2428393

They call it remote viewing. They say they’re doing aptitude tests. I go along because it pays $7.20 an hour. Judging by their body language, when they avoid giving any real answers, I’m average. Not the promising visionaries they hope for, but not at risk of being kicked out just yet. As some have.

The process is simple. Sit and relax, and have a glass of milk first. They don’t allow tea or coffee before a test. Then, sit and relax, without falling asleep, and think of nothing. It was difficult at first, but now I’m used to it. I don’t think about the money. That’s a distraction. As long as I think of nothing, this is a great gig.

It’s a book this time, but I don’t know it. It’s harder to think of a title if you don’t know the book. There’s a shape which might be the cover. But it might be anything. I doodle and allow the thoughts to dissipate. I wait a bit. Vague shapes in the mist. Then nothing. I hear a sound outside, and I’m done.

Sometimes there’s a second session, but not today. I walk back to the cabin I share with two others. Not my friends, but they’re ok. One, Linda, is almost royalty. ‘Very promising,’ they said. The other, Deb, is doing not so good. She might leave us any day.

I’ve now been here twenty seven days. The days are monotonous. One session in the morning, and sometimes one in the afternoon. I like those days, because then there are sandwiches. Now there is just plain bread with jam or cheese, in the cottage. They don’t want us to cook, so each night at six they bring a simple prepared meal. The food doesn’t come out of our pay, and neither does the cabin, so I’m happy.

This gig came at a perfect time. Eduardo had been having an affair, and I was done with him. He’d been fooling around, but nothing serious so far. I mean, he came with benefits. The flat, the car, steady income on top of my meager pay. But having Jocelyn over in the flat when I was off to my then job, regularly, was the limit, I told him. And all of a sudden it was his flat, his car, his income, and I was left with a tiny, tiny job and no place to stay.

And then I saw the advert. $7.20 an hour to be studied in a psychological test, dependent on aptitude. I was admitted the same day, and here I am. All the jam sandwiches i can handle. No alcohol, one cup of coffee after the tests, but all the jam sandwiches i want. But I’m not complaining. There is no alternative.

–

I hear the crash as I walk from the cabin to the barracks. Fifty yards ahead, around the corner, a small truck hit one of the tall electricity posts. I don’t run, as I don’t know if it’s good or bad. But it’s neither. The guy said he lost control of his steering, which means he had been busy on his phone. Significant damage to his car, but he’s OK. And just as I decided that was that, I heard a metallic zing above, and the sound of a whip. And then nothing, I guess.

I come too half an hour later, they say. They say a circuit breaker saved my life. The 10.000 volts got to my brain only a fraction of a millisecond, they say. For an hour I try to feel what I feel, but I don’t feel much of anything. And then some legal rep comes and explains I shouldn’t expect any payout or disability. Apparently I signed a waiver for precisely this situation. But: they’ll allow me a couple of days to get back on my feet, with pay (whooptidoo) and then I will stay on the program. I guess I’m not worse of.

So I enjoy the free time, take long walks, and have all the coffee they’ll allow me.

And then the visions start.

When I was younger, I used to have migraines. Migraine isn’t like headache. It’s more like a hot poker being stuck between your eyes. One moment you’re OK without a worry, and the next you’re crying and wishing you were knocked out. I had that four or five times a month, for several years, until I figured out my posture in front of my laptop made it happen, or at least made it worse. So I got a separate keyboard and display, got a different chair to sit on, and forced myself to stop and walk a bit every now and then. I still had a migraine sometimes, but only once a year or so.

The point I’m making is that migraines just happened at random moments, and partly took hold. I would be able to do stuff while I had migraine, such as walking home, but all the while that poker stuck in me. Best was to lie in bed with no light and no noise and wait for it to pass. They now have medicines that can prevent it, but not then.

The visions are similar. They take partial control, though I can still do stuff. But there is no pain, of course. This is different. At first, there were vague shapes. Much more solid than the imagined shapes when I’m remote viewing. The visions are actually there. I can see them, I can describe them in detail. They are difficult to ignore. It’s good I don’t drive here, for it would be distracting. They go away after awhile. But over the last couple of days they come more often. A couple of times a day. And every time it’s something else. A car, a man, a slice of bread. It’s weird.

I consider going to their doctor but I decide against it. Nothing good ever comes from that. So I just try to work around it.

I go back to ‘work’ the next morning. They look at me as of I should say something, but I have nothing to say.

This session is like others, and I see the subject, some teddy bear, in seconds. But it never pays to be quick, so I keep it to myself and make some doodles that seem to be right. By now I know how subjects and doodles relate.

And then a vision hits. It’s the subject, the teddy bear. It’s red pants and a red scarf, and red cap with white fluff. It seems to be a Christmas teddy bear. I doodle a patch of forest with some spruce trees, and I think. This cant’t be a coincidence. And it’s not something they are doing. No drugs in the coffee. Their body language is as always, and my fellow viewers are as always.

The electric shock must have done something.

–

A new routine establishes itself. In a session I usually get a vision of whatever the subject is. I write text and doodles that seem appropriate, and remain happily high average. I get visions outside the sessions as well, of random stuff. And then, suddenly, it’s not random anymore. I briefly, involuntarily, think of Eduardo, and there he is, eating taco’s. I don’t know if he’s eating taco’s, and I don’t wanna know, but it makes me think.

So for a couple of days, every morning, I wonder how many people are there already in the meeting hall, before I enter. And two times I have a vision that answers the question in every detail. Interesting.

