Before all of this, I lived in a house like many citizens and when I was bored I would watch television. The nice flashing lights of the pixels, the electricity powering a computer to entertain the mind, to alleviate boredom. Or the commercials to convince you to spend money on products I wouldn't use. It made sense to buy them, of course. I almost picked up the phone to call the number on the screen, it calling me like a mother calling to her child. In some of the commercials, was the little bunny with an acronym arching beneath it at the center or either on the bottom right-hand corner, showing you that this product, if an applicator of some sort was not tested on animals. A proof that cruelty was depleting. We cannot have that, they deserve life and not a life trapped in a laboratory acting as subjects for the next big cosmetic company. The fur of the animals, all different styles of shag carpet or a plush blanket made from the wool of a sheep. I would like to have one, to just touch it. To play with it.
A protection is required against cruelty to animals only, the telephone number for the ASPCA should be like 911, in which everyone knows of its existence and meaning.
However, I want an animal—preferably a mammal in great physical condition. Science is nothing without tests, I believe that all should know that. It is very respectable in the science community to use animals as test subjects; virologists use them, monkeys, for vaccine testing. You wouldn't have to have them sign waivers. We will negate the fact that many people are raising homemade signs and posters with non-centered writing visible, into the air like trophies won by a sports team, with ardor, shouting for the cease.
While at home, reading, on their side I was asking who else would be test subjects. Ourselves? No, no, we are too good for that.
I think I will just go out and get one; I no longer read. You know, a pig would be perfect—a full-grown one. They are perfect with specifics of length, width, height, and body fat percentage. Although, the only thing better would be a hog—its large tusks to dig and root for food protruding from the lower jaw, like a monster's overgrown teeth. The boar is a fast runner and a strong swimmer. But the possibility, I find, of finding one here in the music-filled outskirts would be doubtful. Almost nothing—very close to.
Oh well, I think. Still, the scientific method must go on. Testing is still required.
The weight of it in my arms is light, I can carry it for the rest of the way back to my warehouse. It is almost a few miles. He is a he, I checked. His body, soft to the touch, with a heavenly soft feel, like a firm teddy bear, is trembling. His nose is out of control. I know that people wear them as accessories: as a coat or a hat. It is not unusual, but I have never thought about it in that type of way. The darkness of the premature sunrise of the dawn caused them to be out. It is like a signal for them to roam, and gather. To become the non-human versions of hunters and gatherers. But only the latter. The population of the rabbits is scant but almost an animal farm.
My tactics for acquiring one were simple: I just wanted to grab it. There were no traps, no bait. I had just walked the abandoned road in search of one. Or maybe I should say hunting for one since that was the reality of the situation. He was bounding away, he didn't want me to grab him.
I wonder if naming him would give him the respect he deserved since he will be used. It will save his dignity. Well, I wouldn't know, I won't be able to see him once he is in the music box. I could see him after the fact when everything comes to a halt. When everything— the music ceases to fill my ears. No one will see him, besides me, and I do wonder what he will come out like. What will he look like? Will the outcome be the same? Now, if the outcome from the sticks from the first machine, them snapping in half—that would mean it was probable for the rabbit to snap in half. But those were sticks almost six inches in length and five centimeters in diameter, and this was very much grand. Too grand? I am not sure. My hope is that this works. Or will he come out completely wasted and torn like an old shirt or a towel used many times with no break?
While that may be a process of testing and experimentation—to hypothesize an outcome, I wonder if it will matter to me or not. Or if it will matter to the overall outcome or not. I find that it makes sense if it works nonetheless. If the music played, who cares if the rabbit is torn or broken, or mutilated? It will be in my documentation, but it will not have an effect on this. My original intention was to have this machine produce fine-tuned music—I might just wash my hands of him afterward.
