A small tool to view real-world ActivityPub objects as JSON! Enter a URL
or username from Mastodon or a similar service below, and we'll send a
request with
the right
Accept
header
to the server to view the underlying object.
{
"@context": [
"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
{
"Hashtag": "as:Hashtag",
"sensitive": "as:sensitive"
}
],
"id": "https://plusbrothers.net/benny-02-experiment/",
"type": "Article",
"attachment": [],
"attributedTo": "https://plusbrothers.net/author/english/",
"audience": "https://plusbrothers.net/@network",
"content": "<p>REAL WORLD, 2019: An Italian female student was awarded damages for contracting HIV during a laboratory experiment in 2016. Both Padua and Geneva universities were involved in the legal battle.</p><p>FANTASY: Benjamin Ladder was supposed to meet his friend Raymond, but another person showed up instead, asking him to participate in an experiment. Is he going to accept? What will happen to him?</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1981: Coincidences</h2><p>“Alright, I’ll be there soon. And please skip dinner,” Raymond said before hanging up; I ran out of tokens and didn’t have time to ask for further explanations about that strange request. All I understood was the enormous trouble I found myself into.</p><p>I sat down on the bench and waited. Five, ten minutes, maybe more, while passersby stopped at the phone booth to make calls or smoked cigarettes, talking to each other without noticing me. Some even ate sandwiches right in front of me!</p><p>“When I get home they’re going to kill me,” I thought. I knew I had to be there within half an hour, with Emily and her parents expecting dinner at precisely 8 PM. I opened my wallet looking for a phone token and sat back down, disheartened: I had used my last one calling Raymond, and now he wasn’t even showing up! “I gave you concert’s tickets; now you need to prove yourself worthy of my trust,” he had urged me when handing me the envelope, and he repeated it during our last phone call.</p><p>Thank goodness I had some bills left! The diner near the payphone was still open, so I could buy some tokens to call my family and let them know I’d be late. With a couple of twenties in hand, I stood up and didn’t immediately notice a woman walking towards me.</p><p>“Please take a seat, ma’am,” I pointed to my now-vacant spot. “I’m just leaving!”</p><p>“Stay, please,” she smiled widely and stepped even closer to me; “Don’t you… Don’t you recognize me, Benny? I came here for you!”</p><p>It was probably a dream. Her, it couldn’t be her, no way. I was too anxious and hungry! She stood in front of me, her dark eyes glistening with emotion. “I’m so happy to meet you again!”</p><p>I stayed there, frozen, unable to move or speak: why had she reappeared after all these years, in the most inappropriate moment? What kind of trick was fate playing on me?</p><p>“Evy, Evelyn, Evelyn Sloan…” Without taking my eyes off her, I pronounced her name, as if to etch her unexpected presence into my mind. “What are you doing here in Bugdom?”</p><p>“Sometimes work turns into love, don’t you know?”</p><p>I experienced those sensations because I felt the same way about music. But she was talking about me, and I understood it. She looked at me just like the first time we met at a Queen concert in 1975, when we instantly connected as fans: we had never met before, yet our hands joined as we sang “Love of My Life” with Freddie Mercury, and we didn’t let go for the entire evening. No words were needed between us. We introduced ourselves only the next morning, whispering our names to each other as we lay entwined in bed.</p><p>We then spent two years in a long-distance relationship: we wrote each other endless letters, though we spoke on the phone only a few times. But our passion exploded every summer, with the promise to never part. Until one day, a short note arrived: “I have to choose between you and my job, but I love you. One day you’ll understand.”</p><p>I cried for months back then and only forgot her when Emily came into my life—or so I had assumed!</p><p>“I promised you,” Evelyn held me tight while she spoke and I didn’t pull away, despite being overtaken by the flame between us that had never died. “Benny, now it’s time for us to be connected forever.”</p><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"/><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Evelyn’s mysteries</h2><p>“But I… I have to go,” I replied, my throat closing up. “I’m… I’m a taken man… and then…”</p><p>She hugged me even tighter and silenced me by pressing a finger to my lips; “I know, and I don’t care! I know about the concert, your tickets, Emily, and especially about Ray, but he’s a loser and I don’t even consider him. Come with me!”