Reading Day 4
UndercommonsOK #fictionalessay, #academicfiction, #study, #university, #abolition
Bart[1] is smiling and leading the way through all these white corridors. I arrived at the university building a few minutes late. It is early for me as I was working till 2 A.M last night. Bart is tall, blonde, and handsome in his white uniform. ‘Here we are!’ He says after a few minutes of walking me through the unending corridors. As we enter the basement of the building there is no natural light anymore, and it stops looking like the university anymore. I ask Bart about it, with a silent chuckle he confirms that the university building and the hospital are inter-connected: ‘it’s easier for medical students to travel from one to another, as it is for us now going there!’ A university full of bodies. A hospital full of students. I found Bart, a Ph.D. researcher at Maastricht University, through a medical test advertisement about the effects of the potato protein on muscle growth, on a Facebook page for student jobs. After a few emails and a phone call, we agreed to meet today for what he called ‘the preliminary investigation’. On the advertisement poster, it was stated that the participants will be reimbursed 175 Euro. Reimburse (riːɪmˈbɜːs) means to pay someone back an amount of money that they have spent doing their work, or to pay them money because you have caused them to have a problem. So, participating in this experiment might be considered work (wɜːk): An activity, such as a job, that a person uses physical or mental effort to do, usually for money. But, because of the passivity of the participant in almost the whole process, they are not doing much work, and not using physical or mental effort. The work is being done to them,
therefore the participant is not working as much. What remains is the second interpretation of the reimbursement, the damage that is going to be caused by this experiment, either during the experiment or because of its unknown side effects. After taking a blood sample, Bart is reading through the activities of the test day. I am supposed to get a drink containing potato protein now, perform an exercise at midday, and then a small piece of muscle tissue will be removed from both of my legs on 3 occasions in the afternoon; as Bart puts it ‘as painful as a bee sting’. Later I would find out that it actually meant going through a painful muscle biopsy of my thighs 6 times, but he did not use the word ‘six’ on purpose. For Bart had a professional manner. Now, I am lying on the big white hospital bed, whilst Bart and his assistant are holding my legs. A tall and bald doctor entered the room a few minutes ago, and is performing the biopsy now. He is talking to me, laughing, and telling some stories that I don’t care much to hear. But he is truly enjoying his work, whilst pushing the giant needle deeper and deeper into my body. His science is penetrating me, looking for its share from my flesh. The university is paying for it, and I am just trying not to look, not to hear and not to remember what I did for a petty amount of money. My eyes are full of tears, but not of the physical pain (which was not at all comparable to bee stings!) but because of the decision that I had made. I regretted that I turned my body into a product, for science and education, for the hospital and the univer-
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