Time Will Tell

The pile of batteries, burning with a sickly, acid smell, was a trophy of sorts. It was not a wonder to behold, nor did it represent any great feat of intelligence or athletic prowess, but to Albert it was a token of victory. He had killed time. Solitary training was intended to present adverse conditions - he knew what he was letting himself in for, long before actually arriving, having done previous stints in similarly uninspiring habitats. He could cope with the loneliness - for the most part he preferred his own company anyway, and he was fine with long periods of not technically having to do anything, being the master of his own time. What eventually pushed him over the edge, and led to the cohort of vanquished batteries, was the insistent measurement of time. And as such, after three months, Albert realised that he did not need to know the time, or even the day, he just needed to accept that there was still time remaining, and until that was no longer the case, he would simply occupy his brain.

The experiment was research for interstellar travel. Various cycles were ongoing all year round, with different numbers of people, for varying amounts of time. The first solar sail mission was now on its return journey, and once it got home, the various space agencies wanted the quickest turnaround possible before the next launch, so running the solitary experiments allowed them to plan the most efficient route, and be fairly certain that the crew could handle it. Anyone could leave at any time, though it diminished, or in some cases nullified much of the data collected, and was therefore generally discouraged, and so it was very rare for a cycle to end early. No one had ever switched off the clock though, and the monitoring team didn’t know what effect it would have on the results. They decided to put Albert on 24 hour watch, just to be on the safe side.

The silence was magnificent. Only on hearing its absence, did Albert realise how far into his brain the incessant ticking had burrowed. For a long period after stopping all the clocks, he could be certain he could still hear one, off in one of the other rooms. He had no idea how long this went on, though he was ravenously hungry by the time he had triple checked every device and concluded that they were definitely all switched off, and the only noise left was in his head. Now sitting down with food, in total silence, silence that he could actually accept and believe, was bliss. He wondered what effect it would have on his eating, doing it when he felt hungry, rather than at set times. Would he stay in the pattern of breakfast, lunch, dinner, or would he forget which was next? Albert concluded that he would be healthier eating when he needed to. With no day or night, he had no frame of reference any more for meal times, so he’d eat when his body needed it, and keep it busy the rest of the time.

“We assumed that with the clocks there’d be no need to dictate sleeping hours, so the subject has control over light and dark. We didn’t anticipate that anyone would deactivate their only other tether to the passage of time, so we’re not really sure what to expect”.

“He’s essentially severed his connection to the fourth dimension”.

“I think that’s overstating it a bit - he’s still moving through time”

“Yes but he’s not observing its passage. He’s floating, effectively, in a bubble that just ages him”

“But as long as he falls into a pattern, and still gets night and day, still eats approximately three meals during those days, he’ll barely notice any difference will he?”

“Time will tell”.

The first few weeks were largely uneventful. Albert fell into a predictable pattern, that almost synchronised with the clock, though his days were averaging about 23 hours, according to the notes taken by the research team. He was managing three meals a day, and getting exercise, and he even looked to have lost some weight. That might have been a concern, except that he’d gained in the first few weeks after arriving, and the team was concerned that it might be an issue if that trend continued. After a month of no time though, Albert was a full day ahead of actual time, and was starting to look a little too thin. He’d only lost an hour a day, which the team were initially reassured by, but it soon became apparent that even if he maintained this pace, he would lose a day a month, effectively extending his time in solitary, or at least his perception of it. They had seen no evidence that he was keeping track of the days, and so while it was possible that he had given up altogether, it was also possible that he now believed himself to be one day closer to freedom than he actually was.

Inside the pod, Albert was starting to grow concerned. He had been keeping rough mental track of the days, and was fairly sure that it had been nearly a month since he disconnected the clocks. He felt like he was sleeping better, without the ticking, but he had soon realised that with no frame of reference, he had no idea whether he was sleeping two hours at a time, or twelve. His stomach was a reasonable gauge - if he was really hungry then it must have been several hours at least since he last ate, though then of course it dawned on him that if he had been underestimating the time that had passed, it was possible that his metabolism had simply slowed to allow for the reduced calorie intake. He took to regularly checking the stocks of food, to gauge how much longer he could eat for, without having to end the experiment early by asking for more food.