The subjects are sometimes physical objects, like the teddy bear, but sometimes they are abstractions, like ’light’ or ’love’. At first I thought those were the cases when I didn’t get a vision (I don’t always), but that’s not true. Twice now, I had a vision about an abstraction, and I had no problem understanding them. A fire place for warmth, and a busy kitchen for cooking. I don’t know how I was sure the kitchen meant ‘cooking’ and not ‘stove’, ‘people’ or ‘kitchenware’. But I know.

That night I dream, feverously. No clear images, no visions, but not a good feeling altogether. When I wake up, I do have a vision. It’s a number. 2428393. I have no idea what that means.

And then it all ends. I’m invited to the office of the director (not a good sign), and when I sit, she says: ‘it seems that your efforts haven’t been entirely genuine.’

That could mean anything, so I look at her expectantly. ‘You see, in addition to your verbal and written reports, we also monitor various biochemical responses. We have a strong indication when respondents become aware, and become strongly certain what their subject is. We relate whatever you’re writing or drawing to those insights. And in your case that relation is out of whack.’

A strange choice of words for this otherwise prim and neat person.

‘So. You’re taken off the program immediately, and you will be taken to another facility, where you will be studied. I mean, where we’d like you to participate in further, advanced projects.’

She picks up her cup of tea and looks at me expectantly. Not so much for a reaction, but rather for me to get up. The interview is over.

As I walk out of the building a woman waits for me as a man opens the back door of a small sedan. I look to the left, the way to my cabin. ‘Don’t worry about your things. We’ve already packed them. Just sit back and relax. It will be awhile.’

It’s a five hour drive, with stops every one and a half hours. A glass of milk, and a burger, once, and a toilet break. The woman accompanies me everywhere. Well. Almost. They aren’t hostile, nor are they excessively friendly. They won’t tell where we’re headed, so I sit back and relax.

–

It’s some military site, or at least there are military guards at the gate. We’re whisked through and drive on to a three story office building without any clear markings other than a large letter M next to the door, which could mean anything. Inside, they escort me to a room on the third floor. I’m allowed into the room, with two bags with all my stuff, and the door is closed and locked. There is a single window, which appears solid and locked. But it’s a significant drop anyway, so I’m stuck. There is a bed, a table and a chair. In the corner there is a toilet and a tiny sink. The ceiling is high, and there are two camera’s in diagonal corners. Great.

Nothing happens for awhile, and then then there is a knock, and a plate of food is brought. Typical mess fare, I guess. I eat and read for an hour (I still have two books). Before ten I decide to sleep. I have some qualms about the camera’s, but there is nothing I can do, so I use the facilities and crawl into bed.

The next morning, even before breakfast, I’m taken to some kind of infirmary. The medical person (a small woman in a bluish coat; I can’t tell if she’s a nurse or a doctor) briefly explains that she will conduct a general health check before my stay here. She weighs, prods and measures and listens and draws some blood. Half way the session there’s a knock at a side door, which is, presumably, easily accessible to an ambulance. A package is handed over, but it is apparently unrelated to me, for the prodding continues.

After another ten minutes she makes a brief phone call and I am whisked away back to my room, where a boxed breakfast is waiting.

There’s one thing I’m preoccupied with: why a ‘health check before my stay here’. It doesn’t seem to bode well.

–

After breakfast I’m escorted to a meeting room for a remote viewing session, I guess. It’s the same as earlier, except for the drugs they give me. That is different.

In the session I remote view the subject easily, a penguin, and then I have a vision. It’s an abstraction. It’s my future here. And it isn’t looking good. It starts with weak drugs, just to relax me, but beyond that is a whole range of increasingly more intrusive drugs, aimed to see what they can get out of me, or, I guess, just to see what happens. I suddenly have an insight, which is neither a remote view or a vision: they don’t know that I’m electrically altered. They think I’m just a belligerent mediocre test subject that they can have fun with.

As I stand up, I say: ‘I’m dizzy’. And then I fall and hit my head on the table. I grunt and lie still. There’s a small panic until someone fetches a simple gurney to haul me to the infirmary.

The same nurse/doctor quickly checks my vitals, and asks what happened. I say that I became very dizzy and that I’ve never been dizzy before, and that I fell and hit my head, and that I’m feeling OK now. She asks me to try and sit, so I do, and then I slide and hit the floor again. She says: ‘What the fuck did you give her. You know what? Go away, and don’t come back until I fix her.

I feel a bit guilty, but it can’t be helped. I hit her square on the nose, and as she looks at me more in confusion than in anger, I pick up a bedpan lying there and hit her hard on the side of her head. Once, twice, three times. She sags half on the gurney, which makes things easier. There are enough bandages to tie her up and tape her mouth.

Within seconds I’m at the door and enter the code. It’s interesting how I hadn’t seen the door in the vision, and yet knew this was it. When I’m outside I just run. Slightly towards the gate house. There I wait for multiple cars going in and out, occupying both guards. Hoping they won’t find the nurse/doctor. And then I’m out.

–

My life has changed since then. I don’t do remote viewing anymore, but whenever I want to know something, I just wonder and get a vision. Money is no longer a concern. I do some light stock trading every now and then. I just wonder what will go up, and that’s it. I’m not greedy. Why would I?

I’ve thought of a relationship, but I’m undecided as yet. Do I want to know someone that I know everything about? So I live in a comfortable house in the forest near the sea. I have solid security, but I’m not really worried. They bring groceries twice a week. I don’t think they will find me. I don’t even think they know what the’re missing.