Cerebroscan

The following is an excerpt from the early results of the infamous Cerebroscan Experiment, taken from a transcript of case DOG7325. Although cleaned up and edited for comprehensibility, the original articulation and turn of phrase are preserved—a marvelous (and shocking) rendering into English of the subject’s rich and sophisticated cognition.

The smell is the worst part: hot air that is saturated with tiny, invisible dirt. And there’s something else—sharp, metallic, and buzzing with life—yet dead at the same time. I strongly dislike it. 

It keeps blowing and filling the entire room, causing it to reek with anger. I take the smallest whiff of the invisible cloud that’s all around us and my nose is assaulted, stung by air that has a charge, just like the atmosphere outside the den right before the sky explodes and the water beats down. Except that can be quite pleasant, while this has none of the same refreshing and organic characteristics—only a buzzing that scorches through my nostrils no matter how lightly I breathe.

Equally as disconcerting and disturbing is the lifeless wailing. It’s a strange, one-note scream that pierces the air with awkwardness and distress. This tortured creature blares in all directions but I can’t begin to discern what it wants. Is it agony, aggression, or sheer madness that I hear in its wretched monotone?

The ugly monster keeps spewing its toxic cloud as it brays with insanity. And then, on a whim, it stops and is completely silent. I don’t understand how, or why… But I stay, and watch…

Aha! The Great Provider, who follows the wretch around, one hand grasping its… tail… appears to somehow influence the cretin’s behavior. When he stops and presses it with a finger, the brute ceases his inarticulate howling and rests. In the tenuous silence I sniff at the air gingerly, trying to understand the spectacle before me, but all I come away with are the familiar smells of our den, violently mixed together and sprayed everywhere, burning past my panting throat.

As everyone now knows, these initial trials that were begun in the year 2044 were innocent but irrevocable. There is no need to recount the familiar events that followed after the dog experiments concluded and humans became the new test subjects.