(or Yeah, Right!)
(or One Footnote In The Grave)
"Have you ever noticed that whenever anything weird happens in stories, especially the sorts of stories I like, you know Fantasy stuff, Horror stuff, Science Fiction you know that pure escapist stuff, tales that witness madness as Jeff always used to call them, that the protagonists never go mad, they never run off screaming, they never scream out 'No'. There are some stories1 where naughty stuff happens (Subject sniggers) or they have weird stuff happening to them and they enjoy it, they don't not like it. It gets them... hot, excited, you know? The only time I saw anything like that was in that the film 'The Women Who fell to Earth'2 when that guy David Bowie shows himself to that woman and she pisses herself. Cos I reckon when aliens do arrive and we see them for the first time we'll all shit ourselves3. I know I would. Wouldn't you doc?"4
"This is about what you saw, Will, just carry on, please."
"Where shall I start?"
"Just tell us what you saw in your own words."
"Well, I went down to the cellar, that's mum's lab, you know. She was a lab technician before dad... before... just before, you know, and she'd been working on lots of weird stuff, I never really understood it. All electronic gizmos and shit. I was never allowed down there on my own, all delicate machinery mum called it. She always said that I could go down there when I was with her, but I could never go on my own.5 Do you want me to tell you about what was down there?"
"If you think it helps."
"It was a big machine, really it was loads of different machines all connected, like mechanno, you know, all the metal stuff that you can bolt together. I got that from Father Christmas one year, I tried to use it, but I wasn't very good with it." <Interviewer tries to hurry the Subject along> "Sorry. Well there was all sorts of stuff, wires and computers and everything. And in the corner there was this sorta platform and a like a ray gun. I said to mum that it was like the thing in Star Trek, the transporter whatchamacallit. She laughed when I said that. I used to like it when mum laughed. She said that it wasn't anything like that. I asked her what it was for and she told me it was secret. Some special research she was doing.
"One night when I was upstairs watching cartoons on the telly, they're not childish cartoons they're cool, Jeff at work watches them too, but he's into graphic novels too, there're too many words in them for me. I like pictures not words. Well, I was watching telly, when from the cellar I hear all this laughing and cheering. I think to myself that mum's not usually one for secret parties, she keeps herself pretty much to herself, and anyway she'd have invited me. We do all sorts6 together.
"I went to the cellar door and crept down the stairs and peeked down, there was mum with this giant pen. It was an ordinary biro but about five times the size. Mum was jumping up and down and looked really pleased. Then she said to herself that she had to be sure, that it really did work, that it wasn't a fluke.
"She went over the cage where she keeps the mice, there's one I call Fido, mum says it's a dog's name, but I said no that it was the mouse's name, anyway, she took one out, went over to a bench then rubbed some liquid on it, went over to the platform thing and left it there in a little container. She went over to the computers, typed in something, there was a flash of light and then I saw that the mouse was the size of a cat. I said something like 'Wow', but mum heard it and was up the stairs in a flash.
"She looked at me. 'Will, you know you shouldn't be peeking at mummy's work. It's not right.' I said I was sorry, but I heard that she was happy and was wondering what was going on. 'Well you know now, young man.' Yes, I said, I know. I asked her why she'd put all that stuff over the mouse. 'What stuff?' That blue water. 'That was something to help the accelerator concentrate the dose on to the area to be expanded.'7 After that we went upstairs and had some tea and biscuits. I always dunk mine, do you dunk yours, doc?8
"I'll just carry on shall I?"
"Please do, Will."
"I was in bed and I was thinking about the machine and I was thinking about my girlfriend, you know, Mary. I think about Mary a lot when I'm in bed,9 it used to help me to sleep, if you know what I mean. I loved her... I'm really sorry about what happened. I know it was my fault, I didn't think it would happen."
"Carry on, please, Will. You were thinking about Mary."
"Oh yes. I love her, she's really nice and that, but the problem, it's not her fault, but it's just that she's got no boobies. And I'm a bit of a boobie man.10" (Subject blushes) "But hers are really small. And I got to thinking that maybe I could give her a boost a bit. I was sure she wouldn't mind. We get along well. We've been going out for a while now, and we love one another."
"What did you say to her?"
