by Tammy Baikie
After days of indecision, I’ve chosen to patch into a supermarket multivitamin – ‘Multipill: You times ten.’ Yes, I know I shouldn’t be taken in by the slogan and that it probably won’t make You any different to what You usually are. But my reasons are good. No tactile or gustatory product benefits (it’s advertised as having ‘swift-swallow tasteless capsule technology’). Therefore, no LipService drift to threaten dangerous brushes with tastures. It’s impossible to know what they would do if they discovered that my touch-taste tangles survived the haemorrhage. Trying to guess, my imagination goes into free fall – brain surgery, reconditioning therapy, chemical correctives? Multipill is also a choice that shows I care about my health but am not such a social climber as to go for a designer supplement cocktail.
I’m met by a Dr Bromide rather than the usual brain hacks who conduct standard testing. The presence of the doctor means they have found something in the baseline data. Only high-value research subjects – influentials, ebrandgelists, celebrities or anomalies – are flagged for qualitative projects run by doctors, rather than broad quantitative capture. There’s no other reason to be interested in me. I don’t have the status quo-tient. I desperately start trying to reel in my nerves, recoil the fibres of feeling deep between the organs and leave my skin dead and dumb. Instead the anxiety sends me into a fizz like a snail sprinkled with salt.
I’m taken for the fMRI first. My time inside the tunnel starts as usual with watching a series of product images and new TV commercials. I focus on letting You do the thinking. It’s all quite ordinary until an ad comes on for an antiseptic showing a mother cleaning the graze on a kid’s knee with a cotton wool swab. At that moment, a tuft of cotton wool is pressed into my hand. I don’t hear or see any of the techs approach because of the noise of the magnetic coils and the ad’s soundtrack coming through the earphones. The surprise contact almost makes me choke on cheap spirit vinegar. A little while later, the wad is removed from my hand and a rubber ball takes its place – just as a man throws a similar ball for a collie in a dog-biscuit ad. I hate rubber; it burns with chilli agonies down my throat and nose. Even with the cage that closes over my face and the bolsters to keep my head from moving, I’ve never been claustrophobic inside the machine bore. But as my gullet blisters and irrationality spreads like inflammation, I feel unable to escape, unable to control the stimulus or my response. I realise I’m yelling into the microphone for them to get me out.
One of the techs brings me a glass of water to drink in the consultation room while I wait for Dr Bromide. Lifting the glass, I spill some.
He’s already speaking when he comes in: ‘I hypothesised increased cortical excitement of the left anterior insula in response to tactile stimulation.’ I don’t know whether he’s addressing me. But there’s no one else in the room.
‘The results validate this entirely. Influence of media persuasiveness on the subject is, however, inconclusive.’ Then I notice him press the button on a voice recorder in his breast pocket. His smile is the kind usually only achieved with a dental retractor.
‘It must be apparent by now that we are treating this case involving cross-modal interaction and the corresponding gustatory hallucination.’
He is now definitely talking to me but also about me – as if I’m not the test subject under discussion. It creates the disquieting sense that the person in the MRI hadn’t really been me at all. What if he’s making an appeal to You?
‘Further investigation of the neurological mechanisms of this syndrome and its potential genetic markers are a scientific imperative. But we can’t let the sympathetic nervous response in the MRI adversely affect our efforts by developing into avoidance behaviour.’
I cling sweatily to the words that give me history, continuity and the memory of Dad – genetic markers: ‘The … the tastes are naturally sourced from my father?’
I’d hoped Multipill would be a useful brand in a medical context but somehow, whatever LipService I choose, my words always sound idiotic in my own ears.
‘No, via the X chromosome.’
‘My mother?’ The woman who did nothing when the principal pulled me out of class and the other kids started picking on me. And all the time she knew – experienced tastures herself? Even You are surprised.
