Page 6 of The Life Experiment

‘What are you doing?’

Jasper’s plummy voice tore through Angus’s concentration like a bullet.

Great. You’ve fucked up your answers now , his brain scoffed.

Stifling a sigh, Angus looked up from the memory test he was working through to find his best friend leaning against the doorframe of his bedroom, chewing a packet of crisps so loudly it sounded like he had his mouth beside Angus’s ear.

‘Didn’t I tell you I needed ten minutes?’ Angus huffed, focusing back on the task at hand.

‘You did, and I said we needed to get going. Dinner’s at eight,’ Jasper replied.

‘If dinner’s so soon, why are you eating?’

‘I’m a growing boy,’ Jasper replied, patting his rounding stomach. Tipping his head back, he polished off the remainder of his crisps and entered the room. When he could find no bin, Jasper scrunched up the crisp packet and left it on Angus’s bedside table.

‘Don’t leave it there,’ Angus said, re-reading the question on the screen. It asked how many yellow balls were in the picture on the previous page. Angus’s forehead scrunched as he tried to remember, but it was no use. Jasper’s interruption had wiped the image from his mind.

‘It’s fine,’ Jasper said, steamrolling Angus’s concentration once more. ‘Jinny will clean it when she’s next here.’

Sighing, Angus typed the number ‘2’ and submitted the answer. A random guess, but it was better than nothing. ‘Jinny’s job isn’t to pick up your rubbish,’ he said irritably.

‘She’s a cleaner,’ Jasper replied, flopping onto Angus’s bed with his shoes on. ‘Picking up rubbish is literally her job.’

A rebuttal was on Angus’s lips, but he swallowed it.

Getting into it with Jasper was annoying at the best of times.

Besides, the progress bar on the latest OPM Discoveries test informed Angus he was 76 per cent of the way through the task.

So close to finishing, yet with Jasper around, the end seemed further away than ever.

Even more annoyingly, Angus couldn’t save what he’d done so far and return to it later.

‘Give me a minute, would you? I’m in the middle of something,’ Angus said.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jasper drawled, engrossing himself in his phone.

As his oldest friend fell silent, Angus read the next question.

This one asked how many posters had been in the scene.

The question felt like a trick. The image he was supposed to have memorised was of groups of people in a park.

Angus couldn’t remember any posters in the scene, but then again, he couldn’t remember much about the picture anymore.

Hedging his bets on it being a trick question, Angus responded ‘0’ in time for Jasper to speak again. ‘What are you doing, anyway?’

Ignoring him, Angus tried to recall how many children were playing hopscotch.

Was it four? Five? There was someone with pigtails stood nearby, but were they playing or were they doing something else?

Angus concentrated harder, waiting for the image to appear through the mist, but the sound of Jasper shuffling along the bed pulled his focus.

‘How many children were playing hopscotch?’ Jasper read, laughing. ‘What the fuck, Angus? Why are you answering questions about children? What is this?’

‘It’s nothing,’ Angus grunted. His cheeks fired red as he rushed to minimise the tab, but Jasper pulled the laptop from his desk.

‘A memory test… Why are you completing a memory test? Worried you’re going senile?’ he teased.

The speed and ferocity with which Angus snatched the laptop back surprised both men.

Jasper handled it with a tense laugh. ‘Steady on, Angus. I’m only asking.’

‘Well, don’t. I told you I needed ten minutes,’ Angus snapped, but when he retook his seat at his desk, he sighed. ‘Look, I just need to get this done.’

‘What’s it for?’ Jasper asked, flopping back onto the bed.

The Life Experiment’s strict confidentiality warnings flashed in Angus’s mind, as did the wording of the airtight NDA he had signed.

While it promised a range of benefits for accepted candidates, it also warned of fines and lawsuits should the subject of OPM Discoveries’ research be leaked prematurely.

‘It’s for a course,’ he lied. ‘Business skills. It’s teaching me how to read a room.’

‘You don’t need to read a room. You’re Angus Fairview-Whitley, you probably own the room. Don’t bother with the course.’

‘I want to do it,’ Angus replied, surprised to find he was speaking through gritted teeth.

‘Fuck, you’re weird. I’m getting a vodka. Hurry up and tell me when you’re done.’ Bored, Jasper exited the room, leaving behind only the pungent smell of his aftershave and the burn of his derision.

Tension remained in Angus’s jaw as he focused back on his laptop. Even with Jasper gone, it was no use.

Maybe he had a point. Maybe Angus shouldn’t bother.

This wasn’t a business skills course, but it was an experiment that required time, commitment and effort.

While time was something Angus had plenty of, commitment and effort were not.

His startup investment failure was just one example proving that.

With slumped shoulders, Angus went to close his laptop, but at the last moment, he stopped. You’re over 76 per cent of the way through, his brain reminded him.

Angus bit his lip. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been 76 per cent of the way through anything. Anything good, at least. Usually, he either didn’t try, or he gave up.

And look where that’s got you, a crueller part of his brain snarled.

Angus hated it when his brain turned on him like this. It happened often, and always led to the same thoughts of failure, disappointment, and reasons why he disgraced the Fairview-Whitley name. Scarier still, that negative voice in Angus’s head was getting louder each day.

Lifting his gaze, Angus looked at the test’s progress bar once more.

It was the eighth online test he’d completed.

He had an in-person session at OPM Discoveries booked in for two days’ time.

Were he to miss completing this, that session would be cancelled.

His application would be withdrawn, and Angus would be back to square one.

As Jasper blasted music from a speaker in the living room, Angus flinched.

It would be easy to slam the laptop shut and join his friend.

Good times and high-quality liquor were calling, after all.

But Angus had spent the last few years answering their calls and it turned out they had little to say.

More than that, Angus wanted to know what it felt like to reach 100 per cent.

Standing to close his bedroom door, Angus breathed in the quiet. A faint beat thudded in the background, but it was soft enough that he could hear himself think.

He sat back down and continued with the memory test. The park image was well and truly out of his mind now, but that was okay. There were only a few more questions to go before a new image would load. A second chance for Angus to get things right would appear.

When it came, he steadied his breath. He focused on the image. And, most importantly, he assured himself that he would do better this time.