After the fifth of eighteen months, Albert was nine days ahead ahead of the calendar, though the team was unable to tell how aware he was even of the number of days he thought had passed. He still didn’t seem to be keeping any track of his “days” which were now down to about eighteen hours, and the rate at which they decreased, was itself increasing. The team could not yet decipher whether that was because he was sleeping less than he thought, or because he was overestimating the amount of time passing while he was awake. In any case, at the current rate, he would run out of food some three weeks before he was due to return. The team were becoming increasingly concerned however, that other side effects of the loss of time would force their hand before that happened.

The fact that nobody had intervened, gave Albert hope. He knew he was being monitored, and knew that they wouldn’t allow him to starve. He was conscious of the fact that for the most part he was making his time go quickly, by keeping himself occupied pretty much every waking second, and so decided that he would sit in a chair, doing nothing, for as long as he could bear, once a day. He had thought a lot about the perception of time, and how tied we all are to it, and subsequently how liberating it was to be severed from its obligations. He had considered how all his activities had become endurance tests - having no temporal frame of reference, he had adjusted his workout routine accordingly. He would run for as long as he was able, and then eat as much as he needed. He would get on the rowing machine and not stop until he felt he had chartered a significant body of water, then he would load up on rice and pasta, ready for the next endurance test. He was quite alarmed one morning, or afternoon, or middle of the night, whenever the hell it was, to notice that he was down to the last box of pasta. A box would still last him a few months, but it felt like he was going to be out of it before he should be, and wondered what he would do for carbs. It was this realisation that led him to add to his daily routine, The Chair. He reasoned that because he was moving so quickly, so much of the time, he needed periods of inactivity, to help him better assess how much time had passed.

“He just sits there”

“He doesn’t even read”

“Does he talk to himself?”

“As far as we can see, he just stares at the wall”

“Has he managed to make hallucinogens? Maybe he’s tripping?”

“We did consider that, but we can’t find anything on the inventory that could be used to achieve that effect”

“Is he doing this a lot?”

“Once per day”

“Once per one of his days”

“And how long are they now?”

“17 hours, sir”

“And how long at a time?”

“Usually about an hour, sir, give or take. He’s on seventy-three minutes at the moment”

That has to be at least four hours, Albert thought. A good shift, there. He rubs his eyes. He deliberately chose the mediation room fo the chair - it’s intentionally sparse, so as to be both lacking in distractions and non-denominational, meaning that it’s basically a white room. After a few hours in there, it takes a while for the eyes to readjust to regular light. Well, regular artificial light. It kind of feels like daytime, but by this point it’s hard to imagine that it really is. No body clock can self-regulate for this long, and stay in sync with orbital days. Albert thinks he’s maybe a few days off, and that he has slightly more, or slightly less, than he is expecting, but he really doesn’t have any inclination of which direction he has overcompensated, and choosing his daylight hours has led to him feeling that it’s always night time, and he just battles against it when he switches on the lights.

“What’s he doing now?”

“We think he’s planning on baking”

“Has he done that before?”

“No, sir. That’s the last of the eggs. The last of all the perishables in fact, save the ones he’s managed to grow”

“Does the lack of fresh produce appear to have affected his behaviour, or temperament?”

“Well, he’s baking, sir”

“Point taken. Do we know what he’s baking?”

“We’re not certain, sir, but the silicone tray he fetched from botanics is rectangular, so we’re thinking maybe a cake, though we’ve checked the calendar and can’t find anything within a few weeks that would explain it. His birthday isn’t until June.”

“Ok, well let me know what it turns out to be, if it’s significant”

I would be ridiculous to actually draw a face on it, but nonetheless Albert is now having regular conversations with a water dispenser. Besides, drawing a face on it would let them know he’s anthropomorphised it. They’re allowed to do that, it’s not against the rules, in fact if it helps, it’s encouraged. The problem is that the team would analyse everything about it. Why a water dispenser? What did he name it? Does he talk about mundane things - just practising interaction? Or is he telling it personal things? And if so, what is he talking about? Albert doesn’t worry about being judged, he doesn’t care what anyone thinks, he just doesn’t want to emerge from isolation to a barrage of questions about his childhood and parents. Albert is confident that he’s having sufficient interaction, and that even though the team can’t hear him, as both halves of all the conversations are in his head, he’s still having that back-and-forth that is needed to keep the brain ticking over and engaged. So it comes as something of a surprise to Albert, when the water dispenser sounds to clear its throat. Albert pauses, and looks right at it.

“Your cake’s done, Albert”.

“What happened there? He stopped, and now he looks anxious.”

