“What’s a five-letter word for ‘type of bread’?” the old man said, looking up from his crossword and nudging his wife, who was trying to read.
“Uh- “she thought, “- ‘toast’.”
“Toast…toast? That’s not a type of bread, that’s-that’s…what do you call it? I mean like Rye.”
I turned my head, yawning, to face a teenage girl, looking up from her cell phone to scoff at the old couple. Seated close to her was a middle-aged man listening to his earbuds.
“Try wheat” the old woman finally said.
“Wheat…that’s it! Wait, it has to end with an ‘e’, babe.”
“White," the man with the earbuds said from across the quiet chapel.
“There we go!” the old man said, “thank you, young man.”
The man with the earbuds nodded at the old stranger. Then, as if on cue, a door swung open to reveal a young woman in a white gown of sorts.
“Brooke Thomason?” she called out. After a moment, the teenage girl stood up, still staring intently at her phone, and walked toward the woman, following her into the back room.
“I wonder what this is all about” the woman sitting down the pew from me said. I tried to ignore her, perhaps seeming a bit rude, but I really didn’t like whenever people elicited small talk from me. I just wanted to complete the study and go home with my four hundred bucks.
God, was this what my life’s come to? Buying scratch-offs from the gas station and sitting around for hours waiting to complete studies from community colleges? At least this one seemed legit. The so-called scientists had lab coats on. That’s more than I could say for most of these amateur surveys. However, the whole renting-out-a-church thing brought the credibility down a tad.
“Sorry, this is my first time- “the woman continued, snapping me from nearly drooling onto my jeans.
“That’s okay. I’m kinda used to this” I muttered.
“Well, what do they usually ask you?”
“The typical,” I said, “what’s your name? What’s your sex? How would you describe your eating habits? Are you a defensive driver? Do you smoke e-cigarettes? Are you allergic to peanuts-?”
“Peanuts?” the woman interrupted.
“Yeah. One of these was a peanut butter taste test,“ I said, “I got lucky that time.”
The door swung open again. In walked the same woman coated in white.
“Chelsea Straub?”
“That’s me!” the woman, a bit too excitedly, said, standing up, “Wish me luck!”
I popped an apathetic ‘thumbs-up’ toward her as I crossed my arms, watching her escape into the backroom.
“A five-letter word for ‘car accident’?” the old man said, breaking the silence.
“I don’t know, dear,” his wife said, barely lifting her head from the pages in her book. The old man, looking up, focused his eyes on me.
“You got any good ideas?” he said.
“If I did, I wouldn’t be here.”
The old man chuckled and laughed. The door swung open again.
“Spencer Bell?” the woman in white said.
Finally. I stood up, nodded at the old man, and followed the woman through the door.
“Welcome in, Mr. Bell.”
“Thank you” I replied to the woman, following her at the hip.
“We appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in our study.”
“Well,“ I chuckled, “I appreciate the four hundred bucks.”
We stopped before a white door. She looked right at me.
“They’ll give you the funds as soon as you complete the study. Do enjoy yourself, Mr. Bell.”
“Thank you,” I said, walking through the door. Inside, my eyes immediately adjusted to the darkness. The room was far dimmer than the brightly lit sanctuary, dressed in moody lighting and a large table, and behind it, a man in a lab coat smiling up at me. Behind him was a set of monitors, wheeled into the church on some kind of cart. The man stood, extending a warm hand toward me.
“Welcome. You must be Mr. Bell.”
“That’s what they call me,” I slyly said.
“And they call me Dr. Fredrickson. I’ll be conducting the study today.”
We both sat. I looked the man up and down. I could tell he was doing the same.
“So, what’s this all about?” I asked.
“Just a study we’re conducting on cognitive dissonance.”
“Does this study cater to English speakers, too?” I joked.
“Forgive my jargon. Contradiction. We’re studying contradiction within the human mind.”
"Sounds…interesting," I said.
“Oh, believe me…it is. But first, just some routine formalities.”
I nodded in reply.
“Spencer Edward Bell, correct?”
"Yes," I replied.
“Thirty-two years of age?”
“Thirty-two years young,” I replied.
“Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”
I hesitated.
