...
Taking
Control
You wouldn't believe how I got
here. I was once one of the top minds at
MIT, a genius if there ever was one. And
yet, here I am, on my knees scrubbing another man's wife's floor. I'm getting
ahead of myself (that's my little joke), let me back up.
My parents
were two people who had no business at all having children. My mother was a drunk and my father was so
absorbed in his accounting firm (re: his mistress -- a whole other type of firm
I found out later), that I wasn't even sure he knew my name unless he was
yelling at me for one thing or the other.
So, as was natural from such a noble birth, I was a lonely child. I played alone, I did my school work alone,
and I relied on myself for everything.
Human contact was more or less irrelevant to me throughout my childhood
and into my post-graduate days at MIT (I was a double major in mechanical
engineering and industrial psychology) -- until the day I saw Angela in the
dining hall.
Angela was
so aptly named it made me wince. I could
describe her beauty and poise and her laugh, but no words could do her justice
so I'll let it rest at this: imagine the ideal woman, then imagine someone even
better, and then, one over that, and you're approaching the wonder that is
Angela.
The
trouble, of course, is that I was completely inadequate in every way, and I had
no hope of winning one such as her. I
couldn't even summon up the nerve to smile at her. I only discovered her name when I stumbled
out of the dining hall, shoulders hunched and head low, and happened to see her
name on the front of a marble notebook beside her dinner tray of roast
chicken. How appropriate, I thought.
I
despaired.
That
evening I slumped back to the lab where I spent most of my nights working on
various machines my professors sloughed off on me while they took all the
credit.
I decided
that enough was enough, I was going to make a change in my life. I was finally going to throw off the shroud
of my parents and make a name for myself, and, if I was successful, perhaps even
win Angela in the process.
I worked
for three days straight. I almost gave
up a dozen times, but every time I wanted to throw the towel in, Angela's face
swam in front of me and I kept going.
Finally, on
the fourth day, I was finished. I had
made a rudimentary mind control machine.
I was sure
it would work, but I needed to test it before I used it for its true
purpose. I plugged in the machine and
hooked the nodules to my forehead. I
pointed the projector dish at the rats, and I focused "right, right,
left." I put everything I had into those
thoughts: "Right, right, left," and then, before I knew it, the rat did exactly
as I had thought: "Right, right, left!"
Euphoria! The machine worked!
Ok, I know
I looked ridiculous sitting in the cafeteria with nodules plastered to my head
and my hands clutching the projector dish under the table, but if the machine
worked on people, then it wouldn?t matter how I looked.
I tired it
first on Frannie, the woman dishing out shepherd's pie to overworked underclassmen. I thought I should start small, and I sent
the thought, "drop your spoon!" and she did!
I was
ecstatic, and searched the dining hall for others to try the machine on.
I directed
the dish at a girl two tables over and made her drink an entire can of soda in
one gulp, then watched as she belched loudly.
I directed
the dish at a freckled boy and made him start singing "My Way" (I have a nasty
sense of humor sometimes).
Before I
could make a football player in the corner of the room start doing ballet,
Angela walked in. Now was my chance!
I aimed the
dish at her, and made her walk over to my table. She did, and sat down right across from
me. Her expression was blank.
I made her
talk to me. "You look hot with those
nodules on your head," Angela said in exactly the sultry tones I had dreamed
of.
"Thank
you," I said.
"Want to
make out?" she said.
I supposed
I made her say that, but I can't remember any more. I turned the machine up to eleven and let it
work its magic. For the next two weeks,
Angela was my slave. If I wanted to make
out with her, she willingly complied. If
I wanted to walk through the halls with her and show her off, she was more than
agreeable. When her friends came up to
her to talk, she brushed them off with a wave.
She was mine. All mine.
Then,
things changed. After a few weeks of
this, I realized that I didn't have a girlfriend. I had a robot, willing though she may
be. I wanted the real deal -- someone who
actually knew me, wanted to be with me, and actually cared about who I was.
I had never
told anyone about the machine, and I never intended to. I destroyed the machine, and I went to face
Angela
Unfortunately,
I had failed to make a minor adjustment to the machine: while Angela had no
idea what was happening to her during her, OK, let's just call it enslavement,
no point hiding it now, as soon as the machine?s effects wore off she
remembered EVERYTHING.
Anger is
too mild a word to describe the rage she flew into upon seeing me. She began grabbing at various objects within
arm reach and threw them at me. All was
fine until she pegged a stapler and it clocked me right in the head. Down I went, and passed out cold.
When I woke
up, I found myself strapped down to a table in what looked very much like my
science lab.
Angela was
there in a lab coat, her hair in a tight bun and glasses hanging onto the edge
of her nose with a death grip. She was
leaning over a beaker filled with a yellow liquid. In my grogginess, I saw her fill a syringe
with the yellow liquid and then come toward me.
"You erased
nearly a month of my life," she said. "You made me your slave, and thought you would get away with it. I've been working on an experiment of my
own.?" With that she injected me with the
serum.
"What is
that?" I screamed out, still trying to clear the fog from my eyes.
She merely
laughed, and that's all I remembered.
I woke up
the next day in my dorm. I went to class
and went to work and it was as though nothing had happened.
Then, at 9:00 that night, something triggered in my
head. I had an irresistible urge to go
to Angela's. I followed my instinct, and
went straight to her dorm.
I spent the
night cleaning her room and doing her homework.
And so it
was the next night and the night after that.
I realized that I wasn't the only genius at school. Angela was just as
capable as I was, and she had managed to create a serum that served the same
purpose as my clunky contraption!
Now, it's
five years later, and I'm still trapped at Angela's beck and call. She's since married and has two children: I'm
a built in butler, chauffeur, and nanny all in one.
If I ever
have a moment alone, if Angela ever has a pang of conscience, I'll get her
back. I have such a great idea...