</p><p>Strong, determined, Evelyn could dominate any man and that was her best quality, which had seduced me. She succeeded that day too because I took her firm hand and followed her to a car parked just a few meters from the phone booth. A luxurious car, different from the one I used to see her driving years ago when we met. “You earned plenty of money from work,” I joked, trying to ease my discomfort. “You’re a successful woman, right?”</p><p>“Ray’s tires went flat! Sometimes shit happens,” a mischievous grin hinted something more while she sat on the driver’s seat and I leaned in to kiss her. “You only live once,” I thought, already imagining a passionate evening in some hotel. I had lost my mind and Emily waiting for me at home, suddenly became the least of my concerns.</p><p>“No funny business,” Evelyn stopped the kiss she perhaps desired more than I did, and started the engine. “Don’t ask me any questions until we arrive! You hear me buddy?”</p><p>From passionate lover to kidnapper in an instant, I had read many novels on such a subject and tried to stay calm while she focused on the drive. Her embrace, her hand in mine, telling me we were meant to be together forever, then refusing a simple kiss? I grabbed an empty cassette case from the glove compartment, hoping it could clear up my doubts.</p><p>“A Night at the Opera,” I exclaimed. “That was the concert where…”</p><p>“Don’t get your hopes up,” her authoritative voice didn’t match “Love of My Life” song’s notes playing on the car radio; “this isn’t appropriate time to make love.”</p><p>I was risking my marriage for her, and in return she turned me down? “At least get me something to eat,” I protested. “A sandwich, a slice of pizza, I’m starving…”</p><p>She stayed silent and I just stared out the window: we left Bugdom downtown and headed towards the outskirts, eventually turning onto a completely deserted road. “We got lost, Evelyn,” I shook my head, but she continued driving calmly, confidently. “Benny, listen: do you want to come to Queen’s concert next November, right?”</p><p>“You said ‘coming’? Why, are you attending too? I’m supposed to be there with…”</p><p>“Emily. I know. And you will go with her; I have no intention to ruin your happy marriage, not at all.”</p><p>I wanted to ask her to take me home or drop me off at the public phone, but once again I was consumed by conflicting emotions: concert tickets, Raymond, what on earth was happening!</p><p>“I own something Emily doesn’t,” Evelyn mischievously grinned at me again; “I don’t fear her because there’s no competition. And you’ll realize it soon enough! We’re almost there!”</p><p>The engine stopped in front of a huge villa and I stood there astonished, as she opened the gate. “Get out,” she told me. “Come on, follow me.”</p><p>Her voice was once again calm and reassuring on this night that had caught us both by surprise. In an instant I was back in 1975 after Queen’s concert, when she held me tight in her arms for the first time. Step by step I followed her and when the gate closed behind us, the metallic clang in the evening silence revealed a reality I had always denied to myself: I didn’t love Emily as much as I said, I was just leaning on her to get over someone else.</p><p>“Oh, but this is…” Initially I hadn’t noticed the sign on the gate but I saw it now, large and illuminated above the entrance: “CAMPUS IBUOL – International Bugdom University Of Life.”</p><p>“Here we are,” Evelyn announced as she opened the door with a key; it was a university campus I had once dreamed of attending, but it was too expensive for my family so I had to give it up. And here she was, acting like she owned the place.</p><p>“Shit, it’s past eight!” I looked at my watch and stopped by the door: “No, damn it, it’s nine! God, what will they say at home…” I rambled on, incredulous about what was happening, the woman and place of my dreams arriving together in less than two hours, right within reach.</p><p>“Maybe you don’t realize it,” she smiled taking my hand and leading me down a silent corridor. I felt trapped once again, but I remembered Raymond and the concert tickets: “either do as I say or give them back!” My pride forced me to follow her, even when I saw her going down a dark, foul-smelling staircase. How fool would I look with Emily if I lost the tickets? What contract had Raymond signed, and how was I involved? What did Evelyn have to do with it? Too many questions, but she had explicitly recommended me not to ask them, and as always I gave in to her charisma.