“Not that I know of,” I said.
“Neither do I,“ he winked, leaning back, “well,” he clapped, “I’ll make this as short and sweet as possible. There are four sections to this study: verbal, auditory, visual, and tactile. In each section, you’ll be presented with a choice, though as you’ll see in a moment…not all choices are black and white, the hardest ones are often gray. Sound simple enough?”
I nodded.
The man nodded back, leaning forward eagerly, and opening a manila folder atop a clipboard, setting some papers onto it. He looked up at me with a click of a pen.
“When you do this as long as I have, you don’t really need the papers. More of those formalities I suppose.”
I nodded, yawning.
“On a scale from one to five, one being not likely and five being highly likely, how likely are you to steal food?”
“Uh- “I paused, “one.”
He nodded as he jotted my response.
“On that same scale, how likely are you to steal food, if you were starving?”
“Uh,“ I paused, longer this time, “four?”
Again, he wrote down what I said.
“How likely are you to cheat within a relationship?
“One,” I said. He nodded as he scribbled.
“How likely are you to cheat if your significant other did it first?”
“Two?” I said, hesitantly.
“How likely are you to kill a child?”
“Is zero an option?” I nervously joked.
He wrote it down. He wasn’t smiling.
“How likely are you to kill a child, if they were about to be tortured?”
I didn’t answer, opting to swallow a thick mouthful of spit.
“What kind of question is that?”
“Just a formality. One to five, Mr. Bell.”
“I-I don’t wanna answer that one.”
“They never do,“ he whispered under his breath, sliding a tape player along the table. “That’s fine," he said, "we'll move on to the auditory test."
“That was it?” I asked, “That was all the questions?”
“There are more, but if you can’t answer that one, you won’t answer any of the others.” He rewound the tape and hovered his finger above the play button. “For this section, you’ll be listening to a song and giving your feedback.”
I nodded in a hesitant approval, and he pressed play. The song opened with the strum of a chord.
“There’s a time for livin’”
A soothing voice sang on.
“The time keeps on flyin’”
The tempo sped up.
“Think you're lovin', baby. And all you do is cryin'. Can you feel? Are those feelings real?”
Then it broke into the chorus.
“Look at your game, girl. Look at your game, girl- “
He stopped the tape and looked up at me with a raised brow.
“It’s uh,“ I began, “certainly a song. He’s got a good voice, I guess.”
The man nodded.
“From one to five, how much did you enjoy the song?”
“I’d say three…maybe four.”
He nodded.
“That was Charlie Manson. Charles Manson. You know who that is, don’t you?” I nodded, now with a sour look wiped on my face. “Given that new information, from one to five, how do you, now, enjoy the song?”
I stared blankly for a moment at the man, expecting an answer.
“One” I muttered.
The man nodded, reaching again into the folder, retrieving a picture, and sliding it toward me.
“Is this the visual test?” I asked.
“Take a look at the image, what do you see, Mr. Bell”?
I looked down. The image was that of a smiling child, looking at the cameraperson.
“I see a happy kid,” I shrugged.
“Good, you’re not blind,” he throatily laughed, “How’s it making you feel?”
“Happy, I-I guess, “ I said.
“On a scale from one to five?”
“Five.”
The man nodded and jotted what I said.
“Is this the part where you’re gonna tell me the kid’s actually Ted Bundy?” I joked.
“You’re very perceptive. Close- “he said, “Jeffery Dahmer.”
I lowered my head in an ironic shake.
“Now, how do you feel about the image?”
“One,” I muttered, speaking before he belched out his question.
“Do you see how, sometimes, we’re conflicted on how we feel? Like, maybe, guilt is tugging at our heartstrings? Maybe, we avoid how we truly feel? Maybe we rationalize quote-unquote ‘bad’ behaviors? It’s cognitive dissonance, Mr. Bell- ”
“Can we get on to the last test, Doctor?” I interrupted, feeling slightly uncomfortable at this point.
The man nodded.
“The tactile test, our favorite exercise.” The man clicked his tongue, simultaneously switching the monitors on, which caused him to disappear into the bright light of the booting screens. “In this test, you’ll be required to, yet again, make one of those difficult, conflicting choices. You understand, Mr. Bell?”
