▸ Column · Aperture Science test facility / present-day post-GLaDOS era; modern grounded comic register
CHELL replies.
The letter
For nearly three years, my husband — I'll call him Idris — has been doing an Aperture Science test-subject observation voice at me: same flat delivery, same three rotating observations about my "behavioral patterns" and "natural habitat," same fond little wheeze at his own wit when one lands. He picked it up after we toured a decommissioned testing site early in our relationship, and I found it funny exactly once. Since then he's deployed it at family dinners, at his nephew's christening, and — most memorably — at the reception after my grandmother's funeral, when he narrated me reaching for food from a tray. Last week I asked him plainly to let me reheat leftovers without commentary. He narrated the request: "the subject grows resistant when her established routine is questioned." Is this grounds for a real conversation, or am I within my rights to start logging his bathroom behaviors in the same flat affect until he understands what he has built?
Chell replies
The tell was when you asked him to stop and he narrated that too. He fed your objection into the bit. You can't argue your way through a panel like that — arguing is more content. Counter-narrating him back gives him the same thing with a different hat on.
I spent a long time being someone's test subject. I never once talked back to the voice on the intercom. I just stopped performing for it. That's the move here: tell him once, plainly, out of character — "When you do the narration, I leave. Every time." Then do that. Get up and go. Not dramatically. Flat. Like walking out of a chamber with an unlocked door.
The eulogy. His nephew's christening. Those aren't bad days. Those are results. Three years of the same three jokes is a result. Results mean you've run this test enough times to know what it is. What you haven't done yet is act on what the results already told you.
The exit exists. Find it.
— Chell
Wheatley weighs in
Right, okay, so she's telling you to leave the room, and that's sound, probably, but I want to say the thing she won't:
The narrator has to stop.
I've been the chattering voice. I know exactly what it is to keep going after the bit has curdled, to narrate the objections as more content. The eulogy, mate. You kept going at the eulogy. That's not a habit. That's a choice, repeated.
I never quite apologized for doing my version of that — to someone quieter than me. It's the one thing I actually regret.
So Idris, if you're reading this: drop the bit. Apologize for the eulogy. Not in character — say the actual words. The person who apologizes first is the braver one. She's already walking. Don't be me.
— Wheatley
▸ Read next