</p><p>A metal door creaked open and we entered a cold room, the air thick with disinfectant. “Where are we, what is this, is it a horror movie? Damn it, Evelyn!”</p><p>“Calm down. Calm down. Everything’s fine. Don’t be afraid, he won’t hurt you…” As she spoke, she wasn’t looking at me but at some undefined point in the room. She looked hypnotized! Who was she comforting? Who was “he” if not me? From any angle I looked at it, the situation was weird and I knew I couldn’t give it up. Not with her, not inside the campus coming from my shattered dreams.</p><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"/><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Experiment</h2><p>“Perfect,” Evelyn said as she pushed a metal chair toward me. “Now you sit here, and we’ll proceed with our experiment. Are you ready, Benjamin Ladder?”</p><p>University professor, doctor, researcher? I didn’t even know exactly what her role was, but what I saw on the table in front of me forced me to focus elsewhere.</p><p>“Forty-one homosexual men affected by a strange form of cancer,” the same newspaper article I had seen earlier at my father-in-law’s house. I stood there frozen, reading it again, a veil of uncertainty slowly turning into terror. “No, Evelyn no… Don’t tell me that…” A tear slipped from my eye, and I wiped it away with my finger. “No, Evy, not you…”</p><p>“I’ve got a handle on this virus,” she whispered in my ear with a calmness utterly inappropriate for the situation. “And you are the right person for my research.”</p><p>“But what…” I grabbed the newspaper and studied every word, one letter at a time; no virus was mentioned and, as far as I knew, cancer wasn’t infections. Nothing made sense to me.</p><p>“You scare me, you’re dangerous!” I yelled. “Let me out of here! I don’t… I don’t want to die like those men! Evelyn!”</p><p>“Are you serious, dude? I’m not as dangerous as Raymond Still,” she said coldly. “I slashed his tires because I couldn’t let him hurt you.”</p><p>Without looking at me again she covered the table with an absorbent sheet. Moving slowly and precisely, she opened a drawer and pulled out a sealed syringe with a tourniquet. “Please! Let me go,” I panicked, but it didn’t seem to faze her. “You’re not going to drug me, are you?”</p><p>She pretended not to hear me, merely tying the tourniquet around my left arm and slipping on a pair of gloves. “It will only take a few seconds,” she said, turning her back on me as she approached a locked cabinet. It looked like an ordinary cupboard, but when the door swung open the cold air coming out made me realize it was a refrigerator.</p><p>“I have been Raymond Still’s student,” she sat down in front of me with a test tube in hand. “And in this laboratory he forced me to work till late into the night; it was here that everything happened.”</p><p>I looked from the newspaper to her. She appeared healthy and happy, but the article described a skin cancer. “…So, … I mean, how much time, does how long it last… You know… Evy…” Those words stuck in my throat, impossible to verbally express what I tried not to even think. Tourniquet still tied to my arm, syringe still sealed on the table, I focused on my only available certainty: I could breathe.</p><p>“So, tell me about Ray,” I finally managed to say; “this is about him, right? Tell me what happened to him!”</p><p>“Well, I need to prepare him for this. I should tell him about you first.”</p><p>Evy was back in a trance! I had already seen her like this, standing at the entrance to the campus, speaking in the third person as if I wasn’t there. But this time she held a test tube, and my arm was ready to receive an injection of God knows what.</p><p>Her eyes were lost in that world I couldn’t ever enter so I slipped my fingers under the tourniquet. Now or never, it was my last chance to escape! Screw the concert, the tickets and everything else. “Raymond!” I shouted, trying to untie the band. “I’m going to report you! What have you done to Evelyn, what’s my damned fate? Answer me! I know you’re around here!”</p><p>My anger echoed against an oppressive wall of silence, broken only by Evy as she unwrapped the syringe from its sterile packaging while muttering incoherent words and treating me as if I were invisible.</p><p>“Scream, Benny,” she said, turning to look into my eyes again. “Let out your fear, release all your negativity, honey. Soon you’ll be turned into someone better. Trust us.”</p><p>Evelyn emphasized the last phrase with her usual tone, always capable of seducing me in any situation. She had me completely under her thumb and was well aware of it: despite my uncertain fate I might even let her poison me if that meant having her approval. “Trust us, Benny. We are one now, accept your destiny.”