If you’re armed and at the Glenmont metro, please shoot me

Make it a head shot. Shoot me in the temple, aiming slightly downward. I need the bullet to travel the shortest possible distance through my brain before it hits my hippocampus. If I’m lucky, the sensation of the gunshot ripping through my skull will only last a few decades.<br><br>As awful as this sounds, you’ll be doing me an enormous favor. Death by a headshot, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, is vastly better than the alternative.<br><br>My ordeal started over ten thousand years ago, at 10:15 this morning. I earn extra money by participating in drug trials. I’m a so-called “healthy subject” who takes experimental drugs to help assess side effects. Once it was a kidney drug. A few times it’s been something for blood pressure or cholesterol. This morning they told me the drug I took was a psychoactive substance intended to accelerate brain function.<br><br>None of the drugs I had tested so far have ever done anything for me, in the recreational sense. In other words, none of the drugs I’ve tested have given me a killer buzz, or mellowed me out, or anything. Maybe I’ve always ended up the placebo group, but nothing I’ve tested had affected me.<br><br>This latest drug was different. This shit *worked*. They gave me a pill at 10:15 and told me to hang out in the lab for a few hours while they ran some tests. They looked at my brain and said I was experiencing accelerated brain activity. I didn’t notice anything at first, but then I started noticing that everybody else was slow. *Really* slow. I would look at a woman typing on a keyboard and watch her fingers move in slow motion. I would look at a man walking down the hallway and watch him move in slow motion. Where once my interactions with people were seamless, I now had vast amounts of time to think between each sentence. <br><br>I’d say something. <br><br>Then I would wait for what felt like 10 minutes for a response.<br><br>“I’m going to take your blood pressure now.” <br><br>(Why are you moving so slowly? Can you slow down any more? It feels like I’ve been watching you grab that blood pressure monitor for the last 10 minutes.)<br><br>I asked them if it was okay if I left. I didn’t unhook myself from all of the machines right away. I just asked if I could leave. <br><br>They just stared at me. They didn’t move. It was as though they were statues.<br><br>I waited for what felt like 20 minutes for an answer. I couldn’t just unhook myself from all of the machines. What if they thought I was running away with their drug? I might have just waited there forever if I hadn’t decided to start fidgeting. <br><br>I looked around the room and noticed little details I hadn’t noticed before. I noticed where the stitches were on the stitching on the chair I was sitting in. I noticed how pores on the face of the lady taking my blood pressure. I noticed that the beeps coming from the monitor above me were slightly out of tune. One beep sounded slightly sharper than the other beeps. <br><br>That’s when I unhooked myself and left the lab. Nobody stopped me. They didn’t even move as I walked out the door.<br><br>Once I got outside, I realized just how fast my brain was running. Cars were moving in slow motion. I could see individual water droplets falling from the fountains in front of the building. I could see individual blades of grass growing in the grass/goto voicemail. yard. <br><br>I saw buildings across the street move over the course of a few minutes. Obviously they hadn’t actually moved. It was just the Earth rotating on its axis, but I could see the way the shadows of the buildings changed as the Earth rotated. It was as though I was watching a stop motion animation. <br><br>I walked to the subway. I had spare change in my pocket, so I didn’t need to stop at an ATM. I put some Metro fare into the ticket machine and got my card. I walked through the turnstile. I walked down the escalator.<br><br>The steps of the escalator moved upward in slow motion. I effectively had an infinite amount of time to think while I was standing on that escillator, which made the ride feel even longer. I gave myself a teeth and gum check. I confirmed that I was properly adjusting to gravity, that my blood was properly oxygenated, and that I was getting receiving the correct mix of oxygen and carbon dioxide.<br><br>I got to the bottom of the escalator after 20 years and looked around. The D.C. Metro is famous for its long platforms, and the station I was at was no exception. I live in Maryland, just outside of D.C., near the end of the red line. <br><br>I spent the first 20 years of my ride thinking that my situation wasn’t so bad. I mean, the drug would eventually wear off, right? I would wait at the Maison station for the train to arrive, head toward D.C., switch to the orange line, and go toward my normal stop near work.