“There’s nothing there that he could be reacting to”

“Take it back ten seconds”

“There, see? It’s like he heard something and turned his head to see where it came from. Play it again with the audio on”

“The audio’s on, sir. There was just no sound”

“He’s going to the oven, sir”

“What’s he got in there? In the little pots?”

“We think it’s icing, sir. Though we’re not sure what he’s made it from”

“So he’s definitely decorating it then?”

“That’s what it looks like, sir, yes”.

Having survived a year on his own, Albert was quite proud of himself for still having over a third of his food left, and so he decided to reward himself with a cake. The long-life eggs would be reaching the end of even their extended life, and needed using up, and there was flour and sugar. He doubled back, and went to the store room, but couldn’t find the eggs. Certain he hadn’t used them already, Albert made turned on his heel again, and went to check the original inventory. It was a carbon copy, torn off from the same document that contained Albert’s contract, and the pages of disclaimers, and even more pages of waivers he’d signed, mostly without paying them much heed, having done solitary before, and knowing roughly what to expect. In any case, the eggs were on the inventory, so they must be in storage. Determining to go look for them, Albert continued on through the kitchen, trying to remember what his contract had said about the procedure for if a solitary subject ran out of food, and it wasn’t until he had circled fully back to the store room that he properly registered the cake he had passed, on the worktop in the kitchen, with the number one, haphazardly added in red icing.

“What’s he doing now?”

“We’re not sure, sir. This isn’t part of his routine”.

“He’s been at the water dispenser for thirty-five minutes, on this rotation, sir”

“This rotation?” “Yes sir, he stands by it for anything from ten minutes to two hours, often looking surprised or anxious”, then he walks a full circle of the habitat, taking in each room as he passes through it, before returning to the water dispenser.”

“And he’s not stopping in any of the other rooms?”

“Sometimes, sir, but only to use their relevant facilities, and then carries on to the water dispenser”.

“The same every time?”

“Yes sir, and always clockwise”

“And how long has he been in now?”

“This Friday will be eight months, sir”.

A gnawing doubt had implanted itself in Albert’s head. He imagined it as a small creature, nesting in his head, often sleeping, but occasionally waking up and chewing on his sense of doubt. When that happened he felt the rising bile of nausea, and the cold clammy skin of panic, but he was able to rationalise it, and quiet the thoughts fairly quickly, until they next arose. The concern was about his contract. Less than a third of the food now remained, and Albert had been forced to admit that he no longer had any real clue how much longer it had to last him. Because of the financial penalties of finishing your stint early, few people did it, so there was no frame of reference really, and Albert was trying to remember if he’d ever heard of anyone asking for food. He couldn’t, and it bothered him because although he was fairly confident they could not legally let him starve, he couldn’t be absolutely certain of it. Not for the first time, nor the last, he regretted killing time. he couldn’t change it now though. there was plenty he could have done differently, but he had to just play the hand he’d foolishly dealt himself, and start going through his limited options.

“We’ve worked out he’s now going to run out of food seven weeks before he’s due out, sir”

“So does that mean we let him out early, or give him food?”

“We’re not sure, sir. Legal are going through the paperwork now to see what we’re obliged to do”

“But the experiment is done for, either way, I assume?”

“We won’t get the final results we were hoping for, but we’ve definitely got some interesting data”

“With no control subject, we can only see how lack of time affects this particular idiot, so it will be of interest, but mostly useless”.

“Assuming he doesn’t reach the target date, yes”

“Is that still possible?”

“technically he might have to, sir. That’s what Legal are looking into. There are a lot of new waivers these days, We’re not sure yet what rights he signed away”.

“Keep me posted”

The futility was the hardest thing to bear. The waiting was an endurance test all of its own, but it could be cut short, or curtailed, by sleep, or keeping the mind busy with something else. Granted, it wasn’t totally effective, but it did affect the flow of time in a favourable direction at least. The futility though, that was a killer. Knowing that the response could be good or bad, meant preparing for both, which in turn meant conflict. Ideas raging against each other, torture the subconscious, while the adrenaline catastrophises. You jog to burn some of it off, but the lack of food means you are soon overwhelmed and resolve to simply walk until you can’t any more. It feels like it doesn’t help, but maybe that’s just a reflection of how bad you’d feel if you hadn’t done it. Albert takes a moment to be grateful for small mercies, and tries to make food.

