Research Subjects Wanted
Fiction by John Dennis
“Yes, you told me already.”
Mara smiled when she said it, not unkindly, standing barefoot beside the sink with a spoon in her mouth, but Abby still felt heat rise into her face.
“Sorry,” Abby said.
“It’s okay.”
Abby nodded as though she remembered the first time.
Outside, rain moved softly against the apartment windows. The kitchen smelled faintly of burnt toast and coffee grounds. Somewhere in the building a dog barked once and stopped. Mara returned to scrolling on her phone.
Abby stood very still.
“What was it?” she asked finally.
“What?”
“The thing I repeated.”
Mara looked up again, this time with something closer to concern.
“You asked if I thought your professor hated you.”
“Oh.”
“You asked twice.”
Abby laughed a little then, enough to make it normal. She opened the fridge without wanting anything from it.
The light inside seemed strangely bright.
“You’ve just been stressed lately,” Mara said. “You need sleep.”
Maybe that was true. Lately Abby had begun losing small things inside conversations. A sentence. A thought. Once, walking back from campus, she had forgotten for half a block where she was going and simply continued moving with the others through the crosswalk before memory returned all at once, sharp enough to make her dizzy.
On the table near the door sat the folded flyer she had picked up that morning.
RESEARCH SUBJECTS NEEDED.
Compensation provided. Improve focus. Reduce distraction.
Minimal side effects.
The waiting room smelled faintly of lemon disinfectant and something sweeter beneath it, almost floral. The receptionist wore pale blue scrubs and spoke softly, as though someone might be sleeping nearby.
“First time participating?” she asked.
Abby nodded.
“Nothing invasive,” the woman said. “Mostly observation.”
The forms were short. Questions about concentration, stress, sleep quality. At the bottom of the final page, a line asked whether she experienced dissociation or memory irregularities.
Abby hesitated before checking no.
A graduate student led her into a white room containing two chairs, a camera, and a glass of water already waiting on the table.
“We’re studying attention correction,” he explained. “The brain naturally filters distractions. We’re attempting to improve that process.”
“How?”
He smiled politely.
“That part tends to confuse participants.”
Abby laughed because it seemed expected.
The sessions themselves felt harmless. A series of images flashed across screens. Words repeated through headphones. Sometimes she was asked simple questions while tones pulsed softly beneath the voices. After the third visit, things improved.
She slept deeply. Her thoughts sharpened. During lectures she could suddenly follow entire arguments without drifting away midway through sentences. She stopped rereading pages. Stopped forgetting small things.
Then the other changes began.
A professor called on her in class.
“What economic principle influences scarcity models?”
Before Abby could answer, she heard herself say:
“Migration patterns in wounded animals.”
The room went quiet.
Even she did not understand why she had said it.
Later, two girls near the stairwell laughed softly while glancing toward her.
That night Mara asked if she was feeling okay.
“You left the stove on this morning.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
Abby started to answer, then stopped.
Because she could suddenly picture the blue flame burning beneath the empty pan.
Small gaps appeared everywhere after that.
She would find her phone in strange places. The bathroom cabinet. The freezer once.
One afternoon she arrived home carrying groceries she did not remember buying.
Another time she realized she had been standing motionless in the campus library for nearly ten minutes staring at a wall display about marine ecosystems.
Sleep no longer helped.
At the next session, Abby watched the graduate student place the usual glass of water before her.
His sleeves were rolled neatly to the elbows. There was a tiny burn scar near his wrist she had never noticed before.
“Are there side effects?” she asked.
“Temporary disorientation can occur.”
“That’s not what this feels like.”
He studied her for a moment too long.
“Most participants report increased clarity.”
Participants.
Not patients.
Not people.
When Abby reached for the water, she noticed her hand hesitate slightly midway there, as though waiting for permission.
Something cold moved through her chest.
That night she searched online for the research program.
Nothing appeared.
No university page. No department listing. Nothing except a dead link and an unreadable PDF file.
She stopped attending the sessions after that.
For three days no one contacted her.
On the fourth day she woke to find her apartment door unlocked.
Nothing inside appeared disturbed.
Still, she checked every room twice.
Mara was gone for the weekend visiting family. Abby sat alone at the kitchen table listening to the refrigerator hum softly in the dark. Her phone vibrated once.
Unknown Number.
We noticed your absence.
Abby stared at the message until the screen dimmed.
Another arrived seconds later.
Consistency improves outcomes.
Her hands had started shaking now.
She typed:
Who is this?
The response came immediately.
Please drink the water provided during your previous session.
Abby looked slowly toward the counter.
A clear plastic bottle sat beside the sink.
Condensation still clung to the outside.
She was absolutely certain it had not been there earlier.
Her phone buzzed one final time.
You have already begun responding well.
John Dennis was born in New York and moved to Sweden after being stationed in Italy while serving in the US Navy. He holds a Master’s degree in Pedagogy from Malmö University where he also studied Creative Writing. A stroke ended his teaching career giving him more time to write. He has been published in Nunum, The Good Life Review and Beyond Words Magazine. He is married to Anna, father to Julia and grandfather to Noah.