If you keep a mind that's too open, you never know what's going to fall in. Or out...
The babysitter lay mouldering in the bath tub. Mal kept meaning to do something about her, but then he'd get distracted by more important things like counting the hairs around his belly button or wondering whether anyone from the agency would realise that he didn't actually have any children or if he could get away with ordering another girl in. Like pizza. Mmmmm pizza...
He didn't leave the poor girl on her own the whole time. Of course not. That would be rude. Initially, he'd run a bubble bath, lit a few candles, tried to create a nice romantic atmosphere for her, let her know she was loved, but the water went cold, the bubbles disappeared and it created peculiar effects on her skin, by which he meant that the skin came away from the wound sites and reminded him of things he didn't want to think about. Like how the marbling looked like veins on blue cheese. Mmmmm cheese...
All was perfectly normal until one morning when he went in to check she was still ok, since she'd been looking somewhat peaky recently. Sitting on her chest, idly kicking its feet against her lower ribs, was a small person, no more than six inches high, looking for all the world as if it was made up from the skin and fat that happened to be missing from her belly. Taken aback, Mal could think of nothing more original to ask than "who are you?"
"Me? I'm your conscience." The little figure grinned, a glint of mischief in its eyes.
"Really?"
"Nah, not really. You don't have a conscience. Just think of me as your new best friend."
"I can't do that. I don't have an old best friend. Except for her, of course. And you're no replacement for her."
"We'll see about that." The creature hopped nimbly to its feet, climbed up the edge of the bath and came to stand by Mal's feet. "Now," it said, "what's for breakfast?"
Mmmm breakfast...
It was surprising how quickly Mal became used to Tom hanging around. Although the little man was talkative, (in fact, he never seemed to stop talking) Mal could easily zone out his voice and he found that he quite enjoyed their nights in the bathroom, Mal sitting on the toilet with the seat down, Tom perched on the sink, the pair of them discussing the girl's latest change in appearance and how she looked more lovely with each passing day.
All went well until the morning when Mal went in to say good morning to the girl and found another little person sitting on her. This time, there was a large chunk of her thigh missing and Sally, as she liked to be called, was not nearly as pleasant company as Tom. Perhaps it was because the girl had decomposed a little more, but Sally was decidedly more morose than Tom, more inclined to point out everything that Mal was doing wrong, like how he hadn't hoovered underneath the armchair or was adding too much sugar to the porridge. Mmmm porridge...
Sally was a little ray of sunshine compared to Ted, though. Ted apparently sprang from the girl's heart and he maintained a shrill monologue about how evil Mal was until Mal snapped and beat him to a bloody pulp. It didn't do any good though - when he sat back, panting from the exertion, the blood and pus reformed itself before his eyes and there Ted was, as critical and impossible to ignore as ever.
Ted was joined by Shannon and Chrissie and Bill. There was little left of the girl by now but bone and the odd bit of skin clutching to the side of the bath. Mal's fun had been completely spoiled by these people who just wouldn't shut up. They kept on and on and on and on and it didn't matter how many times Mal attempted to dispose of them or how inventive he was, they'd just reform and pester him some more.
Eventually Mal had no choice. He took an overdose of painkillers and lay down in the bath with the girl. His girl. His girl who had been so cruelly taken away from him, piece by piece. As he drifted off, he imagined her holding him in her arms, stroking his hair, her soft sweet nothings whispered in his ear drowning out the cacophony from the gleeful chorus surrounding him, urging him to die faster.
The babysitter lay mouldering in the bath tub. Mal kept meaning to do something about her, but then he'd get distracted by more important things like counting the hairs around his belly button or wondering whether anyone from the agency would realise that he didn't actually have any children or if he could get away with ordering another girl in. Like pizza. Mmmmm pizza...
***
"And here we have subject 524. If you look up on the screen, you can see what he's got going through his mind right now. He was placed into reorienteering due to a suspicion of paedophilia. We quickly determined that his tastes ran to the barely legal, which is not in and of itself a crime, but fortunately for the babysitter in question, who was a neighbour of his, we also found his necrophiliac fantasies before he was able to put them into practise. Given the choice, he opted for mental reconstruction over castration and imprisonment, and the results you see before you. Before we can take the process to the next level, we need to determine what triggers he has and what responses they produce. He has been a most interesting case - most of our subjects are pretty straightforward in what sets them off, but in 524's mind, all thoughts lead back to the girl in the bathtub. Even food has associations that bring him straight into his fantasy, so we have been working to make that fantasy more of a nightmare. It has been a slow process, but we have made steady progress and we are hoping to be able to move on to the next stage within a month or so. We are upping the doses of the hallucinogen and will be combining that with a suggestive drug soon so that he will be susceptible to the reprogramming process. Indeed, given that this is the 32nd time he has 'committed suicide', I would hazard a guess that his subconscious will be relieved to move onto that stage and will be grateful for the opportunity to reform his ways. We are confident that 524 will be our most successful reprogramme to date by the end of his stay with us, putting to rest once and for all the question of ethics and whether this is a life saving process. I think we can all agree that saving a girl's life and turning 524 from a predator to a productive member of society is far more important than any issue of free will.
Now if you move onto the next pod, you will be able to observe the thought patterns of subject 746. If you thought that 524 was unusual, then your mind will be blown by what you'll see inside 746's head..."