Dark Designs

by Flowers, Thomas S.

  Brown University

  Area of Study: Political Science

  Sophomore

  Currently no sexual partners. Previous relationship ended by male partner six months ago. No reasons for breakup provided during interview.

  One living sibling. Three years older. Married. Currently pregnant.

  Younger sibling deceased. Complications due to rejection of kidney transplant.

  Parents still married.

  Father 62 years old. High School English teacher. Healthy and fit for his age.

  Mother 57 years old. Architect. High cholesterol problem. More than a social drinker. Thyroid removed due to history of cancer in the family.

  08.09.16

  10 MINUTES:

  8:00PM - CLOSE DOORS

  8:01PM - Bethany, “Wow. You weren’t kidding. It really is quiet in here.”

  Fabric rustling and scratching.

  “My ears are ringing. I don’t think I ever noticed that before. It’s actually uncomfortable.”

  She is adjusting her position.

  “Sorry. I know you told me not to move too much.”

  8:03PM - “My head feels funny. Like something is pushing down on me. I’ve never been claustrophobic before, but this is creepy. It’s so dark, like I’m blindfolded over my ears and eyes at the same time. Even my voice is so darn loud. When I stop talking, there’s nothing there anymore.”

  8:05PM - “I hear my heartbeat. I mean, I’ve heard it before, but this is like I can hear…all of it, the muscle squeezing and pushing all the blood and stuff. So freaky.”

  8:07PM - “I think I can hear my fingers when they bend. Like the muscles and bones scraping together or whatever. You know how ropes crack when they stretch?”

  8:09PM - There is loud pop. “That was my knuckle. I crack them sometimes when I get nervous. Holy gosh that was loud!”

  8:10PM - OPEN DOORS

  The quietest room in the world is at the Orenfield Laboratories in Minneapolis. The Anechoic Chamber is 99.99% sound absorbent. When it’s sealed shut, background noise inside the room is -9.4 dBA. The inside of the chamber is covered completely by 3.3-foot-thick fiberglass acoustic wedges. It has double walls of insulated steel surrounded by a foot of solid concrete. In less technical terms, it’s basically as quiet as outer space.

  The initial intention for creating the room was for product testing. Artificial heart valves, cell phone displays and even car dashboard switches all make noise. If they are too loud, consumers complain. NASA put the room to a slightly different use with potential astronauts to see how long a person can stay inside before they start hallucinating.

  Not being an employee of a large corporation or member of a federal organization myself, all of my requests to enter the room to use it for my experiments were quickly denied. Fortunately, there are places on the deep web where floor plans and designs for pretty much anything can be found.

  My oldest friend Scott happened to work in construction and he owed me more than a few small favors. Let’s just say when we were kids he got sick and now his bones are full of my marrow cells. I didn’t mean to be selfish. How else could I get my own chamber made?

  Subject 003: Bethany Maines

  08.10.16

  20 MINUTES:

  8:00PM - DOORS CLOSED

  8:01PM - Deep inhaled breath followed by a slow, shuddering exhale.

  “I had a really bad dream last night. Allie was at the foot of my bed. She floated just above the covers. She didn’t say anything…or move either. I sat up and looked into her eyes. It… hurt. I mean, in my belly. She had this giant hole in her side. The same spot where they put in the kidney that didn’t take. I could see right through her, all the way to my dresser behind her. She grabbed my hand and tugged…she pulled me through the hole. Then I woke up. Of course, she wasn’t there anymore. I can still smell her perfume right now…in here.

  8:05PM - Scraping sounds.

  “I’m getting dizzier today than yesterday. Thanks for putting the chair in here for me. I think I’ll sit the rest of the time if that’s okay?”

  8:09PM - “My whole arm tingles, the same one from my dream. How long do I have to be in here? I think I’m starting to freak out.”

  8:10PM - Creaking and scratching again. Is she adjusting herself on the chair?

