Skeptic

When Arin was first assigned to the monitoring of Dr. Jasmine Sherice, he was expecting to walk into a minefield of safety violations and boogeymen. Despite - or because of - the doctor’s genius, her reputation grew into one of fantasy and speculation. Just seven years prior she won the noble prize for her advancement in dementia and Alzheimer’s treatments, but as time went on her studies became increasingly…specific.

In fact it was an oft-repeated rumor that the only reason she got any funding for her latest project was more from the amusement than the goodwill of her benefactors. But, both were running low and with a lack of discoveries coming in from Dr. Sherice’s research, Arin was sent to ensure that the doctor was indeed furthering the cause of science and not dabbling in her “arbitrary passions.”

It was Dr. Sherice herself who led Arin around her lab, and she did it with an earnestness that Arin found endearing. If she were resentful of his presence she didn’t reveal it, instead proudly showing a lab that was immaculate and organized as well as a handful of researchers and interns who were efficient and well-trained. Also contrary to expectation, Dr. Sherice herself was well put together. There was no frazzled hair or unruly stains one might expect from a suspected “mad scientist” - she was well groomed, her black hair tied back and lab coat spotless. Even her glasses seemed to sit perfectly on her face. If it weren’t for the actual things they were studying, Arin would dismiss all negative rumors of her as baseless.

Organized throughout the room were half a dozen stations - each had a display with a dome around it which covered some benign, ordinary object. One held a plastic figurine of a man on a bike, another held a lightbulb, another still held a newspaper. Next to each display was a chair where a volunteer would sit and a headband of sorts would be placed upon their head. These bands were connected to a monitor which showed several different waveforms, all controlled by a researcher’s manual input on the attached computer.

“The core idea of this study,” Dr. Sherice said as they watched a technician at one of the stations adjust the placement of what looked to Arin like a slice of pepperoni, “is that there could be a consciousness in everything - every object we dismiss as trash or inconsequential could be the center of its own universe. My goal is to tap into that consciousness and as a result find access to a world, a life, or an experience otherwise beyond our comprehension.”

She gestured to the station with the lightbulb. A volunteer was sitting in the chair with her eyes closed. Her breathing was regular and her face and body looked relaxed. At the console, a scientist was guiding an intern through the controls while keeping a vigilant eye on the monitor. Dr. Sherice explained, “See these waveforms on the screen? Our goal is to align the waves emitted by the object with the waves emitted by your mind. It is through synchronization that a true connection can be established.”

Arin was nodding as if he understood, making several notes on his tablet. He had many questions but condensed most of them into one: “Why?”

Dr. Sherice grinned - it seemed this was a question she enjoyed, or was at least expecting. “Have you ever lost your keys and looked everywhere for them, and then - just when you were convinced they were gone - you found them in your pocket?”

That had actually happened to Arin just last week but he simply nodded in reply.

“Humanity has scoured the Earth for centuries, uncovering every rock, stretching as far as we possibly can for the pursuit of knowledge. I used to get dejected, thinking that there was nothing else to find, but then I learned just how limited our perceptions are. I think there is a wealth of discovery in plain sight, in all those places we’ve already looked and dismissed - right there in our pocket.”

“I think I understand,” Arin posited, bending over to get a closer look at a station displaying a stuffed giraffe, “You’re trying to find the souls of these ‘subjects?’”

“I’d call that an oversimplification, but I’d say you’re on the right path.”

Arin sighed, “Look, I admit this is interesting - but the money you were given for all this,” he made a general gesture to the room, “was for you to research science, not philosophy.”

There was a moment of what Arin thought might be tension, but it was broken by Dr. Sherice’s soft voice, “I guess you’re not on the right path after all. Follow me.” She walked towards a station in the corner of the room which displayed a particularly tantalizing slice of chocolate cake. “If you could ask that piece of cake anything, what would it be?”

Arin began to get the impression that his time was being wasted. “I’d ask,” he began, putting a hand to his chin and stroking a beard that wasn’t there, “if it can feel its separation from its host cake - if it still considers itself a part of the cake it was removed from, or if it has become something new, something different entirely. I’d ask if it hopes, if it dreams and if so - what of?”

“If you weren’t being an ass,” Dr. Sherice said as she began entering commands on the display’s attached console, “I’d say those are good questions.” She grabbed the headband and gestured to the seat, “Please, at least humor me. The tour isn’t over yet.”

After checking the time, Arin decided that he could spare five minutes and still beat traffic on the way back to his office. Besides, a first hand experience with this would give him quite the entertaining story to tell his co-workers. He shrugged, set his tablet down and sat in the chair.

Dr. Sherice promptly secured the headband and said, “just close your eyes and breathe.”