</p><p>Hopelessly drawn in by her charm I didn’t even notice her opening the test tube, nor did I pay attention to the needle slowly entering my vein. I only felt when she set my arm free, but I remained seated awaiting my fate.</p><p>Against all my expectations, however, nothing happened. Ten minutes passed and my heart beat regularly; no hallucinations, no dizziness, even when I stood up I felt steady and walked around the table to get a sense of where I was until my toes bumped into a large mattress.</p><p>“I know what you’re thinking,” Evelyn took my hand and we both sat down on that makeshift bed. “Now you and I will stay here until your conversion is complete.”</p><p>“Conversion? Oh dear God,” despite being an atheist, a prayer slipped out. “If religion is what you mean, only God can explain what’s happening to me.”</p><p>“Seroconversion,” she corrected without flinching. “You’re becoming a positive person and this is good news! It’s just that you’ll have to…”</p><p>I needed to follow my instincts, but maybe it was already too late! How could I have been so reckless, sacrificing my health just to hear some music? “God, my God, the gay cancer,” I cried, still thinking about the newspaper article. “At least make it as painless as possible, dear Lord, hear me!”</p><p>Evelyn placed her hand on my shoulder inviting me to lie down: “now we’ll both take a nice nap, and tomorrow is another day. We’ve got two or three weeks…”</p><p>“And what about Emily,” I whispered. “I need to get back home…”</p><p>Evy shook her head. “It’s all been arranged. A letter will reach your wife. I’ve thought of her, the store, everything. It’s just us now!”</p><p>“Us.” Once again she used that romantic yet unsettling pronoun: “tell me who the third wheel is, Evelyn, tell me who you’re talking to when you close your eyes!”</p><p>“They’ll show up on their own,” she cut me off. “In two or three weeks you’ll develop a fever and you’ll start hearing a voice talking to you. If they ever decide to speak to you at all, given how you treat both of us.”</p>",
"contentMap": {
"en": "<p>REAL WORLD, 2019: An Italian female student was awarded damages for contracting HIV during a laboratory experiment in 2016. Both Padua and Geneva universities were involved in the legal battle.</p><p>FANTASY: Benjamin Ladder was supposed to meet his friend Raymond, but another person showed up instead, asking him to participate in an experiment. Is he going to accept? What will happen to him?</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1981: Coincidences</h2><p>“Alright, I’ll be there soon. And please skip dinner,” Raymond said before hanging up; I ran out of tokens and didn’t have time to ask for further explanations about that strange request. All I understood was the enormous trouble I found myself into.</p><p>I sat down on the bench and waited. Five, ten minutes, maybe more, while passersby stopped at the phone booth to make calls or smoked cigarettes, talking to each other without noticing me. Some even ate sandwiches right in front of me!</p><p>“When I get home they’re going to kill me,” I thought. I knew I had to be there within half an hour, with Emily and her parents expecting dinner at precisely 8 PM. I opened my wallet looking for a phone token and sat back down, disheartened: I had used my last one calling Raymond, and now he wasn’t even showing up! “I gave you concert’s tickets; now you need to prove yourself worthy of my trust,” he had urged me when handing me the envelope, and he repeated it during our last phone call.</p><p>Thank goodness I had some bills left! The diner near the payphone was still open, so I could buy some tokens to call my family and let them know I’d be late. With a couple of twenties in hand, I stood up and didn’t immediately notice a woman walking towards me.</p><p>“Please take a seat, ma’am,” I pointed to my now-vacant spot. “I’m just leaving!”</p><p>“Stay, please,” she smiled widely and stepped even closer to me; “Don’t you… Don’t you recognize me, Benny? I came here for you!”</p><p>It was probably a dream. Her, it couldn’t be her, no way. I was too anxious and hungry! She stood in front of me, her dark eyes glistening with emotion. “I’m so happy to meet you again!”</p><p>I stayed there, frozen, unable to move or speak: why had she reappeared after all these years, in the most inappropriate moment? What kind of trick was fate playing on me?</p><p>“Evy, Evelyn, Evelyn Sloan…” Without taking my eyes off her, I pronounced her name, as if to etch her unexpected presence into my mind. “What are you doing here in Bugdom?”</p><p>“Sometimes work turns into love, don’t you know?”