I have a request I’d like to make. Only message me if you are serious about helping with this, I don’t need messages telling me I’m crazy or a sicko. I won’t even read them.
I have aggressive brain tumors (glioblastoma) and I’m told that I’ll likely be dead within two months. I have decided to forgo treatment since I’m going to die anyway, and I don’t want my senile mother to have to deal with collection agencies and lawyers and hospital fees and all that wonderful bullshit. I will need all my savings to pay for something after my demise, and that is where you come in (more on that later).
I’m 23. I have a cat, a two room apartment, an assembly line job, no girlfriend, no siblings, no friends in real life. I’ve had a short, uneventful life, and now I’m going to die. I figure I haven’t got much to lose, but it still sucks knowing that you’re going to die decades before most people the same age as you. It would be nice to stay around for a while longer and I’m planning on doing just that with a final series of actions that will probably not work. But what the hell? I can’t leave all my money to my cat. I studied biology at university for about two years before I dropped out. Apparently studying the nature of life doesn’t actually help you live any longer. Luck of the draw. Anyway, one of the most interesting things to me was the case of Dr. McConnell’s experiments with planarian worms in the 60’s. Planarians are very primitive organisms that, when cut in two, can regrow into two worms. This can be done to a single worm almost 300 times. He conducted some tests in which he ran the worms through mazes, and also some tests using negative reinforcement. He found that if he took the worms that successfully ran the maze, chopped them up, and fed them to new worms, these new worms got through the same maze more quickly than the first.
He toyed with the hypothesis that certain memory can be stored in RNA, or physically in places other than the brain. Most people said that this was poor science, and that he was biased and the new worms were following “slime trails” left by the previous worms. They concluded that experiments of the same kind on mammals never worked, and the theory was horseshit. Now where’s the fun in that?
A few years ago, some other scientists found evidence through their experiments that planarians, the same kind of worm, after being cut up and regrowing into numerous new worms, retain some memory from the prime worm. The regrown worms learned from negative reinforcement more quickly than the worms in the control group. This gives a little more credence to the theory of cellular memory. I feel like the X-factor in these experiments isn’t necessarily the existence of cellular memory in all creatures, but specifically in planarian worms and other such organisms.
I have drilled a hole in my head.
Do not message or contact me about it, it is already done. There is a hole in the right side of my forehead. As far as I’m concerned, everything above my neck is already damaged goods. (Do not contact me about this, I WILL NOT GIVE YOU ADVICE ON HOW TO DRILL A HOLE IN YOUR HEAD). I have not allowed the skin to heal over the hole, which is roughly 2 centimeters in diameter. I leave it bandaged and sterilize it often. Though an infection isn’t really a big concern to me at this point.
I also ordered from a school and lab science supply website, two dozen planarian worms. I have begun cutting them and regrowing them, and it really is pretty cool to see them grow into new organisms. I now have over 100 worms, and will be continuing until at least 250, and probably as long as I can continue this project.
For two weeks I have been placing immature worms into the hole in my skull in hopes that they will ingest my brain matter. I imagine that since they have been proven to be cannibalistic in nature, they will be pretty open to any kind of meal. The worms are very flat, and are slimy to the touch, and I have been making sure to watch after I place each one in to make sure it travels inside the bone and the membranous tissue of my head. Usually after some prodding, they will slither out of my sight, into the crevasses between my gray matter.
I do not know how long I can keep this up. To my knowledge, this has never been done before. Thus far, I haven’t experienced any symptoms that could not also be attributed to my glioblastoma: headaches, mood swings, confusion, et-cetera. My hope is that by utilizing the cellular memory retaining attributes of these worms, I will be able to transfer a portion of my memories and consciousness into these foreign organisms to be carried on after my impending death.
I now come to the point of my post. I need to find at least one person to help me carry this out. I need someone who will follow through with my plan. After I die, it is imperative that I have the planarian worms removed before my body is found and autopsy or embalming can commence. If you are seriously interested in the proposition I make, we will set up a time to talk on the phone or connect over Skype. From that point, I will continue to call or contact you at least three times every day at predetermined points of time. When I stop contacting you, it means that I have either died, or am physically or mentally unable to call and I will be dead soon after. When I fail to contact you, you must immediately travel to my home.
