and he subsequently went insane after developing a rash on his neck which he had no possibility of scratching. I am hopeful that won't happen here, or at least not until I am out of the office on vacation, so that my personnel file stays clean.
Day 12: TGIF! I can’t wait to get out of here for the weekend! I tried to cheer up the subject by letting him know how beautiful the weather was supposed to be for the next few days, but he seemed a bit ambivalent about it. I really can’t figure him out at times. Around lunch time I passed the loading dock to take a look at the new volunteers. I spotted a really cute red pepper standing in the intake line. She caught me gawking at her, and I thought I saw her blush, though it was pretty hard to distinguish one red from another. Needless to say, I would love to get her in my jar. But I digress, because, for the foreseeable future, I am stuck with this ugly, filthy, moldy strawberry. I am planning to attend a champagne tasting event on Saturday, so I might give him a thought as I pair expensive champagne with a fresh strawberry, but only just a thought.
Day 15: Well, the weekend went way too fast. I arrived this morning to find the subject quite sunken in and grizzled. The liquids within his enclosure are starting to turn a dark brown. This tells me that the subject was vomiting bile over the weekend. I’m glad I wasn’t here to see that. I asked how he was feeling, but he only responded with a long groan, at which point I asked him if that was good or bad, to no avail. As a researcher, one always wonders when the tipping point will be reached. I think the subject is just about there. It won’t be long now, I suspect.
Day 16: In the 1980 cult classic 'Altered States', William Hurt's character, Dr. Edward Jessup, is obsessed with understanding the nature of human consciousness. He conducts a series of experiments using a sensory deprivation tank and powerful hallucinogenic drugs to explore altered states of consciousness, until, finally, he begins to experience strange and terrifying transformations that blur the line between reality and hallucination. Everyone in the lab loves this movie. In fact, we used to watch it all the time in the lab, in full view of our test subjects, until we received a letter from the Society for the Humane Treatment of Apricots asking that we cease and desist exposing their constituents to disturbing images. We have always suspected that, similar to the movie, the near total sensory deprivation and the development of natural hallucinogenic substances within their enclosures could cause subjects to experience regression to a more primitive, ancestral form. It is the very reason why, in addition to keeping them in an enclosure, we do not simultaneously keep them in a dark closet, lest we find a broken jar and a missing test subject one day. It is also why we study the ancestral lineage of our test subjects, and how I know that strawberries are descendent from Fragaria Virginiana (aka Virginia Strawberry) and Fragaria Chiloensis (Chilean Strawberry). I am a bit concerned about the subject's increasing resemblance to this latter ancestor, which has a reputation of being violent and vengeful. I've taken to calling him sir while taking his measurements and have apologized profusely for the 'methane incident', citing troubles at home as the pushing me over the edge. I've also been checking to make sure his enclosure is secure, but only when the subject is sleeping, as I do not want to give him any ideas, though I do believe that he was feigning sleep on one occasion. I am not sure that a regression to an ancestral from will do anything to un-fuse his arms from his side, but one must never underestimate epigenetics, and I am the last person who wants to be strangled in his sleep by a bitter fruit, and I mean that both literally and figuratively.