‘Since social adaptation through brand identification has reduced patient zero’s concurrent response to the tactile inducers, our present case is all the more critical for data collection. Patient zero was accordingly instructed under threat of corporate redundancy to prevent research bias due to demand characteristics in the development of the new subject’s cross-talk between sensory systems. Now that the subject’s neural pathways have been established, patient zero’s influence is less of a factor.’
The horror of what he says is a shuddering palsy, a loss of control that it appears I never had. And Mother? I always thought she chose Frisson Froufrou, chose to ignore my off-brand behaviour and its causes. Was that her kindness? To discourage me from the things that would only lead me like a lab rat into Dr Bromide’s maze? But what has it helped? The flavours are involuntary and perhaps all the rest of my life was as preprogrammed as LipService.
Is she relieved now that she’s losing her taste? One less unwanted jerk and twitch in response to a doctor’s reflex hammer?
‘Can we continue with the procedure? Need I remind you that failure to cooperate with consumer health research objectives constitutes a refusal of care?’ says Dr Bromide.
I stand up on legs that aren’t mine and follow him out the door.
A postnasal drip of liver pâté creeps down my throat from the cold moist sponges strapped to my head. They contain electrodes, and the liquid is an electrolyte solution. Stillwell, one of the lab techs assisting Dr Bromide, explains this in a soft voice as he wires me to a small box. Techs are normally aloof, guarding against over-identification with the subject. The fear must be quivering off me – a haze from hot tarmac distorting the horizon. And it’s true, I can’t see past the mirage, the possibility of pain. Even if Stillwell says, ‘Transcranial direct current stimulation is a non-nociceptive procedure.’
After overseeing the placement of the electrodes on my head, Dr Bromide takes Stillwell aside. I can’t hear his instructions but the repetitive stabbing of his right index finger into the opposite palm mimics an anaesthetist failing to find the vein and achieve the desired surrender. The tech looks nervous. The door to the lab opens and Dr Bromide abruptly stops needling Stillwell and announces to the room, ‘As part of medicorporate cooperation, copywriter Wordini will now administer the prescribed tests.’ With that he sweeps out past the copywriter without a greeting or a second glance.
Wordini walks up to where I’m seated, wires dangling off my head, and extends his hand: ‘You must be feely Frith. Isn’t this exciting?’
I shake his hand limply. Feely Frith – it sounds like a sideshow act.
‘And? How do I taste? I’m sweet aren’t I – like a cream puff? No, wait. I’m more complex than that … 1986 Château Lafite Rothschild? An extraordinary vintage.’
I shrug. What does he want from me? To pair him with a pheasant pithivier or pan-fried scallops? Has he forgotten that his work ensures that I probably couldn’t say that anyway? All that would come out is some drivel about the nutritive value of omega-3 fish oils. I refuse to answer.
‘Come, come – aren’t I a linguoso treat? Most people are thrilled to glitz to meet a copywriter.’ I can’t tell if he’s trying to win me over or if he’s just a child who wants to see the bear dance and fails to notice the stick and chain. I don’t want to perform. I want to crawl into a blanket fort of catatonia and try to decipher the shadows on the walls, but instead I have to come out and play nice. So I say, ‘I have no control over the formulation of oral supplements.’
‘Ah.’ He sounds disappointed. Stillwell makes use of the moment to catch the copywriter’s eye and point to his watch. ‘Science is always so sure there’s nothing to be learned from the consum
er arts or conversation,’ Wordini snaps.
You’ve never wanted any part of the tastures – advertsorial deviancy – and You’ll not have your personality disordered by such an aberration. You put up a wall between us just as the tech slides a table with cubicle panels in front of me so that I’m boxed in – I can see neither my hands in my lap nor anything ahead or to my sides.
