It’s when we start to fear the day-to-day things induced in us which haunt us for the longest.
“Sir, that was the final minute of the cycle & I am afraid time’s up”. “Yes, I understand, send them in”. I get up from my chair as gently brush the old man’s hand as in the background DEBUSSY - Suite bergamasque, L. 75: No. 3, Clair de Lune plays to calm the old man before the cycle ends for him. I wave him goodbye as I leave the room. I nod to the team standing outside gesturing to go inside & finish the job. I exit the beautiful home the old man used to own. Oak made & well furnished with a beautiful garden as well as a private part of the lake near the home. Gorgeous trees surrounding the drive through. Good man as well, lived a very honest & rich life but the cycle needed to be ended. I personally would have liked to see him for another quarter but the thing about doing jobs is you may have specialisation in a sector & perhaps you are one of the best in that role still at the end you only do what people above say to you. It’s true at every level of the corporate hierarchy, not just the lower levels. The executives do what the CEO or COO tell them to, CEO or COO do what the board tells them to & the board do what the shareholders tell them to, shareholders do what the market tells them to & on and on this ferris wheel spins. This is my job to connect with these people who potentially are at the end of their cycles, make necessary reports, assess if they are indeed at the end of their cycle or the system got it wrong which is often not the case, the system always gets it right, at least that’s what Dr. Howard tells us.
Anyways, I need to end the cycle in my file as well so that I get assigned my next person. In the file, at the last page of my assessment I, as the Field Analyst, sign at the bottom & put a stamp over my signature marked “Cycle Ended”. That’s it, now I go back to Headquarters & submit this file and get assigned a new one, if one is available or else I get the rest of the day off.
I take a deep breath outside as the wind rustles the leaves of the small plants & the massive trees around the house. Very refreshing, I must say out here with the cold breeze from the lake as well. As I relaxed for a moment out came the team & as soon as they came out they pressed the button on their little pads. And this is the worst part of it all. I hope I am never at the end of my cycle.
“Hello, how may I help you?” “Sir, I am here to help you” “Okay, who are you if I may?” “I am sir, Dr. *****, a helper assigned by Exist” “Oh, I have heard about these & that means you’ll be coming everyday until one day you decide or someone decides that I am no more worth looking at” “Well, sir to be honest, that is true but to tell you a secret it’s not if you are worth looking at or not but more existential then that” “Oh, that does not make it sound better (laughs), well either way come on in, Dr. ******--?” “Doctor's fine, thanks for inviting me in Mr. Brooks”.
Mr. Mervin Brooks, the new assignment, for next two days or two weeks or two months or however long they back at HQ deem him to exist. He seems like a nice guy, young & has a pretty little house. Looks okay as well & seems to be doing good for himself down at his shop. The house is very neat & clean as well, I mean for a single boy this is impressive. He guides me to his dining table set of four with the view of the mountains. Sun is nowhere to be seen with windy & dark clouds covering the sky. The little window by the dining table is slightly open letting in the cold breeze. I sit down in front of the window, I like a view. I take out my files & open them on the table. Take out my notepad to write down the random details for the end of day my psychological evaluation. Place the pen between the notepad & the files. Mervin brings me a cup of tea with a saucer. Old fashioned, I write down on the notepad. He dresses that way as well, Corduroy pants with short sleeves shirt buttoned up to the neck. Beige coloured both of them. He places the tea beside me & sits to my right. Places his tea to his left.
“So, how do you begin this?”
“Mr. Brooks, it’s simple, today the first day I’ll be here just for an hour making silent observations on your behaviour so please adhere to your normal routine at this hour regarding your work around the house as well as your behaviour at this point of time.”
“Just call me Mervin, please”
“Certainly, Mervin in addition to that I’ll ask you some questions you know for data like are you single or in relationship or married--” (interrupts me)
“I am married to my lovely wife, who is resting above in the bedroom”
“At twelve in the afternoon?”
“She likes the night time more, she’ll be up in a couple of hours”
“Okay, sure, what is her name if I may ask just for this form here?”
“Her name is Daisy Brooks and she is my wife”
“Yes, I got that Mervin beautiful name I must say & what does she do for a living?”
“Not much, she sometimes help at the shop just to you know fulfill the work hours card but mostly she takes care of the house”
“Oh, I understand, you may resume with your day & just pretend I am not here at all but also remember I am here”
Both of us laugh as I fill out the other details as well as about Daisy. He finishes his tea & heads upstairs. I looked from the end of the staircase & as I suspected he closed the door on his way in.
I heard footsteps above me as I sat back down on the dining room chair. I write down the basic details on the form. At the same time I think how at any given point of time in the coming days Mervin & Daisy could be at the end of their cycles. Maybe one of them isn’t & the other one has to live with that fact. This all is right now being decided by an algorithm on the system at Exist, created by the visionary Dr. Howard. As I ponder in my thoughts while filling out the basic forms, I glance at my watch & see my one hour has passed which means time to leave. I note down on my pad, ‘in the past forty minutes since Mr. Brooks went upstairs no sound has come from above & he hasn’t come downstairs at all’. I pack up my things & put my tea cup & saucer in the sink. I head to the main door & shout “Mr. Brooks, I am leaving please close the door, thank you & see you tomorrow”. I leave without making more sound, the young couple seem to be in that youthful love. I close the door on my way out & as I turn around, I notice over the address number of the house are written words “For my Daisy”. Looks like young Mervin is complete head over heels for Daisy, honestly I feel bad that I have to do this. I walk away from the house.