Self-care is easy when you don’t need it. When you’re doing ok you don’t even realise that the good night’s sleep you just had, and the food you actually enjoyed eating last night, were good self-care. You enjoy your walk in the woods, taking pictures of flora and fauna that catch your eye. Some you’ve never seen before, some you’ve just never seen the beauty in. But on days like that, it’s all beautiful. And the walk, and feeling good about nature, they’re part of your self-care, you just don’t consciously realise it, because they’re in abundance.

Albert had depleted all but the very basics, so now he was down to rice, ketchup, and vitamin pills, all of which he was now carefully rationing. He couldn’t find any way to make the rice less dull, and the banality of what was now his only sustenance, was taking its toll on his perception of time. He now moved sluggishly from room to room, resting a while in each, trying to find things to distract his brain. the movement between rooms had become his only exercise, as he had neither the motivation, nor the energy, for anything more strenuous. The change of scenery also helped him escape, albeit briefly, the monotony of the same surroundings, though he was fairly certain that the time taken to grow bored on each visit to each room, was dwindling.

To help mimic the longevity and distance of a deep space trip, while communication was allowed, there was a two week delay between messages. It had been several of Albert’s days since he had sent the request for more food, and he didn’t know if the two week protocol was being applied, or if they were simply choosing not to respond to his request. He had asked if the food he had left would be enough to live on until he was due for release, and that if it wasn’t, he be sent more, or released. He was hoping, ultimately, for an early release, or that his time was almost done. By his own calculations, he should have been out nearly two weeks ago. In between bouts of berating himself for stopping the clocks, he would sometimes speculate on the possibility that there had been some kind of catastrophic event, leaving no support team, or anyone who knew where he was. If that was the case, he would likely never know. he could be the last living human, and doomed to die in this pod, a victim of his own hubris and stupidity.

He had no real idea any more of how far out his days were from the twenty-four hours that the rest of the world was enslaved by. He knew enough to be certain that he had overestimated how much time was passing, between him rising, and eventually sleeping again, but he had no way of knowing how much he was out by. Since sending the message, he’d marked each “day” down. That way, if they did respond, and followed the two week protocol, he could at least get an idea of how far out his timing was during that two week period, and while it would not be by any means exact, he could infer from that, approximately how much his days deviated from the standard. The part of him that was still rational and objective, was aware that it would be so vague as to be virtually useless in providing any meaningful information on which he could base a plan, but he focused on it nonetheless, as a source of information that he didn’t currently have. If he got a response, even if they declined either of his requests, they’d be giving him that information just by responding.

“So we can’t let him out?”

“No, sir. We can respond to his question, but we can’t assist any more than if he were actually in space”

“Presumably you mean ‘may’ and ‘may not’? We can just open the door if we wish to…”

“You mean break protocol, sir? Honestly I would sleep better if we were to, sir. I think he’s causing himself permanent damage”

“Well I’m not going to do it. You can, if you want to find out what really goes on at Protopolis’ experimental division”

“Isn’t everything there experimental, sir?”

“To varying degrees, yes”

“Understood, sir. So what do we tell him?”

“Well, what are we allowed to tell him?”

“Basically just yes/no, but we can offer a brief qualifier”

“And what’s the truth of the matter?”

“The stored water is gone, but the reclaiming units can produce enough for him to survive, and if he rations the remaining rice to forty grams per day, he can avoid most of the permanent effects of malnutrition, though even if he manages that, it’s likely there’ll be psychological damage”

“And if he doesn’t manage that?”

“It’s very likely he’ll die in there, sir”

“And are we covered if he does?”

“Yes, sir. When he broke the clocks, he changed one of the experiment’s parameters. Any change to any of the required metrics disqualifies him or his family from any claim. Time isn’t actually specifically mentioned, since it didn’t occur to anyone that a participant would, or even could affect time itself, but Legal is confident we’re covered”

“Then let’s see if we can cover our asses and give him a fighting chance”

On the twenty-third day, after sending his request, Albert was doing his round, room to room, and assessing objects in each room that might facilitate a quick, painless death. Objectively he knew that he should wait until he was absolutely certain they weren’t responding, before acting on it, and although as far as he was concerned the reply was already nine days late, he knew, also objectively, that he was not yet absolutely certain. Though it was admittedly negligible, he had the still some hope, that they would respond, and as long as that happened, it would give him something new. New might not be enough to ultimately stave off madness, or even death, but it was worth holding on, for now, to the possibility.

YES: 40G PD

The beeps that accompanied the message, gave Albert such a start, that by the time he got to a monitor, his brain was flooded with adrenaline, and his heart felt to have risen up, and now to be lodged in his windpipe.