I nodded, my eyes squinting against the harsh light.
“Good,” he said, typing something into the computer. After but a moment, a video cut into view: a black-and-white video of a woman, doing the laundry in her living room. It was dark outside, and the woman was alone.
“Can’t say I’ve seen this one” I baldly said.
“You couldn’t have,” he said, “it’s live.”
I stared, horrified, at the unassuming woman, unknowing she was being watched, by me, through her own security cameras. Some security, I thought. The doctor turned, looking from the monitor to me, glaring at me. He beamed.
“Let’s cut the bullshit, Spencer.”
I froze, glancing from him to the woman folding her laundry. Then back to him.
“What bullshit?” I said. He shook his head, clicking an ironic click of his tongue.
“You lied to me. We both know you should’ve been arrested. You sure do have some powerful friends, don’t you?” he narrowly smiled. “We do too,” he whispered.
I leaned toward him; my face completely cast in the bright light of the monitors bound by the shadowy room.
“I don’t know what you’re- “
“-talking about?” he stopped me, “don’t worry, I’m not a cop, unlike your little dishonest friend in the force. “
“Then,” I slowly said, “who are you?”
He must’ve leaned inches from my face, forcing me to see my own reflection within his glasses.
“Someone who understands,” he admitted, leaning back. “If it were my sister, I’d have done the same thing.”
I sat stilly, trying to read his everchanging face.
“How do you know about that?” was all I could manage to say.
“Morgan Bell,” he spoke, a name I thought about every day, but never heard, “she was your sister, correct?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, I’d have done the same as you,” he said, “Too bad you never found out who hit her.” My muscles tightened as he spoke, my face melting into a scowl. “Thankfully, we did” he slyly said, gesturing toward the screens behind him.
My eyes pressed against the screens. I was silent, studying the woman as she went about her nightly routine.
“H-her?” I spattered, pointing toward the black-and-white woman. He nodded.
“Yep, and we didn’t need to slug a cop to find her. Nope, it’s baffling; the things people text to their friends in a drunken stupor. We were stunned the police never caught on. Or maybe it was just their protocols; we have no boundaries, you see.”
“She’s the one that killed Morgan?” I loudly shouted at the monitors, my voice echoing through the room.
“Yes, Spencer” he nodded, turning to watch along, “that’s the one.”
I shook my head in disbelief, bombarded by a hundred memories I didn’t want. I began to cry. The doctor leaned forward, handing me a handkerchief. I blew my nose into it as I tried to rub the red off my face.
“Sorry,” I sniffed.
“Don’t be,” he calmly said, “Are you ready for that final choice?”
“No,” I joked, trying to cheer myself, wiping my face, “that’s my final choice.” The doctor shook his head, interlocking his fingers with crumpled brows. He raised them.
“Should she live?” he asked. I blankly watched his expression, somewhat contorting into a confident grin of malice; trying to read me before I could read him again.
“What?” I spoke from my churning stomach.
“You heard me. Should she live?”
I stirred my head, not truly grasping the question presented before me.
“Typically, the more options a person has makes their answer all-the-more…tricky,” the doctor spoke, “choosing between thirty-one flavors is a lot more difficult than chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry.” He adjusted himself, never losing me in his line of sight. “This should be an easy question, but we’ve found, for most people, it’s often the hardest. We know, deep down, that you really want her dead, but there’s something within you that tells you that desire is wrong: be it the so-called conscience, religious upbringing, societal norms, and the like.” He rested his folded arms on the table. “Cognitive dissonance, like I said: those pesky decisions, sorting the good from the bad.”
“Is that what you’re studying?” I asked the silhouetted man, “trying to weed out the bad people?”
He wagged his head low to the table, his glasses nearly slipping off.
“Who are those ‘bad’ people, Spencer?” he rhetorically asked, “Does it make you a ‘bad’ person to want justice for your dead sister?” The doctor sat up, eyeing me. “Who decides?”
“I-” I sputtered, “-don’t know.”
“Do you think everyone else is a ‘good’ person?”
I shook my head; I knew that answer.
