You Are in an Experiment!

by David Sheskin

You are in an experiment! For the duration of the experiment you cannot pass Go. You cannot collect $200. You are in an experiment! You signed a consent form and agreed to adhere to the guidelines outlined in the booklet that was given to you before you agreed to serve as a subject. Be advised that if you violate any of the guidelines stipulated for this experiment you will be terminated by lethal injection, and all of your earthly possessions will become the property of The Society for Research into the Realms of Natural Law and Divine Wisdom, which is the scientific body that has been officially authorized to run this study. As noted in the experimental guidelines, in return for consenting to participate in this experiment, five million dollars have been placed in a trust fund that will be deposited in a bank account designated by you, if and when you meet all of your obligations as an experimental subject. Be apprised that your trust fund will be revoked should you violate any of the restrictions placed upon your behavior by virtue of you agreeing to participate in this experiment.

Having said all of the above, I am formally notifying you that you are a member of the control group. Along with ten other pathetic and desperate human beings your assignment to the control group has been determined by the laws of chance. You should be thoroughly cognizant of the fact that you and your ten fellow control subjects have agreed to endure all varieties of hardships and indignities that will be imposed upon you by virtue of you being a participant in this study. Be assured that although your involvement in the experiment may well result in irrevocable damage to both your body and mind, your serving as a subject is ultimately expected to be of some benefit to the human race.

And now, the experiment will commence. Remove all of your clothing and any prosthetic devices that are inserted in your body. Upon doing so, go into the bathroom and evacuate your bowels and bladder. Be advised that you will only be allowed to discharge your natural functions once every twenty-four hours, so it is essential that you purge yourself completely each time you are given the opportunity. If at any time during the experiment you soil yourself, you will be disqualified as a subject and be given a lethal injection. Understand that the trust fund of any subject who is given a lethal injection will be revoked, and that any money in such a trust fund cannot be claimed by the beneficiaries of the deceased.

Upon removing your clothing and attending to your natural functions, you should assume a prone position directly below the green box in the rectangle designating Pennsylvania Avenue on the large Monopoly board which constitutes the floor of this building. Be advised that on the aforementioned Monopoly board one member of the control group will be assigned to lie on each of the green, yellow, red and blue properties. In addition, one member of the experimental group will lie on each of the orange, magenta, periwinkle, and purple properties.

Be advised that for the duration of the experiment the following conditions will be in effect.  Experimental observers will be stationed on each of the Utilities and on all of the Railroads, and the latter individuals will be charged with recording the behavior of the subjects. The Community Chest and Chance boxes will be occupied by medical personnel who will attend to any illnesses or injuries incurred by subjects during the course of the experiment. The Go to Jail box will serve as a portable bathroom containing a toilet and shower for the use of subjects in accordance with the schedule outlined in the guidelines for the study. Be advised that any subject who engages in any form of sexual contact during the communal shower period will be terminated by lethal injection. The Free Parking box is the designated area where all food will be consumed by participants in the experiment. All subjects will be allowed one daily meal, and any subject found eating outside of the Free Parking area will be terminated by lethal injection. The Jail box will be the designated area where all lethal injections will be administered. The Income Tax box will serve as an appeals center for any subject who wishes to challenge the authority of the experimenter to administer a lethal injection.

A complete prospectus outlining the guidelines and protocol of this study is on file in the Ministry of Scientific and Medical Research. For the record, you are Control Subject Number 11, and your Subject ID Number in the database of The Society for Research into the Realms of Natural Law and Divine Wisdom is 3456902. Also be advised that, as stipulated in the guidelines you read prior to consenting to become a subject, neither The Society for Research into the Realms of Natural Law and Divine Wisdom or the experimenter designated by the aforementioned society, as well as any person hired by the experimenter, will bear any liability for illness, injury, or death incurred by any subject who participates in this experiment.