"I got her to come round when mum was out, and took her down to the cellar telling her that I had something to show her, something fun.A When we got there and she saw all the equipment and stuff she seemed dead disappointed. But when I explained to her what it was for and what it could do she was intrigued. I showed her what it could do on one of the pencils on mum's desk, making it double in size, and she was really impressed. Then I told her that I could do the same for her. 'But I don't want to be eleven feet tall.' She said. But I explained that we could make her boobies just a bit bigger. 'Oh,' she said, 'okay.'B
"I didn't rub the liquid on, I was too embarrassed. Mary did ask me if I wanted to, but I could say anything. I watched as she did it, putting all the blue liquid over them, I could see her tight little nippies (sic) get bigger, grow outwards, and I thought that maybe it was the blue stuff that made things grow and it wasn't the machine at all. But they didn't do anything, they didn't get any bigger.
"'What do you want me to do now,' she said. So I told her to get on the platform and I went over to the computer. I suppose that's where the problem might have started, cos I didn't actually watch what mum did, what buttons she pressed and the like. But I thought to myself that it couldn't be too difficult. After looking round I found what looked like the right buttons and knobs11 and I was able to start it up.C
"Seeing her standing there with her top up and her boobies facing the gun bit of the machine got me excited, you know. And I had... bad thoughts. Well there was the light again and it shot out of the muzzle of the expanded and it hit Mary dead on. I was glad to see that she was all right. But I saw that nothing seemed to happen. Or not at first at any rate. The nippies (sic) started first, getting longer and wider and then the rest of her boobies. Getting wider and longer and bigger. Like a balloon being blown up or being filled with water, she started to get pulled down by the weight of them. Still they got bigger and Mary started to cry because she must've thought they was getting much too big, they was the size of watermelons, they got to the size of beach balls.12 And they still didn't stop. She was crying and screaming, I just didn't know what to do."
"What happened then, Will?"
"That was when mummy came in.13 And she was really upset. She ran over to the machine and shouted at me, demanding to know what setting I'd used. I told her that I didn't know. I couldn't remember. All this time Mary's boobies were still getting bigger. Her boobies were resting on the ground now and her nippies (sic) were bigger than my fingers. Much bigger. I asked her what she was going to do. But she ignored me. Mary was crying worse than ever. She was saying that all she wanted was to be slightly bigger, that she didn't want to be a monster."
"How did you feel, Will?"
"What really? I felt bad that she felt bad and was really sad, but I was... excited too. I was sorta glad that she was really big, seeing them and seeing her with really big boobies was making me feel... hot and excited, you know? I know that's bad, but that's what I felt. I know it's wrong...
"After a while Mary stopped, her boobies were massive. Really, really big. Like... I don't know, something really big. Each was like a VW camper van, but rounder and more like... I know, like a weather balloon. That sort of size. Yes, that's about it. That sorta size. And she'd stopped crying, she'd gone all kind of quiet, she wasn't talking to no one. And mum wasn't talking to me, she was trying to get Mary to talk to her, to see if she was all right, but Mary wasn't looking at anything, her eyes were glazed over she was just, like, dead. You know. Not really, but inside. You know?"
"Yes, I think I know what you mean. Emotionally. She was dead emotionally, not present in her body."
"Yes."
"What happened then?"
"I don't really know. I started crying too. I felt bad for what I'd done. And mummy took me upstairs and gave me a sed... sed..."
"Sedative."
"Yeah, to make me sleep. When I woke up it was ten o'clock. Mum wasn't there and everything had gone from the cellar. It was like a dream, like I'd dreamt it all. I phoned the police in the evening when mum hadn't come back. Telling them that she was missing, that she'd disappeared. They said they'd send someone round. I kinda thought that maybe I really had dreamt it all, and so I phoned up Mary to see if she was there. But her mum answered saying that she hadn't been back. And that she thought she'd been with me. And she was worried. I suppose she must've phoned the police too cos they came round to our house with Mary's mum and dad and they started asking questions. That was when I told them about the machine and what mum had done with it. I told them what I'd done. When mum eventually came back they started asking her questions, and stuff. And then I was sent here to talk to you."D
Notes on William Olsen's Narrative by Dr Susan Westfield:
1- He is referring to some less savoury and distasteful Internet sites, some of which are listed as bearchive, wren spot, ladybumps amongst others and deal with something commonly designated as Expansion Fantasy. This has a bearing on what follows on in the narrative itself.
2 - It is clear from the narrator's slip of the tongue that he has an obsession with the female gender. Clearly the fact that he had no father's influence, his father disappeared mysteriously whilst the subject was very young, and his mother was incredibly dominant, combined with the fact that his favourite film is Psycho, can only reinforce my clinical report. See Westfield's Real Life Intersections with the Fantasy World of William Olsen (20--).