“Then why does a little red on your hands scare you so much? Do you think ‘Mister White Bread’ out there is holier-than-thou just because he does some bullshit crossword puzzle?” the doctor smiled with a faint laugh.
I shook my head again.
“Good. Then why are you letting him dictate your choices?”
I shook my head.
“I’m not.”
“Of course, you are,” he said, “You were so gung-ho about killing your sister’s murderer. What’s stopping you now?”
I clamped my eyes on the doctor and the screens.
“I, uh, talked to some people about it,” I cleared my throat, “Taking revenge is wrong.”
“Is that what they told you?” the doctor disappointedly said with a click, “See, you are letting them dictate your choices.”
I opened my eyes, letting them focus on the ignorant woman who had taken my sister’s life, letting them fill with salty tears. I then felt the handkerchiefs soft-touch press against my knuckles, which were buried onto the table now.
“You seem very conflicted, Spencer,” the doctor calmly said, “What if I told you that no one would ever know about which choice you make tonight? It’ll be our little secret.”
I lowered my eyes to his, pushing through the tears to see him clearly. He smiled at me as if winking with his face. I raised my eyes, adjusting them to the monitors, watching the happy-go-lucky woman slide under her cozy sheets, flicking the bedroom light off. It appeared that she was going to be getting a good night’s rest, something I hadn’t had since the accident; the accident she caused.
I looked down at the doctor, firmly; flushed with heat across my body.
“Let her die,” I spouted.
The doctor smiled as if he had broken through to me. He reached down, pulling out a small, black walkie-talkie and speaking some jargon into it. Before long, I saw what choice I had made:
There was a van, pulling up to the house on one of the cameras behind him. The doctor spun in his chair to face the monitors as the rear door slid open; a group of men hopping out and slinking through the grass on raised feet.
They went out of view of the first camera for a moment before appearing on another. They were inside this time, where the woman had done her laundry earlier.
Then the light from the kitchen area poured into the dark bedroom, as a few of the masked assailants snuck inside. One of them turned to face the camera, dark eyes peering through an even darker mask, stark and drizzled with various shades of the same color, probably red. Then the doctor’s radio beeped. He picked up, listening silently before turning to me.
“Would you like to watch?” he calmly asked. I looked at the screen, the masked man staring back at me. I hesitantly shook my head, suppressing my passionately beating heart. Part of me wanted to watch her suffer, part of me was glad he shut the camera feed off.
After a few silent moments, the kitchen camera finally revealed the men dragging the woman’s lifeless body across the floor, followed by a trail of dark grey set against the light tile. It didn’t take long until her body was loaded into the van, which sped down the foggy road, leaving an empty house behind.
The doctor before me nodded, contently, turning to face me again with a smile.
“And that’s it,” the doctor said, retrieving an envelope from the bound-up papers on his clipboard and nudging it toward me, “you’ll find your four hundred dollars inside. It really was a pleasure speaking with you, Mr. Bell” he politely nodded, “thank you for participating in our study.”
I stood, dizzied, as I nodded toward the doctor. My face couldn’t hide my aversion to his smile. He noticed and leaned forward with the sound of his clipboard clacking against the table.
“I need not tell you what happens if you disclose anything you’ve seen or heard during our time together,” he said with a stern leer and a suggestive nod, “remember that history of yours, Spencer. Because we do.”
I slowly returned his nod, sputtering a halfhearted ‘thank you’ as I exited the room.
The rest of the church was empty as I stepped past the hushed pews, glancing from side to side to make sure no one was following me. No one was, but I could still feel eyes all over me; in that church, in my car, in my apartment, in my bed.
Maybe it’s what the doctor had said. Maybe those eyes really do dictate my life. Or maybe I just feel guilty. Then again, we’re all guilty of something. I know that, now.
Sometimes I fear that guilty conscience will get the better of me. I hear the hum of vehicles outside of my house, the pattering of footsteps across my lawn. Most of the time it’s just kids or an overactive imagination.
But, then again, I know there’s blood on my hands. And I’m sure one of these days another conflicted soul like mine will finally make their choice, too.
Written by MakRalston
Content is available under CC BY-SA"