In accordance with the procedural guidelines submitted to The Society for Research into the Realms of Natural Law and Divine Wisdom by Dr. J. R. French, Professor of Sublime Philosophy and Quantum Mechanics at The University of the Stars, the experimental procedure will be as follows. Three games of Monopoly will be played in succession on the Monopoly board on which you are a subject. In each game there will be four players, with each of the players employing one of the following game pieces: hat, dog, shoe or thimble. Be advised that each of the aforementioned pieces was made of the highest grade steel at the Celestial Steel Foundry in the Commonwealth of Mesopotamia. Each game piece, which by regulation must weigh between 1200 and 1400 pounds, will be transported along the Monopoly board by two purebred Clydesdale horses attached to a heavy duty leather harness reinforced with titanium fibers. Be advised that as a member of the control group no effort will be made on the part of the experimenter to regulate the movement of the horses so as to avoid having an animal or the game piece it is transporting come into contact with your body, which at all times must be in a prone position on your assigned box on the Monopoly board. In order to insure that you remain prone during the experiment, your limbs and torso will be secured by leather straps while a game is in progress. It is estimated that the duration of time required to complete three games, after which your obligations as an experimental subject will be discharged, will fall within a range of sixty-two to eighty-four hours.

In order to neutralize any anxiety one might experience as a result of participating in an experiment that could result in personal injury or death, each of the twenty-two subjects who are participants in the experiment, eleven of whom are in the control group and eleven of whom are in the experimental group, will periodically be intravenously administered high dosages of the experimental tranquilizer drug Monopolicor. According to its manufacturer Monopolicor is a water soluble three ring isomer hydride that can markedly reduce subcortical noradrenaline activity, resulting in decreased autonomic lability. Major side effects of Monopolicor identified in double-blind clinical trials with both oral and intravenous administration that occur at above average frequency (i.e., 20% – 30% of cases) are explosive diarrhea, severe dehydration, kidney failure, desynchronization of cortical electrical activity, syncope, and prolonged coma.

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You are to be congratulated! You have successfully completed your obligations as a subject in this experiment. Although you have sustained a broken femur and four broken ribs, as well as major kidney damage attributable to prolonged concentrated exposure to Monopolicor, you are only one of two of the original twenty-two subjects to survive the experiment. Of the twenty who did not survive, eight expired as a result of injuries that occurred during the game, five expired from side effects attributed to Monopolicor, and seven were administered a lethal injection as a result of violating the experimental guidelines.

In accordance with the full disclosure requirements for human experimentation that are outlined in Prospectus 50.67 published by the Ministry of Scientific and Medical Research, at this time I am obligated to provide you with the following information regarding the purpose of the experiment in which you have just participated. The experiment had no purpose! In point of fact, the experiment you participated in was designed by a deranged human being who is presently confined to an institution for the criminally insane, and it was conducted by people who are neither intellectually or morally qualified to conduct research on human subjects because of their consistent disregard for human life and their unwillingness to conform their behavior to the norms of civilized society. The people who designed and executed this experiment are all members of a secret society which subscribes to the belief that human life serves no purpose other than to generate within the minds of the members of the human species the illusion that life does, indeed, have a purpose — since if the latter illusion were not accepted, human beings would lack sufficient motivation to perpetuate their species. Every person who has sworn his or her allegiance to The Society for Research into the Realms of Natural Law and Divine Wisdom has taken a pledge to devote the remainder of his or her natural life to designing and conducting purposeless experiments in order to reaffirm the purposelessness of human life, and at the same time to provide oneself and the other members of the Society with the necessary motivation to engage in ongoing productive behavior, as well as to insure the financial security of the Society and its members.

If and when you recover from the injuries you have sustained during the experiment, you will be invited to become a member of The Society for Research into the Realms of Natural Law and Divine Wisdom. If you accept the invitation, all monies in which you are entitled to as a result of participating in the experiment will become the sole property of The Society. In exchange for the latter, The Society will support all of your physical and spiritual needs for the remainder of your natural life. If you decline the invitation to join The Society you will be administered a lethal injection.