My machine, my creation, waited for us, in the middle of the warehouse like a car waiting to be started and drove down the street. It was peaceful, yet full of suspense, even for me, even though I was its master. It greeted me, with great joy, like a dog after its human came home after a long day. This machine needed its food, its fuel. While this is small, it should suffice. I look down at this rabbit in my arms, the species which some people use for comfort and appearances, feeling a sense of respect for him. He will be the first living trial in this experiment.
This is great!
I smile with excitement. I open the door, leading toward the bed, surrounded by the insides of my music box, and place this rabbit down on it. Of course, it tried to hop away, to escape its responsibility, but I grabbed it and strapped it down. I make sure he won't escape since his kind is known for it. They always seem to run away, even if you are not chasing after them. They think of you as the wolf who murdered their family. Or the giant metallic car that ran over his mother. I went up to my office to grab my log book that was peacefully lying on the desk, filled with the data taken over time, and before I walked out I caught a glimpse of the wastebasket, tucked away in the far corner of the small room. It was empty since I had emptied it last morning, but I realize that all had led up to this. My head was tilted to the side only slightly, it was a sense of wonder for me.
I cannot wait to hear it
I walk down, my feet carrying my weight, my footsteps clanking on the floor to the rabbit laying vulnerable to the open air. He is attempting to free himself but the straps that I put on him are too tight. I see him squirm and his little legs kicking the invisible force around him. I turn on my machine, a simple switch. The gears turning, powering up, filling the air, lengths expanding and contracting. It's systems, a train starting to move out of a station. It took one moment, with the sound of hard snaps then one could say it began. A little at a time, like a packet of mayonnaise that had been cut at the corner but not enough to flow out—only a thin fast stream, until the extra force was applied to expand the corner for it to flow profusely.
My anger is no longer. I will write that down. I will make sure to.
The sound emitting was almost surreal. I see with my ears the sound of the mechanical device. It is filled with the melodies of plucking strings, the buildup of a symphony.
***
I am down on the soft—yet stiff bed, strapped around in black, to prevent me from moving. The enclosed space has no light, a darkness that seemed so everlasting, as the blackest noir, or as the void of space. Yet I can see in the void. My eyes are designed to allow me to maneuver in such conditions. It may smell strange in this small enclosure, but the scent of it, swimming toward my nose, reminds me of a particular piece of food I have consumed in the past. It wasn't pleasant, it was not food. I don't smell food.
(The envisage was clear, as clean water, as clear as it had been when the original idea for the design danced its way into recognition.)
I hear a noise, not one I have heard before. It was a monster retracting its claw, like a cat. But imagine if it had the noise to accompany it. An echo filled my ears with the most terrifying and destructive sounds.
It was very fast, very swift. It may be fast-moving, juxtaposed to this rabbit, how they travel. A rubber band of sorts, to be stretched back, full of elasticity. It was sharp and piercing, at first it felt as a needle; there was no pain save for a small pinch; traveling up my hind legs to my brain. Then a sharp, and swift pull—the rubber finally released, to return. At first, I didn't feel it, it was so fast; a bandaid.
The idea of this event is not present to me at this time, it happens like clockwork. One click of the hands after another, not filling the air but counting. One after another, they tick me...in me, on me, like I am the clock, and I am the holder of the numbers. It is apparent that I tell time now. There is pain all around me, it is an ocean filled with no life except for me as I am bobbing up and down in the middle of the Pacific.
I don't know the emotion, it is foreign to me. But it is pain, a great amount of suffering I might be at my wit's end. There is no anesthetic to dull its effect. I feel something over the top at the top of my leg, a bit of friction, and force. It halts, then picks at me one by one at the same location— the white key in the piano of the low octave being pressed in determination and repetition. It was a great force that I become separated from myself, a pull. My body becoming separated from my body—a Thanksgiving turkey. It goes like that. Over and over again.
Like clockwork.
***
The symphony of sounds, of classical music, comes to an end, and the conductor steps off his podium to open the locked door holding the drained composer, then takes a bow to the mass in a grand standing ovation.