Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Pretty: Obscured

The Doctor laid a card in front of Leah. He wanted to see if she had the ability to empathize with the animals and people pictured on the card; she clearly had very little affect and he was curious how deep this went. He asked Leah, "What do you see here?"

Leah stopped staring at the Doctor's hands and looked at the card. "I see a card."

"Can you tell me anything more about it?"

"It seems to be approximately six centimeters by nine. It has rounded corners, and looks sturdy."

The Doctor annotated his file. 'Subject's spatial sense is again demonstrated to be excellent. She is able to estimate sizes and distances quite accurately.' He laid down another card. "What about this one?"

"It is another card. I would say that it is the same size as the other card".

"Good, good, now just one more." He laid down another card.

"Yes, it is another card, although this one is just a tad bigger."

"Besides the size difference, is there any difference between these three cards?" Uncertainty was creeping into the Doctor's voice. He knew there was supposed to be something more than this to the interview, but couldn't remember.

"No, they are all the same."

The Doctor made a note. 'Subject has correctly identified three cards in the empathy test, and noted that each card is approximately six by nine'. He struggled with his memory, poking it and prodding it to come up with the next step in the Protocol. His memory was silent on the matter. He had a deck of these cards, but why should he continue to show them to her if they were all the same size?

"I suggest, then, that we take a break for lunch and continue our session later."

Leah smiled at him, a rare thing. "Yes, I think I must be hungry, and enjoy eating."

He took her to the room where she ate and left her in the care of the Attendant so he could go back to his office and review his notes and put his mind in order.

Next

2 comments:

ChrissyJ said...

This is an interesting turn of events. But I think right at the end you kind of over-explain - you might let the reader just figure out what's going on.

Eric said...

I didn't particularly like that paragraph much anyway. So, -pfft- just like that, it's gone.