‘I call this a little game of tat for titillation. We place some old tat in your hands without you seeing what it is and you name the finger food, how intensely it titillates the taste buds on a scale of one to ten and whether it tattles on the tat,’ says Wordini, grinning. ‘A stimulating divertissement, don’t you think?’ He really could sell anything. Even having electrodes strapped to your head and not knowing what will happen when the switch is flipped. But the day so far has conditioned me with an animal distrust. I’m not going to lick his hand and let him pat my head. I manage to lift a lip enough to show a courteous fang.
‘Our tech Stillwell here is applying a secondary patch to give you a bit of a verbocharge.’
‘Is it slow-release preparation?’ The words come out before I can think. Wordini chortles with delight. I’d stupidly given him all the leverage he could ask for. Showing that I crave language, want more freedom of speech; he’s got me where he wants me.
‘Lamentably, no, my little word wanton. It’s fast acting but short lived. Specifically developed for research such as this.’
Before the first object – taste of menthol, four out of ten, a glass bottle – reaches my right hand, my left index and middle finger have also had electrodes taped to them.
‘Skin conductance response – measuring degree of emotional arousal,’ says Stillwell softly and adds, ‘Facial coding for complementary data readings on emotional state,’ in an embarrassed mumble when he notices me eyeing what is clearly a camera lens set into the back wall of the cubicle.
I can see they intend to empty my contents, upend drawers, toss the mattress. The strewings will all be roughly raked over in the search. For what? I don’t know and it hardly matters when there will be nothing left that hasn’t been pawed. What happens to people who no longer have any secret things nestled in dark places?
More objects pass across my tongue – cold ham, five out of ten, steel key. Then I suddenly feel a nettling burn at the electrodes on my head. They couldn’t have been switched on before. It’s only just beginning now. A new flavour forces itself on my hand – pumpernickel bread, eight out of ten, wooden spoon. Hunks of rye lodge unswallowed in my throat. Why is it so strong? But the spoon is already gone and my fingers are splayed open around something new – very dark chocolate, nine out of ten, glazed porcelain teacup. It’s such bitterly dark cacao. I don’t understand what’s happening. Are the tastures turning on me, like in an autoimmune response? The rubber ball is returned to my hand. The intensity is unbearable. My fingers rear back and then retreat inside my sleeves, gasping.
Somewhere behind me, Wordini’s voice says, ‘Yes, yes, spit it out. But in words please.’
‘Chilli, ten out of ten, rubber ball.’ I wonder whether I’ll even be able to taste anything else.
Still the objects keep pushing forward, crowding in on me with their restaurant-kitchen shouts. There’s a dullness to my palate as if it were scalded. The polyester of a sock is still milky but the peculiarly camel smack of it is weak, more a memory. And dry grasses, I feel their keen edges, a hair off a paper cut, but instead of the sharp chlorophylls of raw green peas they’re mushy, overcooked, lifeless – two out of ten. And then comes paper. More than the shock that somehow a disease carrier has found its way into the hospital and is being pressed into my hands by the staff is that it has no taste. Nothing at all. Nothing of the soft chickpea hours in the book repository. My mouth hangs open, empty.
‘Oh ho, is it a slip of the tongue?’ says Wordini’s disembodied head, which appears above the cubicle wall, ‘Or are you losing your touch? Let’s confirm you’ve no taste for tangibles.’ The invisible hand pulls free the paper and butts my fingers with a small smooth pellet – a gel capsule.
‘Multipill?’
‘A supplement and no fine dining?’ insists Wordini.
‘Yes.’
I have been taken apart like a transistor radio. I am in pieces, disconnected. This is a show of how deeply they can twist the screwdriver, these engineers of the human parole. How they can strip out my tastures as easily as they blew the circuit breaker of my language. And what am I left with? No real taste, no real food but the equivalent of a nutritional supplement – Multipill.
Stillwell is called over to wheel away the cubicle and remove the electrodes from my fingers and head.