  8:11PM - “You aren’t messing with me are you? You didn’t hire some lab assistant and like hide him in here to freak me out in the dark?”

  8:15PM - Definitely a creak from the chair this time. Her breathing is faster and shallow. She groans and smacks her lips. Air whooshes past the wall microphone.

  8:16PM - “Are you sure there’s nobody else in here? I could swear I felt something brush over my fingers.”

  8:18PM - “My head really hurts… like I’m being squeezed. Can the quiet do that? Sorry for such a dumb question.”

  8:20PM - OPEN DOORS

  My primary studies were in ethno-musicology at Brown University, though my deepest interests were in studying silence. Since academia never created an area of research devoted solely to the absence of sound, they had no name for what my pursuits would entail.

  Brian Eno, John Cage, Steve Reich and the other 20th Century minimalist composers were the only ones who came closest. Even they were too noisy for me. If I could spend two hours in a soundproofed practice room, I’d never touch the piano. Eyes closed, head bowed focusing only on the spaces between my breaths. The most peaceful thing I could imagine.

  I spent a lot of my time between libraries, the philosophy department and holding my breath at the bottom of the pool. My professors never hid their opinions from me. They all agreed I was crazy. That only served as an impetus to work harder.

  I booked studio time on the film scoring stage. I borrowed the most sensitive microphones the university owned, placed baffles in every corner, blanketed every flat surface and waited until three in the morning when the only people in the building were the recording engineer Tom and me.

  With noise canceling headphones on, I recorded two and a half hours of blissful, near perfect quiet. With the advent of digital recording I didn’t need to be concerned with the awful grinding machine noise of reel to reel machines. I kept recording the silence until Tom’s snoring burst the bubble.

  I listened to that recording so much, I could sing along with the minuscule crackles and creaking coming from the building itself. I submitted the audio files as part of my thesis, “God in the Emptiness: The Holiness of Quietude.” Along with it, my writings on Buddhist meditation techniques, Catholic monks who take decades-long vows of silence, etc. After months of waiting, their evaluations finally arrived. While admittedly, they didn’t fully comprehend my chosen field or “obsession” as they called it, they did reluctantly grant me my Doctorate.

  “Now what exactly are we calling this new area of study you’ve discovered?” My professors laughed. “Are you now a doctor of silence? I guess we should address you as Dr. Silencio. Maybe Dr. Quietus? Dr. Nothingness?”

  Over the years since I discovered my love for silence, I gave a lot of thought to this issue. Hours spent scouring encyclopedias for terms referring to silence in multiple languages. I studied dictionaries, thesaurus and scoured the internet. One day I came across what I knew would be a name befitting my passion, a name describing my search of the almighty void.

  Complete stillness doesn’t mean solely the absence of sound. We can be quiet inside and be surrounded by the noise of our surrounding universe. Absolute silence requires the elimination of any and all possible chance of resonance. To achieve this, one must enter a sublime state of utter emptiness where every opportunity for sound has been destroyed or removed. The infinite void lies in the extermination of all else.

  I am seeking that oblivion. I am an Oblivionist.

  Subject 003: Bethany Maines

  08.12.16

  30 MINUTES

  Last night’s session canceled. Bethany refused to come back. She didn’t return my phone calls or text messages
until this afternoon. She spoke to me of bad dreams and night terrors after the previous session. She claims to be plagued by the recurring appearance of her deceased sibling accompanied by side pain and a burning sensation in her hand. With much persuasion involving an offer of greater tuition assistance, Bethany relented and has now arrived for tonight’s experiment.

  8:00PM - DOORS CLOSED

  8:02PM – Her breathing is inconsistent with stuttering inhalations similar to a dog panting.

  8:05PM - “I don’t like this room.”

  Scratching and creaking from the chair. Her feet stumble heavy on the flooring. Wood creaks.

  “Guess I shouldn’t stand up in here again. I’m spinning. Have I mentioned I hate this room?”