“So, Mervin the three days of one hour silent observations is over & the good people at Exist analytics have told me to begin phase two of these visits, do you understand what I am saying?”
Mervin doesn’t even move muscle just continues to stare down his floor. I look at the spot he is staring at & I just see nothing but the wooden floor. I sit in my usual chair at the dining table which is across from the window and like before he sits to my right. He continues to stare without blinking even moving a muscle. I note this down in my notepad.
SNAP! I snap my fingers near him. That breaks his concentration from the floor. He laughs a little.
“Yes, I am fine, just got lost in thought. Sorry”
“As I was saying, should I explain Phase two of this thing to you?”
“Yes, please, just let me get a glass of water”
He gets up & gets himself a glass of water. Puts the glass water to his left & sits back down. Sips a little from the glass.
“Please, tell me about Phase Two”
“Okay, so basically, I’ll be taking a look at everything at the house & your shop as well and don’t worry this will be done tomorrow, we’ll do in an order whichever suits you the best, is that okay with you?”
Well, that’s a lie, according to the guideline the field analyst should do the observations in the order it suits them and not the subject but I don’t think that works that well. So, I joined Exist five years ago & moulded the guidelines which work best for the subject & they feel less pain at the end of the cycle, it’s very minimal but it helps my conscience. While I mould the guidelines or rules you might call them while in the field but in my reports I always mention that I followed the guidelines else I’ll be put on the end of the cycle.
“Okay, so, while I check everything at both of these places I’ll need access to everything, even to your savings under the mattress and it would be kind of you to tell your missus to wake up one of these days & talk with me because I need data from her as well, do you agree to the conditions & pass on the message to Daisy?”
“Yeah, sure I agree and I’ll tell Daisy but Doctor, I do, have one request or a favor you might say to ask you for, may I?”
“Yeah, go on, I can’t make promises but I’ll see what we can do”
“Well, you can check everywhere in the house, even the bedroom, I’ll even tell you where the savings are but just not the basement, can you overlook that somehow?”
“Basement? You didn’t mention any basement on Day two when I asked you about the structure of the house & there isn’t one in the blueprint you gave me?”
“Well, it isn’t in the basement because I had it installed separately two years ago myself, I made it and I didn’t mention it because it’s personal to me, It’s like you can say a place where I work & worship my one true love”
“Worship one true love? I thought that was supposed to be Daisy, you know with the outside plaque also saying ‘For my Daisy’, can you explain that?”
“She is my one true love but so is my woodwork, please if you can just somehow overlook that I’d be really grateful”
I take a deep breath, this is tough.
“I’ll look at what I can do but as I said no promises, you got that right?”
“Yes and I can describe what is down there if you just need it for the files”
“No, I just don’t need it for the files Mervin, I write it down in the files & then back at the analytics they analyse it and tell me what is the next step of my job but I’ll see what I can do”
“Oh, okay, I won’t hold my breath for it then, so what is on the agenda today then?”
“Yeah, before we move on to that, I almost forgot to ask, we ran some background search on your wife that Daisy Brooks but she came up as Daisy Richards, which is one of the strange things that we found in our records the other one being the Daisy Richards that we found, has nothing in the books for the last two years, not even a word, can you tell me the reason for that or rather can you ask Daisy to explain that, it’s about her after all?”
He took a deep breath & gulped down the entire glass of water.
“As you know she sleeps at this time of day but tomorrow when you examine the house yourself, I’ll make sure you meet her and then you can ask her yourself, does that work?”
“Yeah, sure, make sure that she meets okay?”
“So, for today, we’ll be just chatting about your past I believe, you know your parents, how they raised you, the whole what, where, who & how, is that okay?”
“Yeah, sure and make that parent as my father wasn’t there for my mum & me, he left us and moved to a different country couple of years later the crisis”
“Oh, sure, please continue”
He continued to speak for about an hour before he abruptly stopped & told me to leave as almost announced to me ‘Daisy must be ready to come down’ and before I could even ask to meet her, he almost pushed me out the door. Closed the door on my face. He became rude suddenly as he was starting to tell about Daisy & how he met her. I noted this down on my notepad and a note to self, ‘This Daisy business seems fishy to me now all of a sudden, check the basement at all costs’. I left the property as the sun beamed across the sky in the afternoon.