He pats my hand after he has coiled up the creeping cables and says, ‘Baseline cortical excitability of the left anterior insula can be enhanced or attenuated by anodal and cathodal transcranial direct stimulation respectively. Apparently, cathodal stimulation reduces the signal-to-noise ratio, producing an elevation in your sensory cross-activation. The reverse occurs with anodal stimulation. But these effects are temporary.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course, we wouldn’t dream of robbing you of your acquired taste, my dear guinea prig,’ interrupts Wordini. ‘Quite the contrary, together you and I are going to pioneer a marketing fame changer, a new brandiloquence with tongue firmly in chic …’
Stillwell is staring intently at Wordini, trying to signal something. Looking up, the copywriter sees Dr Bromide has returned.
‘Attempting to inoculate my research subject against me?’ he says.
‘Not at all, I’m simply making my pitch, and market forces will prevail,’ replies Wordini. ‘Should our feely Frith prefer the flavour of a finger in my pie, she would receive a supply of unbranded LipService and remuneration commensurate to her mouth-watering gifts. But I’m sure, Doctor, that you, too, have a compelling offer.’
Still in my seat, I see the wind gusting violently through the doctor’s nasal thickets.
‘Ethical responsibility cannot be entrusted to the vagaries of market economics. You,’ he says pointing at me, ‘have an ethical responsibility to the field of neuroscience and the fight against a pandemic of cerebrovascular disease. But since you probably only understand metastasising materialism, I can arrange a cosmetic procedure of your choice.’
They are both looking at me. So are You. Except You can’t decide which You want. As for me, I think Bromide can keep his fucking fake tits and cheeks, but unbranded LipService – I want that.
I haven’t answered yet, but Stillwell apparently lacks any sense of social timing and has started to present the results of the transcranial simulation trials to Dr Bromide.
His voice is low but clear: ‘Preliminary results of facial coding and galvanic skin response track self-reported intensity levels of the gustatory hallucination, correlating with a strong emotional association … and possibly individuation.’
‘Not now!’ snaps the doctor, waving him away. Before scuttling off, Stillwell gazes at me with the eyes of a man inside an iron lung, reminding me of the nettling electrodes, the fear and claustrophobia. They make me think he wasn’t talking to Dr Bromide at all. After having tapped my calls between touch and taste, he is offering advice. The message is in the word ‘individuation’. Tastures are the language of my memories and desires. Who would I be if they were simply more tradeables to be pawed over? And what does he care? Is he trying to convince me to surrender myself to medical science? Then why he would do it all seditious-surreptitious? In one way, he’s right. In trading tastures for free speech, I’m selling a kidney to get a liver transplant.
‘Time to be quick and choose,’ says Wordini.
‘I’ve taken the recommended dosage of research. I’ve swallowed all your pills. There can be no deficiencies.’ The verbocharge has worn off and all that is left is the relentless product-plug of Multipill LipService.
‘Is she having an allergic reaction to our offers?’ asks Dr Bromide.
‘Oh ho, she’s a copyrioter. But she’ll be back – with fewer options. You’ll see,’ smirks Wordini and walks out.
I’m not waiting for Dr Bromide to think of a way to keep me here. I snatch up my things and rush out, singing the Multipill greeting as casually as I can, ‘Fuel your cells and say goodbye to run-down batteries.’
9
‘It was a boobie trap, sweetheart, and we both fell into it bosoms first.’
‘Don’t try to soft-soap me Mother. You’ve never showed the slightest static cling.’
The ridiculousness of the Mollycuddle fabric softener LipService knocks the wind out of my self-righteousness. But I won’t stop. Even if my anger slips in the silly suds, I won’t let Mother blow bubbles in my face. She will tell me why she never did anything to make me feel less alone, to help me understand the tastures.
‘I have my figure flaws but I always encouraged you to keep abreast with padded corporate support for a deeper identity cleavage. But you insisted on a natural silhouette.’
‘And I suppose now that you’ve been through the brand’s many launderings, you’re stainless.’
‘I’ve tried to show you how to use fashion tape so you don’t expose yourself.’