  8:10PM - “Did you hear that?”

  No signs of any alterations in the WAV file.

  “There it is again. It’s a voice?”

  There continue to be no anomalies in the WAV files.

  8:12PM - Movement of air close to the microphone.

  8:16PM - “I swear to grace there’s someone in here. I can smell her perfume.”

  8:18PM - “Yes. I hear you.”

  No WAV file anomalies detected.

  8:20PM – "Allie, it’s me Beth. I’m really here. Where are you? It’s too dark in here…no…take my hand… right in front of me…please.”

  No WAV file anomalies detected.

  8:25PM - “Allie?”

  Wind blows past the microphone.

  “Allie? Come back. I’m right here!”

  8:27PM - Bethany screams making monitors distort. WAV file peaks above software redline.

  8:28PM - DOORS OPEN

  Thirty-minute experiment requirement not met. I will review audio files again for possible variations. Bethany is sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall farthest from the doors. Hands wrapped around her torso, eyes bloodshot, dried and crusted white lines drip down from the corners of her mouth. She rocks mumbling unintelligibly. I lean in closely and cannot make out what she is repeating. Listening back to the WAV files, I manipulate the audio signal using compressor and EQ plugins until her words become clear, “I’m here Allie.”

  I sat in the cafe across the street from the Brown Bookstore watching underclassmen and coeds bask in the summer sun. Short sleeved shirts, flip flops and mini-skirts were the uniforms of the day. Many of course were emblazoned with the Brown University logo, crest of arms or cartoon bear mascots. Having observed my reflection in the window earlier that morning, I realized how long I’d kept myself away from other people. This led me to perform the long distant rituals of shower, shave and the adornment of clean clothes. Otherwise my attempts to recruit assistance in my experiments would have proved even less fruitful than they turned out.

  The majority of male students I approached scowled at me with scorn and disgust. Eventually two agreed to fill out the forms I was handing out. One took his time and thoughtfully signed his name “Jack Meoff.” The other used language not fit to use in this documentation.

  I ordered another coffee and decided to reassess my method before approaching any female students. It occurred to me that without explaining why I asked strangers to spend a week alone in a dark, soundproof room with me, it might not come across as innocently as I intended.

  The first woman listened to my new, improved and less sinister sounding proposal with a friendly grin and nodding head. Politely, she declined. She had to go to New York for a family gathering that would last the month. The next two sorority sisters were busy with freshman rush and their new pledges. I pressed on until sundown and the crowd thinned before returning home to reconsider my options.

  Money, there was my answer. If I offered a stipend provided by the university, it would add credibility and an extra layer of perceived security. I made some flyers for social media and printed some with my email address to post on message boards and telephone poles all over campus. The following morning my inbox showed four viable candidates. I admit I felt a little guilty lying about where the stipend money came from. Since admitting my deceit would most definitely have disastrous effects on the future of my study, I pushed that aside.

  I responded to the candidates and waited.

  Gordon Bonnet, a sophomore studying Applied Mathematics contacted me on BrownsList.edu. He seemed very eager to know more about the project. I agreed to meet with him though he mentioned the biggest reason he wanted to participate involved discovering what geometry we used in the construction of the Anechoic Chamber.

  On his first visit to the room, he spent the entire interview running his fingers along the edges of the acoustics. His demeanor changed making me more than a little uncomfortable. He seemed… aroused by the construction of the space. He asked for permission to bring his laser measurement tools and if it was okay if he could be naked during his time alone in the room. I asked him to leave and summarily blocked him on all of my social media accounts.

  Twenty minutes later my email alert went off. A sixth year Senior Visual Arts student named Kevin Jones responded. He drew political cartoons for the school newspaper. His scholarship had run out and he needed a way to make tuition payments. We conducted the first ten-minute experiment uneventfully. We made it thirteen minutes into the twenty-minute experiment when he started singing “I am Iron Man!” at the top of his lungs.

