5Experimenter
My mother once told me that when I was young, I once conducted an experiment after I discovered that boys were naturally supposed to like blue and girls were inclined to like pink.
"Now," she explained, "you used to love pink, so you just couldn't understand why boys couldn't like the color either."
When she told me that story, I was around eleven, and I found it hard to believe her. Pink was then a girly color for me, and like every eleven year old, I accused her of being a liar and ran off to my room to throw a temper tantrum.
As I grew up, however, I began to accept her words. One reason was due to the fact that I began to feel pride for my early transgression against the gender stereotypes – particularly, after I took Health class and did a whole unit about the dangers of falling victim to stereotypes. However, my acceptance came mostly when I realized how true her words were.
I was definitely an experimenter, just like my mother's story suggested. I loved to discover more about the world through tests and studies. I would always find a question and set out answering it as soon as possible. I thrived on experiments, and my breadth of experimentation was diverse and vast. Science, philosophy, psychology, history – ever y subject held the possibility of discovery.
So, one day, being the experimenter I was, I decided to act on a whim and conduct an experiment never heard of before.
The day was a fine day, with the bright sun shining ahead, a warm atmosphere, and many people circulating the streets. I was on break from school and decided to use the morning rush hour to do my experimentation. As I learned long ago, the earlier I worked, the better, since it provided me with more time to relax or tie up loose ends in the afternoon and evening.
So, I set about preparing for my experiment.
Title: The Human Reaction to Peculiar, Unordinary Events
Materials: Corn syrup, creamy peanut butter, soap, red food coloring, paintbrush, gauze, bus ticket
I once took a theater class in junior high, and in that class, my group put on a production of Act V of Hamlet. I was in charge of props, and so, I had learned how to create fake blood. Now, I utilized that knowledge for the experiment, mixing all of the ingredients to create realistic blood. Then, I carefully painted the fake blood on my hand, creating the appearance of bleeding and clotting. I wrapped the gauze roughly around my wrist and painted a bit more blood on it, enough to show that blood was leaking through it.
With that done, I hopped onto the bus, careful to cover the bloody arm with my jacket, and proceeded to the intersection of Main Street – the busiest place during the mornings on the weekdays. Grown men and women were always there, rapidly ambling to work, with their nicely pressed suits and leather one-hundred dollar suitcases. On that day, the streets seemed to busier than ever, and I could see everybody rushing to arrive at work on time through the bus window. Getting off the bus, I shuffled to the corner of a sidewalk and stood there ready to conduct my experiment.
Procedure: Make myself look like I'm bleeding profusely. Get on the bus to Main Street. Proceed to show the bloody wound, in an attempt to garner any concern or attention – preferably both – from the working men and women all around me. Record observations and data found from the experimentation and analyze it.
Dramatically, I took off the jacket over my arm and began to drag myself around the sidewalk. I didn't make a sound. I didn't scream for help. The experiment's goal was to see reaction, without making a spectacle of myself. Plus, I believed that I didn't need to try to bring attention – the sight of the bloody arm was going to be enough to garner some concern.
So, I did just that.
I shuffled along the sidewalks of Main Street, walking past people and waving my bloody arm to make it clear that I was supposedly bleeding profusely. I made sure my hand would come into view of certain persons who happened to strike my fancy. I crossed the streets, making sure people in the cars could see my arm. I sometimes put a fearful expression on my face to make my act more realistic – to make people believe that my arm was really bleeding and that I really did need help. I did this whole act for at least thirty minutes.
And in all of those thirty minutes, nobody reacted.
Maybe it was because my act wasn't convincing enough and people thought I was pulling a prank. And admittedly, if I was a grown man or woman seeing a teenage boy parading around with blood on his arm, I would think exactly that. Yet, somehow, I didn't feel that was the case.
The reason why?
Nobody so much as glanced at me.
Even if the men and women thought my bloody arm was a prank, they would have at least glanced my way or shot me a disdainful look. But everywhere I went, people didn't stare at me. They were staring at the streets, at their watches, at folders in their hands, at their cell phones, at anything but me…
I decided to kick up my performance – make it more exciting. Now, I began to slightly react more strongly to my bloody arm. I didn't scream. But I still paraded around shaking and running frantically, doing anything to get one person to notice me.
Still, the men and women continued on their ways, their eyes never focusing on me.
I was just about to give up the experiment, when suddenly I heard a voice speak to me.
"Mister, are you okay?"
My face lit up. I turned to the person talking, happy that finally somebody had reacted to my bloody arm.
However, when I flipped around, I saw that there was nobody right in front of my eyes. There were the men and women, still walking to their destinations, but there wasn't a concerned person anywhere. That was peculiar.
"I said, are you okay, Mister?"
The voice was still there, but thinking about it, the voice seemed to be coming up at me rather than coming down. I looked down.
A young girl who must have been only six or seven was staring up at me, her eyes focused on my bloody arm.
I deadpanned for a moment. I couldn't believe what was right in front of my eyes. Out of all the people to show concern for me, it had to be a little girl.
"Um…" I finally managed to get out of my throat.
"Is your hand okay?" The girl's gaze shifted to my hand before returning back to my face. "I see a lot of blood!"
"Um… no, it's just fake blood…"
"Fake blood?" The girl's eyes grew wide as if she had never heard of fake blood before. But then again, considering that she was so young that was probably the case.
I casted a sheepish smile at the girl, embarrassed by what was happening. The girl's concern was unbearable, and knowing that I had just played a trick on her made me feel incredibly bad.
"Yeah… I made fake blood… I'm not really bleeding…"
The girl's worried expression lingered for a minute, her soft eyes and round face crinkling in anxiety, but the expression soon died down. It was replaced with relief.
"That's good, Mister!" She took my bloody hand and affectionately kissed it. When she had accomplished the task, she looked back up at me, her large smile shining and her eyes twinkling. "I hope you feel alright, though, even if the blood isn't real! My mamma always said kissing an owie will always make it feel better!"
I grabbed my bloody arm, still uncomfortable with what was happening.
"Geez… thanks?"
The girl's smile grew even wider. "You're welcome! Mamma always told me to say 'you're welcome' when somebody thanks you!"
With those final words, the girl started to skip away from me. However, she turned back and gave me a large sweeping wave with her arm.
"Bye-bye!" she shouted back.
"Bye-bye!" I repeated, mirroring her wave, though in a much smaller scale.
The girl then disappeared into the crowd, and I was left alone. Well, I wasn't truly left alone. There were still men and women moving around me, but with their level of attention towards me, I was just as much as alone as I could be.
I stared down at my hand – the one that the girl had affectionately kissed – and then looked up. I didn't know what I was looking at, and I didn't care either. One thought only ran through my mind.
To think that I had played an act of being hurt for more than thirty minutes and no grown person paid any care for me. The only one who noticed was a little girl. Everywhere, men and women were too occupied, wrapped in their own little lives and worried about getting where they need to as quickly as possible.
"I wonder…" I suddenly said, to no one in particular. "I wonder… are people so busy in this world that they can't even take the time to open their eyes to what is in front of them?"
A/N:Just to note, this story was inspired by a story my business teacher recently told our class. Apparently, he once started bleeding profusely, and he walked past several other teachers without them noticing or showing concern for his bleeding... He walked past the cops, too... Of course, they probably thought it was a cool design on his shirt...
Anyways, reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated and loved! Thanks so much!
Signing off...