At first, the mild electrical shock and tiny horizontal rollers tickled as they brushed his eyelashes. The novelty wore off in seconds. Floating safely in the isolation tank of body temperature saline solution, Marsden relaxed, and began to enjoy the neural fireworks his cortex launched against the artificial night of his closed eyelids.
Rippling orange waves of an atomic peach color erupted from a tiny, twitching dot of black in the center of his visual field. The black turned blue, eclipsing the orange before morphing into cinnamon red jellyfish tentacles swaying and straggling in his visual cortex. The tentacles entwined when they touched, shifting colours until there was just one rope dazzling with a rainbow of colours melting into each other. The rope curled in on itself, coiling in like one of those round, too big to fit in your mouth lollipops he had as a kid. Thick, round, sugary rainbows that stretched your lips and hurt your teeth if you tried to bite through them.
The coil of light spun faster and faster, becoming a blur of phosphorescent yellow before tipping back in his field of view, becoming three dimensional. Marsden marveled as the centre dropped out and unravelled. It was like the Indian rope trick, only upside down. The end of the rope unfurled and plummeted out of the bottom of his field of vision. He watched the pale yellow rope turn white as the last of it fell out of sight, and he saw nothing but the purest, impenetrable black. Not only saw it, but felt it; that sense of the void, of emptiness on a large scale. This was what the whole experiment was about. Finding that sweet spot of sensory deprivation and sensory excitation that would override conscious interpretation of events.
Tears of joy leaked out from under Marsden’s eyelids. By his estimation, there was 3 minutes left in the experiment, then Horst would open the pod, and help him out. He would quickly towel off, write out his observations, review the EEG read outs, and have a white paper ready by the end of the week.
He felt he change in air temp and sensed the light of the room when the lid was open. He felt two fingers against his neck. Checking and recording vital signs, making a full assessment before removing the apparatus. Good man, Horst, good man, thought Marsden.
“Frank, you got an official time of death for me?”
“Well, I’d say about an hour ago, maybe half that. We’ll know more once we get him to the lab. Looks like natural causes. One thing odd, though.”
“Odd,” said Horst,”what’s odd about it?”
“The smile,” said Frank. “In my professional experience, nobody dies smiling.”
Very nice verbage, imagery, and a great finish. I’ve always wanted to try sensory deprivation — well, until now.
Glad you liked the ending – it gave me the most trouble. Nice to know it was worth it.
Poor Horst. Great detailed imagery in the isolation chamber, Trevor.
BTW, line 10, fix: too big to “fir” in your mouth. Although, I do kinda like the idea of fir in the mouth
Yeah, this week was all about description. I just picked one of the senses, and went for it.
Thanks for the proofread – fixed it.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Laura Eno, 3S_stories. 3S_stories said: #fridayflash Happy Ending, by Trevor Mcpherson. http://is.gd/4mlPM [...]
I want to go like that… super imagery, Trev. Subtle ending, which I prefer. You are my go-to sci-fi writer, just the right blend of elegance and rigor. Peace, linda
Intriguing ending, and like Lindas comment. Super imagery
Horst, oh man, should picked someone more trust worthy! Fluid and flowing, a gem of a tale!
And he’s still out there somewhere, smiling. Great descriptions!
At least he died a colourful death. You’re great a describing completely abstract imagery, something I’ve wrestled with in the past when trying to describe the type of thing that comes out of wizard’s fingers.
What imagery!
Nobody dies smiling? LOL!
Well done.
The ending works well. A nice switch in pace and perspective, and the dialogue drives it home.
Your title had me wishing Trev, but can’t say I was disappointed. This part filled me with instant foreboding: “he saw nothing but the purest, impenetrable black. Not only saw it, but felt it; that sense of the void, of emptiness on a large scale. This was what the whole experiment was about.” yet he *was* happy.
little typo: “rope dazzling rope dazzling”
Lovely imagery as others have said, and a very nice picture of what dying by natural causes might be like…. i hope! Otherwise it’s time I started smoking again
Fantastic imagery. You always create such lively and vivid pieces. Now I want one of those big lollipops.