  I opened the door to remind him I was studying silence and he demanded more money. He said if I didn’t pay him triple the amount I stated in the flyer, he would spread word around the university that I came in the room and had “dirty, nasty, kinky sex” with him. Already disgraced and removed from my position at Brown, I disregarded his threats, kicked him out and blocked him as well.

  Bethany Maines contacted me the next morning by telephone. I called her back and discussed the basics of my study. After her classes ended for the day, she came by to visit the room and continue our interview. We scheduled the first ten-minute experiment for the next evening.

  Subject 003: Bethany Maines

  08.13.16

  60 MINUTES

  Bethany refused to return. After what turned into a heated argument, she ended our phone call and didn’t answer my subsequent attempts to reach her. Using the address she used on her initial application, I went to her apartment. Ringing the doorbell and knocking proved useless. Using a loose brick I picked up from the walkway, I snapped the screen from her rear window and climbed inside. Bethany sat on the edge of her bed. The flashing street light heartbeat pulsed through the same window I used to crawl inside. Damp hair pressed flat against the skin of her neck and shoulders, a soggy towel lay crumpled on the floor near her feet. Naked except for the old bandage wrapped around her right hand. It gave off the heavy, sour smell of rancid meat left too long in the sun. Fighting against the gag reflex, I pointed my flashlight into her eyes with no response. After failing to pull a pair of sweatpants up and over her wet legs, I took a thin, yellow sun dress from the closet, slipped it over her head and managed to wrestle her arms through the sleeves. Making sure she was fully dressed would arouse less suspicion from anyone still on the streets at this hour. Draping her arm across my shoulder, I half-dragged her to my car and secured her seat belt. We didn’t encounter anyone on our walk from the street to my building. I closed the doors behind us and took her into the chamber. For the purposes of my experiment, I removed the chair earlier in the day. With Bethany in her particular state, it seemed more reasonable to allow her to lie down rather than place her in a seated position that might require the use of restraints.

  12:00AM - DOOR CLOSED

  I left Bethany on the floor curled in a fetal position. Her eyes remained open, pupils remained unresponsive. The microphone received only small variations in the air which I attributed to her breathing.

  12:03AM - Small level anomalies noticeable in the WAV file. Inaudible, but the pattern is equivalent to climbing volume throughout the chamber.

  12:05AM - “Oh no, not again.”

  I hear Bethany shifting pos
ition. She sounds confused. Her voice is unsettled with early signs of the rising pitch consistent with fear.

  “Why did you put me back in here? I don’t want to do this anymore you son of a…bitter pill!”

  There is a dull thudding accompanied by Bethany grunting and the smack of flesh against a hard surface. Her shouting distorts the speakers. The WAV file peaks over the red line.

  12:09AM - “I didn’t sign up to be made a prisoner in here. You have to let me out!”

  The blows continue. If she keeps this up much longer, she might damage the baffling edges. In order to preserve the purity of the experiment I must resist entering the room or attempting any outside communication.

  12:11AM - Bethany continues shouting and is circling around the edges of the chamber

  “She’s coming back. She told me she would. She’ll make me feel it. She’ll bring it with her. I know she will. She’ll make me reach through the hole again. I don’t want to feel that. I don’t want to. Don’t want to. Don’t want to. Don’t want. Don’t want. Don’twantdon’twantdon’twantdon’twantdon’twantdon’t…

  12:12AM - There are underlying patterns growing throughout the WAV images. I’ll review these later with more precise outboard gear allowing finer EQ and mastering technology to see if there is indeed anything audible.

  12:18AM - “I knew you’d come.”

  Bethany’s voice is a soft breath with gentle consonants.

  “No. I’m not afraid. I thought I would be.”

  She pauses between statements. I am only able to hear half of her conversation. When I listen back, I’ll use proper headphones to search for whom or what she is speaking to in the room.