“What am I listening for?”

“You don’t listen for anything,” she said, “because you’re not using your ears. Just sit without expectations.”

“That’ll be easy,” Arin muttered to himself. He looked at the cake - it had wires coming out of it which were attached to panels within the dome that rotated slowly. He wondered if it was store-bought or baked specifically for this study. He closed his eyes and laid his head back. The click-clack of computer keys, buttons and knobs came to him as he began to wonder if he was overpaid. From the area of the dome he could hear a whirring, then a whine, then nothing.

Finally, Dr. Sherice said, “This will be strange.”

“What do you—“ was all Arin could say before his senses were triggered all at once. He could smell the inside of his nose, hear the inside of his ears, taste his tongue. He felt his blood move in his veins while breath filled and emptied his lungs. There were several moments of panic before an acceptance fell over him and he began to drift out of the room and into another place entirely.

One moment he was at a Thanksgiving dinner from seventeen years ago when he was just thirteen - he could smell the turkey and hear the sounds of silverware clinking against plates. The people surrounding him were young - family that had died years ago were telling boring stories and felt so distinctly present. It was as if he was really there. The next moment he was walking on an ocean made of green grass underneath a purple sky while a song he heard only once a decade ago emanated from the spiraling waves.

Then, he felt heat, and a distinct clarity came upon him that came from a place outside himself. He could not speak because he knew no words in this place. A smallness engulfed him, but he didn’t feel scared or threatened. His existence was new and incomplete. A voice came to him then, but he did not hear it so much as he felt it: “Ah, I see you’re new to this as well.”

***

The lab was dark when he opened his eyes. A single lamp shone upon the workspace adjacent to Arin. There was no one around. He felt both tired and wide awake - and as he wiggled his fingers and toes, energy began to creep out into the edges of his consciousness.

“Orange juice?” The voice startled Arin. He turned and saw Dr. Sherice standing next to him with two cups in her hand, one extended towards him. He accepted and drank deeply, soothing his curiously dry throat. She offered a package of crackers as well which he took eagerly.

“What did you do?” Arin asked, setting his empty cup on an adjacent table. He began to put crackers in his mouth with shaking hands.

“Last week I was able to isolate what I believe to be that cake’s consciousness. I manipulated your brain waves to match that - well, I’ll call it ‘frequency’ for simplicity’s sake.”

“You turned my brain into a cake brain?”

“No - I connected your brain to a ‘cake brain.’”

Arin checked his phone and saw several missed messages. The time showed that he had been sitting in that chair for about four hours. He was raw - he felt changed somehow, violated. What he went through in those four hours was both foreign and intrinsically tied to him. “I don’t remember much,” he found himself saying.

“That’s normal for your first time,” Dr. Sherice said as she set her cup down. “If you’d like to come back tomorrow to get some proper data for your report I’d be happy to reconnect you - it’ll probably be easier for you to manage then,” she looked at the clock on her computer and added, “I’d clear some time out of your schedule though - in some states of mind, time can pass quite differently.”

Arin took the headband off, removed the excess wires that he had just noticed were attached to monitor his vitals while he was seemingly unconscious. “All you did was mess with my brain. What you’re doing here is extraordinary, but you’re focused on the absolute wrong thing.”

Dr. Sherice frowned, “didn’t you feel the connection? Didn’t you feel its consciousness reaching out?”

“If you listen for voices, you’ll hear voices,” Arin spat, suddenly angry though he didn’t know why, “you’ve studied the mind, Jasmine - you know how easy it is to manipulate.”

“You’re right,” she admitted, “I do. That’s why I’m the only person in human history to have a conversation with a slice of cake.”

Arin scoffed, grabbed his tablet and stormed away, unsure if he was overreacting or being perfectly reasonable. He only made it a half dozen steps before he stopped. He turned back to face Dr. Sherice and asked, “Why would you want to find out what these things think? What they feel? How could we live among all that noise?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Dr. Sherice confessed. “But I think we’d get used to it.”

“Hm,” was Arin’s reply. He didn’t think he disagreed. “It’s late so I can’t submit my report until tomorrow. I wish you the best, doctor,” he made to leave but Dr. Sherice grabbed his shoulder.

“You know this is real, right? I may not have defined it yet, but we’ve both touched upon something that will undermine humanity’s entire perception of the universe.”

Arin looked at Dr. Sherice and again he saw no hints of insanity, none of the wildness he was expecting. There was only a simple, stern confidence.

He found that after all of this, he only had one final question: “What did you ask it?”

“The cake?”

Arin nodded.

“I asked, ‘How are you?’” She replied.

Arin nodded again as if that answer were obvious. He left the lab and never returned.