3 - Overt display of anal retentive qualities. See Westfield's RLIWTFWOX as above.
4 - Note that rather than endeavour to face up to the problem, he tries to pretend to have a conversation, to push the burden away from himself on to the interviewer, asking them their opinion on something unrelated to the matter in hand. This occurs a number of times during the interview itself.
5 - This phrase is very telling, denoting no only the passage of an individual from one space to another such as in walking, or riding in a mode of transport, but also the passage of urine or faeces from the body to the outside world. Thus it could be conjectured that his not being allowed to go by himself could mean he both needed and detested his mother's presence at all times. See Westfield's Psycho and it's Influence on the Modern Mother Fixated Psychotic. (20--)
6 - All sorts are a sweet made from liquorice. Subject is clearly indicating that he had incestuous feelings toward his mother, vis-a-vis they were 'sweet together'.
7 - An expansion machine is, of course, impossible but does interrelate to point 1 above.
8 - This definitely appears to be a case of prurient interest in the interviewer's sex life, proving the subject is juvenile and immature.
9 - Usually people count sheep when they're in bed, and there is no indication that the person he calls 'Mary' was a sheep.
10 - A fixation on the breasts is in classic psychoanalytic writing, it refers to the symbolic representation of oral wishes, the source of psychic nutrition, the object that satisfies need, it is representative of, often becoming, the mother but without the personhood of the real mother. A stage of personal development halted for the individual at infancy.
11 - A colloquial term for male genitalia.
12 - It is quite impossible for any growth, even if the machine did work, to be accomplished so quickly. It is noticeable that the words and phrases the Subject uses for his description of the growth and size of the breasts is universally common within the pages on the web sites as cited in point 1. He is therefore not trying to use his own words to describe his 'so-called' experience, but is falling back on the common cliches of his peer group. Sports equipment and fruit are the only things that the authors of these outrageous tales use as a point of reference. This is quite usual for those individuals whose personal and intellectual development has been arrested early.
13 - Note use of the more childish form of mother.
[ADDENDUM ADDED BY PROFESSOR GRAHAM DRUMMOND.
IT IS CLEAR FROM THE EVIDENCE OBTAINED FROM VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH SUSAN WESTFIELD THAT THE REPORTS SHE WROTE WERE IN FACT FALSE. WHEN A FURTHER INVESTIGATION WAS CARRIED OUT, UNFORTUNATELY BY ONE OF THE TABLOID TELEVISION CURRENT AFFAIRS PROGRAMMES AND NOT BY OUR OWN OPERATIVES, IT WAS DISCOVERED THAT SUSAN WESTFIELD HAD NO QUALIFICATIONS WHATSOEVER, AND THAT EVERYTHING SHE HAD EVER WRITTEN WAS A FABRICATION.
IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT WILLIAM OLSEN, THE SUBJECT IN HER PUTATIVE REPORT, DOES EXIST AND UPON FURTHER INVESTIGATION THE INCIDENTS HE DESCRIBES HAVE A BASIS IN FACT AS EVINCED FROM TESTIMONY RELEASED TO US BY THE RELEVANT POLICE AUTHORITIES. SO IT IS UNCLEAR WHETHER THE FALSE REPORT WHICH MS WESTFIELD MADE UP MIGHT, BY A QUIRK OF COINCIDENCE, HAVE A BASIS IN TRUTH. A POSSIBLE CASE OF DOUBLE NEGATIVE SYNDROME SEE DRUMMOND'S FALSITY AND ITS CONSTRUCTIVE DECONSTRUCTION IN REAL FANTASY (20--).
INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE MATTER CONTINUE. UPDATES WILL BE CIRCULATED TO RELEVANT DEPARTMENTAL HEADS ACCORDINGLY.]
A - Like if you invited a woman down into the cellar of an empty house she'd actually accept! Yeah, right.
B - And like your girlfriend wouldn't mind if you basically said that you thought her tits were too small. Like she wouldn't dump you in a second if you said it as subtly as this guy. Yeah, right.
C - But he made the pencil twice the size, didn't he. What are we supposed to believe it was a lucky guess? Yeah, right.
D - What a cop out of an ending!! Stupid fucker probably couldn't think of a better way to stop. Good story? Yeah, right.