In the best case scenario, you will arrive at my apartment within two hours of my death. Depending on the timeframe and when you arrive, I will want you to wait until my body temperature falls enough that I feel cool, but not cold to the touch, if I am not already when you arrive. I will do my best to dress warmly and wear a thick hat when I sense the time is approaching to combat having the worms in my head dying from low temperatures.
If I am able to find someone willing to follow through with the rest of this, then immediately following our verbal contract, I will further augment my skull by adding two more holes in the rear of my head. These will make the following procedure easier.
Upon finding my corpse, I will require you to use the instruments I will from now on be carrying on my person (hanging from a toolbelt I will be wearing) and a Tupperware container I have sterilized and triple bagged in Ziploc baggies to collect the worms. I have in my possession a few plastic handled, 12-inch long, flat, sharp, non-tapered knives as well as some long, narrow “spoons.” These will be used to break up, and stir my brain matter containing the worms into a consistency that will be able to pass through the holes in my skull. Ideally, the worms will have traveled widely throughout my brain, which will make your job of collecting them harder.
I will need you to push, pull, scoop, and prod as much of the contents of my skull into the Tupperware container as possible, making sure that these contents contain worms. IT IS IMPERATIVE TO OBTAIN AS MANY LIVE WORMS AS POSSIBLE. Even if the planarians do not appear to be moving, you must collect them, as they may have been severed by the instruments and will regrow.
After you have collected as many worms as possible, the next task will be to isolate them for captivity. It is probably best if at this point you leave my apartment and go back to your home. But do not forget to take with you the jug of distilled water I have in my refrigerator. Once home, heat the distilled water evenly (in its jug, a water bath, do not dump the water into a cooking pan!) to about 60 degrees F, then rinse the brain matter off of the worms and place them into the habitat I will have given you (either by mail or drop-off-pickup). From this point on, your job will be to care for these worms that will hopefully contain some of my cellular memory.
After you leave my apartment (making sure you are noticed as little as possible, most of my neighbors don’t care about each other) do not call 911 or inform any authorities of my demise. I will be found eventually. I do not anticipate any trouble with police. If you are careful not to leave any physical evidence, there will be no concrete link to you. The calls we have been making can be attributed to our meeting through some sort of online support group. If information regarding this project surfaces, then after researching what we agreed upon, it should be found that you are guilty of nothing at all, except carrying out a man’s final wishes.
The worms ought to be fine if they receive no traumatic treatment, have a consistent temperature (anywhere between 40 and 70 degrees ought to be good), have their water changed no less than once a month, and are kept fed. A few bits of hard boiled egg-yolk a week should sustain them. If you notice them dying while leaving uneaten yolk, reduce the amount, if they are dying and the yolk is gone, increase the amount. Should any die, leave their bodies with the others, that they may cannibalize it and perpetuate my cellular memory.
If you feel you want to go all out in this venture, I encourage you to ingest these worms from time to time. Do not let their numbers dwindle too much, but I’d urge you to cut a few of them up so that they will regrow, and to eat some of the planarians, in hope that some of my consciousness may find its way into your brain and I may continue to live a full life!
Failing this, please care for the worms as long as you are able to, until such time that science may be able to use them to extract my memories and consciousness. If you have any friends who would be interested in joining the experiment, and ingesting some of the worms, please feel free to allow them. The only other thing I would ask in caring for these creatures is that you maybe leave the radio on or have them in view of a TV, so that if my memory and consciousness has successfully been absorbed by the planarians, I will have something to help fend off the boredom of planarian worm life. As a note, I enjoy Dr. Who.
So if you have thoroughly read this request and are interested in helping me, please respond as quickly as possible! ONLY SERIOUS INQUIRIES! If we reach an agreement, I will pay you as well as I am able for this relatively light-labor job. If I receive more than one serious application and approve them, of course, payment will be less, but the work will also be split! I am accepting applications now. Please contact me with your name, phone number, e-mail address, Skype/messenger, and a brief bio about yourself. If we decide not to go through with this, I will sever ties and you will have no obligations. If we decide to go through with this, we will connect either in person or over the phone to discuss times, and details, as well as PAYMENT. After paying my college loans, I have roughly $9,000 to offer.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Image: Glow Worms in Waitomo New Zealand Caves
Daniel Scamell writes stories of fantasy and dark fiction which take place in a slightly less pleasant version of our own world. He is a visual artist, working in inks and paints, and has also written and performed music. He currently resides in New York state, USA. He can sometimes fix things after he has broken them.