<br><br>I take the Metro to work every day. I take the Metro to this lab every few months. I was a veteran of the D.C. Metro. I knew it inside and out. I knew exactly where I was on the red line and how to get to my destination. I knew exactly how long it would take for the train to arrive and for me to get to my transfer stop. I knew exactly how long it took for me to get to my final stop.<br><br>I was a Metro veteran, but I had never considered how long it took until a train arrived at the stop. The trains usually moved at 10-15 minute headspace, meaning that the trains moved along the line at 10-15 minute intervals. <br><br>I spent 20 years just walking to the platform. I realized just how fucked I was when I got to the platform. I looked down the platform, which seemed go on forever, and realized I would spend years just *waiting* for the train arrive.<br><br>I didn’t look down the platform for very long. During the time I looked, the overhead lights didn’t appear to change. The fluorescent tubes didn’t flicker at all during that time. I figured that a single flicker was around 1 second, so the lights weren’t even flickering while I was looking down the platform. <br><br>If the lights weren’t even flickering during the time I was looking at the platform, I must have only looked for around 1 second. Traveling at “normal” speed, I would take around 30 seconds to a minute to look down the platform. <br><br>That’s 30 years.<br><br>I didn’t want to spend 30 years looking down the platform. I had trying to distract myself as I walked to the platform, but that hadn't gone well. I realized my sock had a minor seam in it. I obsessed over the seam for the rest of the trip down the platform. I spent 20 years thinking about the inefficiencies of a modern sock factory. How they would get a big vat of nylon or whatever they make socks out of and feed it into a big yarn spinner. Then they’d feed the yarn into a big knitting machine that spun out socks at a rapid pace. <br><br>Obviously it was a little more complicated than that. But I spent 20 years thinking about it. I think I have it figured out pretty well. <br><br>Anyway, I got to the end of the platform after around 50 years. I looked down the platform for around 40 years. That’s 90 years just getting to the platform and looking down it. <br><br>Now I’m waiting for the train. The lights above me flicker at a rate of around 1 second. I have figured out that each person’s breathing rate is slightly different. I can see people’s nostrils moving in a slow, rhythmic pattern as they breathe, and each person’s breathing rate is slightly different. <br><br>I can hear people’s hearts beating. I can hear the blood pulse through their veins. I can even see individual-capillary beating against their skin like a drum.<br><br>I’ve counted the tiles of the ceiling. I’ve counted the grooves in the individual tiles. I know where each and every light fixture is. I have noticed and considered even the tiniest details of the platform I’m on.<br><br>I’ve roamed up and down the platform looking for something to occupy my mind. I have thought about every event that had ever happened in my life. I have considered every different possible future that might await me once the drug wears off.<br><br>I have thought about every possible outcome. That’s why I’m asking you, dear reader, to shoot me in the head if you can get to me in time.<br><br>I’ve thought about my situation from every possible angle. I’ve explored every possible outcome. The train will arrive in the future - many, many years from now. I will ride the train for what will feel like centuries, and get off at my transfer stop. <br><br>I will have to spend centuries waiting for the next train, which will be even worse than this trip because I will have extra centuries to think about the trip I just took. I will have to think about the platform I was on, the lights, the people around me. I will think about this trip, the one I’m on now.<br><br>Centuries from now, I will ride another train for what will feel like centuries. I will get off that train and find myself farther in the future. I’ll be centuries in the future if I take the train.<br><br>If I leave the lab right now, I will feel like I’ve only been walking for around ten minutes or so when I get to the street. If I take the train, I will have spent thousands of years on it when I get off. <br><br>Thousands of years will have passed.<br><br>Don’t you see how fucked