</p><p>I experienced those sensations because I felt the same way about music. But she was talking about me, and I understood it. She looked at me just like the first time we met at a Queen concert in 1975, when we instantly connected as fans: we had never met before, yet our hands joined as we sang “Love of My Life” with Freddie Mercury, and we didn’t let go for the entire evening. No words were needed between us. We introduced ourselves only the next morning, whispering our names to each other as we lay entwined in bed.</p><p>We then spent two years in a long-distance relationship: we wrote each other endless letters, though we spoke on the phone only a few times. But our passion exploded every summer, with the promise to never part. Until one day, a short note arrived: “I have to choose between you and my job, but I love you. One day you’ll understand.”</p><p>I cried for months back then and only forgot her when Emily came into my life—or so I had assumed!</p><p>“I promised you,” Evelyn held me tight while she spoke and I didn’t pull away, despite being overtaken by the flame between us that had never died. “Benny, now it’s time for us to be connected forever.”</p><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"/><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Evelyn’s mysteries</h2><p>“But I… I have to go,” I replied, my throat closing up. “I’m… I’m a taken man… and then…”</p><p>She hugged me even tighter and silenced me by pressing a finger to my lips; “I know, and I don’t care! I know about the concert, your tickets, Emily, and especially about Ray, but he’s a loser and I don’t even consider him. Come with me!”</p><p>Strong, determined, Evelyn could dominate any man and that was her best quality, which had seduced me. She succeeded that day too because I took her firm hand and followed her to a car parked just a few meters from the phone booth. A luxurious car, different from the one I used to see her driving years ago when we met. “You earned plenty of money from work,” I joked, trying to ease my discomfort. “You’re a successful woman, right?”</p><p>“Ray’s tires went flat! Sometimes shit happens,” a mischievous grin hinted something more while she sat on the driver’s seat and I leaned in to kiss her. “You only live once,” I thought, already imagining a passionate evening in some hotel. I had lost my mind and Emily waiting for me at home, suddenly became the least of my concerns.</p><p>“No funny business,” Evelyn stopped the kiss she perhaps desired more than I did, and started the engine. “Don’t ask me any questions until we arrive! You hear me buddy?”</p><p>From passionate lover to kidnapper in an instant, I had read many novels on such a subject and tried to stay calm while she focused on the drive. Her embrace, her hand in mine, telling me we were meant to be together forever, then refusing a simple kiss? I grabbed an empty cassette case from the glove compartment, hoping it could clear up my doubts.</p><p>“A Night at the Opera,” I exclaimed. “That was the concert where…”</p><p>“Don’t get your hopes up,” her authoritative voice didn’t match “Love of My Life” song’s notes playing on the car radio; “this isn’t appropriate time to make love.”</p><p>I was risking my marriage for her, and in return she turned me down? “At least get me something to eat,” I protested. “A sandwich, a slice of pizza, I’m starving…”</p><p>She stayed silent and I just stared out the window: we left Bugdom downtown and headed towards the outskirts, eventually turning onto a completely deserted road. “We got lost, Evelyn,” I shook my head, but she continued driving calmly, confidently. “Benny, listen: do you want to come to Queen’s concert next November, right?”</p><p>“You said ‘coming’? Why, are you attending too? I’m supposed to be there with…”</p><p>“Emily. I know. And you will go with her; I have no intention to ruin your happy marriage, not at all.”</p><p>I wanted to ask her to take me home or drop me off at the public phone, but once again I was consumed by conflicting emotions: concert tickets, Raymond, what on earth was happening!</p><p>“I own something Emily doesn’t,” Evelyn mischievously grinned at me again; “I don’t fear her because there’s no competition. And you’ll realize it soon enough! We’re almost there!”</p><p>The engine stopped in front of a huge villa and I stood there astonished, as she opened the gate. “Get out,” she told me. “Come on, follow me.”</p><p>Her voice was once again calm and reassuring on this night that had caught us both by surprise. In an instant I was back in 1975 after Queen’s concert, when she held me tight in her arms for the first time. Step by step I followed her and when the gate closed behind us, the metallic clang in the evening silence revealed a reality I had always denied to myself: I didn’t love Emily as much as I said, I was just leaning on her to get over someone else.