I arrived at the house at my usual time and rang the bell like three times. Past three days, Mervin would already be on the porch waiting for me to arrive. I yawned a little as I waited for young Mr. Brooks. Well, today, I am also doing something different as I have an earpiece in my ear which is for my safety. These two days of the end of cycle routine are considered what some may call ‘of grave danger’ to the analyst from the subject as these are private places of the subject where they do everything while sitting on the sofa for an hour like one doesn’t exist is bothering but going through brick to brick can be even more bothering and annoying as well which drives many of the subjects to physical attack the analyst at which point the analyst needs to inform the team in his/her ear piece. The analyst hides in a safe place or runs outside the premises and if the subject continues to display aggressive behaviour, well they are put at the end of their cycles immediately. See, Dr. Howard believes while a calmer mind may have a chance to be left alone but a violent one doesn’t, the mind of such individuals is begging to be at the end of the cycle. I disagree with that, I think no one even if someone is a horrible person deserves to be in the state one is put under when they are at the end of their cycle.
“All right, team, be on stand by. I am heading inside, we can’t do anything if he isn’t opening the door, do I have a go from everyone?”
“Yes, Doctor, you may head inside we’ll be nearby”
“All right, heading inside”
I take out the key for the house and enter the house. I set up my stuff on the table. I open the file as well as my notepad. As I am taking out my pen, in the corner of my eye I catch the note to myself I wrote yesterday, ‘check the basement at all costs’. So, he’s probably down at his shop, might be the best time to get that over with. I put the pen down on the table and walk ahead to the door that leads to the basement which is under the staircase which leads to the bedroom. I so want to check out the bedroom but I feel so curious about the basement that I almost magnetically get pulled towards it.
I open the door that leads to Basement. As soon as I put my foot inside the way that leads to the basement, I get a chill down my spine.
It’s dark as I expected on the staircase but there seems to be a light on at the center of the basement. I reach for my earpiece.
“Guys, I down in the basement, so watch out”
I don’t hear a response back.
I move ahead regardless. With each step, a weird feeling keeps building up in the back of my head, making me think of really weird things. I shake my head & take a breath and move ahead. Come on, I got this.
Under the light, I see a woman sitting on the chair. I walk closer to her & as I go around to see her face, I see Mervin sitting by her knees wearing gloves smeared with blood and holding knives with tiny bits of flesh on them. I gasp. I look at the woman & I fall back on to the ground with no words or even sound coming out of my mouth. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!
I put my hands around my mouth. WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT THING ON CHAIR? THAT”S NOT A HUMAN, IS IT EVEN ALIVE?
All these thoughts are crossing my head while my heart is almost pounding so fast as if I am on drugs or something and it’s all due to what’s sitting on that chair & Mervin is sitting by it’s knees with his face buried in it’s lap. He seems to be sleeping comfortably.
I took out the picture of Daisy, Mervin gave me two days earlier and my god, that’s her. THAT’S HER. Her whole body is mouldy, her ribs & eye socket seem visible even though what seems to be skin sewn to her by Mervin. The sewn skin is coming as well & the whole body is rotting. She’s dead. I have never seen something more horrible than that.
I began to climb up the stairs and that’s when Mervin footsteps I heard behind me. I quickly turned around.
“So, I guess you couldn’t keep out of the basement could you? They said no I believe”
I didn’t reply to him, just got up the stairs and picked up my things. Put them inside the bag & left the house.
“Team leader, come near me please, urgently”
Team leader came near me.
“He is downstairs, end of cycle imminent but ask all the details about the scene and then tell me, I am waiting in your car”
“As you wish, Doctor, team come on we gotta move in, end of cycle”
I walked to their car & sat inside while the whole team went inside.
At the end of cycle, the Icing Team enters the subject’s house or property and neutralizes them with a syringe of a substance which puts them into a deep sleep, not coma but a very deep sleep. Once the subject is in deep sleep, the Icing Team using their pads records everything present at the property of the subject which is what takes time usually. Once this has been recorded, the Icer is brought out which puts the subject into a cryo sleep. The Cryo is then carried out & put in the back of the van which follows the car. After this the cryo is put with the other cryos back at the headquarters of Exist. The Icing team hands over their data from the pads and the field analyst hands over the data they have collected for the past day. The analysts back at the office then come up with an specific or special you might say algorithm which is then attached to the Cryo. Due to this algorithm, the subject continues to live on but in a time loop of their worst day in that place. As I said this is the worst part.
The team leader comes out with Mervin inside the Cryo. He puts the Cryo Mervin back in the van. He comes ahead in the car & sits beside me.
“Doctor, what you saw was actually not the most disturbing part even though that visual would haunt a person for life, so are you really sure you wish what he’d been doing with a dead body for two years?”
“Leader, I am having really disturbing thoughts with what you just said so I guess I’d like to know what happened to put those thoughts to bed, tell me would you?”
“Doctor, she died two years ago in an accident. Her family buried her, he was at the funeral. Two weeks after the funeral, he took the body out of the grave. Slept with it on his bed. He even confirmed to have had sex with dead corpse multiple times in the past two years.”
“What was the basement for?”
“That’s where he would skin the girls he’d kidnapped and sew their skins to Daisy’s corpse since it was decomposing inside the grave for two weeks, we found fifteen completely skinned girls, half in the backyard buried and the other half boarded under the wooden floor”.
“I don’t want to hear anymore, let’s head back shall we”
“Certainly Doctor, move out team”
It’s when we start to fear the day-to-day things induced in us which haunt us for the longest and this will certainly haunt me for a longtime.
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