EXPERIMENT

Arthur Chappell

I had no idea what I had done wrong. The wiring all seemed in order, and the 20,000 volts I poured into him should have activated, galvanised and animated him for me, but my creation just lay there, as dead as ever.

I'd failed. What on Earth had I been thinking anyway? I felt foolish. It wasn't as though a brain in a glass jar attached to a human male adult corpse could have much of a life anyway. He would be a freak, a curio, a monster. He had two closed circuit security cameras for eyes, and a squawk box voice that would make him sound like Donald Duck. Not much of an existence when all is said and done. Maybe I killed him for nothing rather than in the name of science. Still, I knew I could do it. I took a cup of strong coffee and mulled over what mistake I could have possibly made.

I had barely sat down at the kitchen table when I heard the slightly electronic whooping and cheering coming from the thing running round in the cellar. "I'm alive! I'm alive."

I abandoned the coffee and ran down the cellar steps, and burst in through the door to greet my masterpiece, but the door hit him as it opened into the room. He'd been right behind it. I saw him fall, saw the glass shatter and his brain slither out and splatter like vanilla flavoured blancmange across the cellar floor.

Still, the experiment had been a partial success. I cleared up the mess, and phoned up another long time no see cousin, inviting him to come over for the weekend. This time I would be much more cautious when I opened the cellar door...