</p><p>“Oh, but this is…” Initially I hadn’t noticed the sign on the gate but I saw it now, large and illuminated above the entrance: “CAMPUS IBUOL – International Bugdom University Of Life.”</p><p>“Here we are,” Evelyn announced as she opened the door with a key; it was a university campus I had once dreamed of attending, but it was too expensive for my family so I had to give it up. And here she was, acting like she owned the place.</p><p>“Shit, it’s past eight!” I looked at my watch and stopped by the door: “No, damn it, it’s nine! God, what will they say at home…” I rambled on, incredulous about what was happening, the woman and place of my dreams arriving together in less than two hours, right within reach.</p><p>“Maybe you don’t realize it,” she smiled taking my hand and leading me down a silent corridor. I felt trapped once again, but I remembered Raymond and the concert tickets: “either do as I say or give them back!” My pride forced me to follow her, even when I saw her going down a dark, foul-smelling staircase. How fool would I look with Emily if I lost the tickets? What contract had Raymond signed, and how was I involved? What did Evelyn have to do with it? Too many questions, but she had explicitly recommended me not to ask them, and as always I gave in to her charisma.</p><p>A metal door creaked open and we entered a cold room, the air thick with disinfectant. “Where are we, what is this, is it a horror movie? Damn it, Evelyn!”</p><p>“Calm down. Calm down. Everything’s fine. Don’t be afraid, he won’t hurt you…” As she spoke, she wasn’t looking at me but at some undefined point in the room. She looked hypnotized! Who was she comforting? Who was “he” if not me? From any angle I looked at it, the situation was weird and I knew I couldn’t give it up. Not with her, not inside the campus coming from my shattered dreams.</p><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"/><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Experiment</h2><p>“Perfect,” Evelyn said as she pushed a metal chair toward me. “Now you sit here, and we’ll proceed with our experiment. Are you ready, Benjamin Ladder?”</p><p>University professor, doctor, researcher? I didn’t even know exactly what her role was, but what I saw on the table in front of me forced me to focus elsewhere.</p><p>“Forty-one homosexual men affected by a strange form of cancer,” the same newspaper article I had seen earlier at my father-in-law’s house. I stood there frozen, reading it again, a veil of uncertainty slowly turning into terror. “No, Evelyn no… Don’t tell me that…” A tear slipped from my eye, and I wiped it away with my finger. “No, Evy, not you…”</p><p>“I’ve got a handle on this virus,” she whispered in my ear with a calmness utterly inappropriate for the situation. “And you are the right person for my research.”</p><p>“But what…” I grabbed the newspaper and studied every word, one letter at a time; no virus was mentioned and, as far as I knew, cancer wasn’t infections. Nothing made sense to me.</p><p>“You scare me, you’re dangerous!” I yelled. “Let me out of here! I don’t… I don’t want to die like those men! Evelyn!”</p><p>“Are you serious, dude? I’m not as dangerous as Raymond Still,” she said coldly. “I slashed his tires because I couldn’t let him hurt you.”</p><p>Without looking at me again she covered the table with an absorbent sheet. Moving slowly and precisely, she opened a drawer and pulled out a sealed syringe with a tourniquet. “Please! Let me go,” I panicked, but it didn’t seem to faze her. “You’re not going to drug me, are you?”</p><p>She pretended not to hear me, merely tying the tourniquet around my left arm and slipping on a pair of gloves. “It will only take a few seconds,” she said, turning her back on me as she approached a locked cabinet. It looked like an ordinary cupboard, but when the door swung open the cold air coming out made me realize it was a refrigerator.</p><p>“I have been Raymond Still’s student,” she sat down in front of me with a test tube in hand. “And in this laboratory he forced me to work till late into the night; it was here that everything happened.”</p><p>I looked from the newspaper to her. She appeared healthy and happy, but the article described a skin cancer. “…So, … I mean, how much time, does how long it last… You know… Evy…” Those words stuck in my throat, impossible to verbally express what I tried not to even think. Tourniquet still tied to my arm, syringe still sealed on the table, I focused on my only available certainty: I could breathe.