I have engineered a cube of meat.
It is actually a quite remarkable cube of meat. For one: it is practically immortal. It will live forever on its own and is incredibly difficult to kill. Secondly: it feels real genuine human pain. We have ran many extensive tests and there is no doubt at all that it experiences a perfect analog to human pain. And finally: it cannot think, understand anything, make any decisions, or act. This makes the cube of meat fundamentally not a person and functionally not alive.
I torture my cube of meat every single day for my own amusement. I have instruments measure the pain response of the cube during this so that I know when ‘Im doing a good job. There are no moral issues to this since as I said it is not a person. I, a generally nice and kind individual, feel absolutely no remorse for what I do to the cube of meat, and my lab assistants show absolutely no hesitation. Most of the world knows this is happening through small news articles and while some people are a little discomforted by it, no one even thinks about stopping me. I like to vary how I torture the cube. I prefer ways that are creative and bring me close to the cube. My personal favorite is to sit with my legs around it and hollow it out and carve it like a jack-o-lantern. It regrows fully by the next day.
Today is a difficult day. Recently I have noticed that the pain response of the cube of meat has began diminishing. It seems after four years the cube of meat has began the process of acclimating to the torture. I would find it very unsatisfying to reach a sub-par pain response from the cube so I have decided to kill it forever. As previously stated, this is quite difficult. A precisely controlled chemical explosion is required, which will be very expensive for the lab. Today I have all the ingredients prepared.
And still I hesitate. I find this strange. The cube is entirely meaningless and without torturing it, it is completely useless. Perhaps there is something I do not understand about myself. I feel myself growing fond of the cube. I try to dispel this feeling as the obvious deviancy it is, but I cannot fully shake it. I feel a sort of… love for the cube and a fondness for the time we spent together, as impossible as that seems.
But as a woman of science I know how to put my intelligence ahead of my feelings. I administer the chemical concoction. The splatter of meat on my goggles hides my lone tear. The pain measurements for the cube dip far below baseline for the first time in years. I shut the monitor off. I cannot bear to see it.
I do not know if I will make another cube of meat yet. I have a lot to process first.