</p><p>“So, tell me about Ray,” I finally managed to say; “this is about him, right? Tell me what happened to him!”</p><p>“Well, I need to prepare him for this. I should tell him about you first.”</p><p>Evy was back in a trance! I had already seen her like this, standing at the entrance to the campus, speaking in the third person as if I wasn’t there. But this time she held a test tube, and my arm was ready to receive an injection of God knows what.</p><p>Her eyes were lost in that world I couldn’t ever enter so I slipped my fingers under the tourniquet. Now or never, it was my last chance to escape! Screw the concert, the tickets and everything else. “Raymond!” I shouted, trying to untie the band. “I’m going to report you! What have you done to Evelyn, what’s my damned fate? Answer me! I know you’re around here!”</p><p>My anger echoed against an oppressive wall of silence, broken only by Evy as she unwrapped the syringe from its sterile packaging while muttering incoherent words and treating me as if I were invisible.</p><p>“Scream, Benny,” she said, turning to look into my eyes again. “Let out your fear, release all your negativity, honey. Soon you’ll be turned into someone better. Trust us.”</p><p>Evelyn emphasized the last phrase with her usual tone, always capable of seducing me in any situation. She had me completely under her thumb and was well aware of it: despite my uncertain fate I might even let her poison me if that meant having her approval. “Trust us, Benny. We are one now, accept your destiny.”</p><p>Hopelessly drawn in by her charm I didn’t even notice her opening the test tube, nor did I pay attention to the needle slowly entering my vein. I only felt when she set my arm free, but I remained seated awaiting my fate.</p><p>Against all my expectations, however, nothing happened. Ten minutes passed and my heart beat regularly; no hallucinations, no dizziness, even when I stood up I felt steady and walked around the table to get a sense of where I was until my toes bumped into a large mattress.</p><p>“I know what you’re thinking,” Evelyn took my hand and we both sat down on that makeshift bed. “Now you and I will stay here until your conversion is complete.”</p><p>“Conversion? Oh dear God,” despite being an atheist, a prayer slipped out. “If religion is what you mean, only God can explain what’s happening to me.”</p><p>“Seroconversion,” she corrected without flinching. “You’re becoming a positive person and this is good news! It’s just that you’ll have to…”</p><p>I needed to follow my instincts, but maybe it was already too late! How could I have been so reckless, sacrificing my health just to hear some music? “God, my God, the gay cancer,” I cried, still thinking about the newspaper article. “At least make it as painless as possible, dear Lord, hear me!”</p><p>Evelyn placed her hand on my shoulder inviting me to lie down: “now we’ll both take a nice nap, and tomorrow is another day. We’ve got two or three weeks…”</p><p>“And what about Emily,” I whispered. “I need to get back home…”</p><p>Evy shook her head. “It’s all been arranged. A letter will reach your wife. I’ve thought of her, the store, everything. It’s just us now!”</p><p>“Us.” Once again she used that romantic yet unsettling pronoun: “tell me who the third wheel is, Evelyn, tell me who you’re talking to when you close your eyes!”</p><p>“They’ll show up on their own,” she cut me off. “In two or three weeks you’ll develop a fever and you’ll start hearing a voice talking to you. If they ever decide to speak to you at all, given how you treat both of us.”</p>"
},
"name": "Benny 02: the experiment",
"nameMap": {
"en": "Benny 02: the experiment"
},
"published": "2024-10-18T19:28:43Z",
"summary": "<p>Benjamin Ladder waits for Raymond but another person shows up…</p>\n",
"summaryMap": {
"en": "<p>Benjamin Ladder waits for Raymond but another person shows up…</p>\n"
},
"tag": [
{
"type": "Hashtag",
"href": "https://plusbrothers.net/tag/writing/",
"name": "#writing"
}
],
"updated": "2024-10-18T19:28:46Z",
"url": "https://plusbrothers.net/benny-02-experiment/",
"to": [
"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public"
],
"cc": [
"https://plusbrothers.net/wp-json/activitypub/1.0/actors/4/followers"
],
"replies": {
"id": "https://plusbrothers.net/wp-json/activitypub/1.0/posts/35692/replies",
"type": "Collection",
"first": {
"id": "https://plusbrothers.net/wp-json/activitypub/1.0/posts/35692/replies?page=0",
"type": "CollectionPage",
"partOf": "https://plusbrothers.net/wp-json/activitypub/1.0/posts/35692/replies",
"items": []
}
},
"sensitive": false
}