Here is my second story for the 2023 Gibberish competition! I’m including the prompt below.
Bottle episode: In order to craft a Bottle Episode of your own, you will have to pay attention to details. What is the setting our characters are confined to, and why are they confined? What things are in the setting that they can leverage for the development of their story? The characters will all be front and center—how do they relate to each other? What are their motivations? How can their voice be differentiated? Our competitors must consider these questions as they write their stories in order to demonstrate mastery over both character AND setting.
My word count: 2,500 exactly (I’m taking a leaf out of
’s book)
Jude seated himself across from his father, the deep mahogany of the desk seeming to stretch for miles between them. Leah, his fiancée, sat to his left. Sunlight streamed in from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the corner office. This office had been a power play on his father’s part, carefully selected to impress donors and intimidate critics. After a moment of heavy silence, his father began to speak.
“Jude,” he began, nodding to his son. “Leonora.” He always had been one for formality.
“Dr. Pierucci,” Leah responded.
Jude grinned and elbowed Leah. “Gettin’ the full name treatment today, eh? At least we’re not back to ‘Ms. Harvey’.”
His father looked disappointed, which wasn’t surprising. But Leah didn’t chuckle or even crack a grin. That would have worried him if it hadn’t become the norm.
What was the point of this meeting again?
“I expect you know why I’ve requested this meeting?” His father’s voice was grave.
“I believe so,” Leah responded. Was it just him, or was there a slight tremor in her voice?
“Leonora, it has come to my attention that you have been… how do I put this delicately? …making some imprudent inquiries into certain projects with which you are not involved. This, of course, would be absolutely unacceptable behavior for any employee of this organization, but for one so closely connected to my own family,” he gestured to Jude, “it would be a scandal beyond belief.”
Leah sighed, twisting the engagement ring on her left hand and glancing at Jude. The expression on her face had saddened, and he felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach. Turning away from her, his eyes found the plaque on his father’s desk:
McNeill Institute for Neurological Development
Jude Pierucci, Sr, MD, PhD
2018 Employee of the Year
“I do not need to tell the two of you that this company is involved with several projects for the national government, knowledge of which is restricted to those with top security clearance. Accessing - or attempting to access - project files without clearance is not simply a betrayal of this organization, but a breach of national securi-”
“If I may, sir,” Leah interrupted. “The projects to which you are referring are only tangentially related to national security, but more importantly, they are concealing egregious human rights violations from a deliberately misguided public.”
The first thing Jude noticed was her tone. It was shaking, the way it did when they fought and she was trying to sound more confident than she felt. But then he processed what she’d actually said.
“Wait, what?” he demanded, only to be ignored by both his father and Leah.
“Then you are guilty as charged?”
Leah took a deep breath. “I am.”
Jude’s head was spinning. “You did what? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She turned to him, indignant. “How could I have told you? What would I have said? ‘Oh, six months until the wedding, how exciting, also today I discovered that your father is abusing prisoners’?”
“Leah, what are you talking about? These criminals have been taken off the streets for public safety, and Father is working with the justice system to streamline our prisons while improving inmate quality of life.” Jude rattled off the script almost without thinking. Leah only rolled her eyes in response.
“I wrote that statement; you don’t need to quote it back to me. But that’s not the whole story, and I won’t remain complicit while lives are being ruined.”
Before Jude could respond, Dr. Pierucci interjected, clearly irritated at having been interrupted. “Leonora, what you discovered is irrelevant to this conversation. We are here to discuss your behavior, as well as your future at this company… and with this family.”
Jude couldn’t take it anymore. “Would one of you mind telling me what the heck is going on here?”
Leah and his father exchanged glances, but neither spoke. Jude felt his pulse quicken. The light from the window danced and shifted as a storm began to roll in.
“Leah, what were you doing snooping in Father’s stuff? Father, are trying to say that you’re going to forbid me to get married?”
“Do you mean to say that you are unaware of Ms. Harvey’s actions over the last three months?”
"I have no idea what either of you are talking about!”
“Jude,” Leah’s voice was softer now. “A few months back, I started hearing rumors. We all did - torture chambers in the prisons, living quarters the size of a bathtub… At first, I thought they had to be false and just laughed them off. They were so ridiculous. But then I was asked to create a marketing campaign to rebuild public trust in the Institute, so I needed to understand what exactly was being said.”
Across the desk, Dr. Pierucci remained silent, his lips pursed. The room had darkened significantly, and the first drops of rain were pattering on the window, racing downward and gathering speed as they did so. Leah glanced at him before continuing, almost as if she was asking permission to speak.
“This might be hard to hear, but when I was researching the rumors and the folks who were publicizing them, I came across some interviews with anonymous former employees of the Institute and one of the prisons we contract with.”
“Unnamed employees? Leah, you’ve gotta be kidding me. That stuff’s always fake.”
“That’s what I assumed too, but there was a nagging doubt at the back of my mind. And you know me - I don’t know when to stop. Before I knew it, I’d swiped clearance codes from high-level employees and logged into the secure project databases.”
Her voice faltered again, and Jude realized that she was holding back tears. She spun the ring around on her finger as she waited for him to respond.
“It’s true, then?” he asked of no one in particular, his voice cold.
“It is. The technology he… we sent to the prison is being used to conduct illegal experiments on the inmates, and the results of the research are being presented as the cutting edge of neurology. Conferences, papers, articles… Meanwhile, your father can stand back and watch his business thrive, fill his pockets, and suffer no consequences for his cruelty.”
Jude was dumbfounded. His world was crashing down, leaving no stable ground to stand on. He didn’t know who he could trust - his father hadn’t denied anything, and he knew Leah wasn’t a liar… But on the other hand, this went against everything he knew. Everything he had built his life on. His father was preparing him to take a leadership role in the company, and he hadn’t even trusted him with this information?
“Father, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I have merely been waiting for the appropriate moment to onboard you. This project is still in its infancy, but believe me, I have been looking forward to bringing you on as a cooperator.”
His father’s words reassured him, and his heart rate slowed a little. Outside, a torrent of rain filled the sky. The antique lamp on his father’s desk enveloped them in a circle of warm light, shrouding the rest of the room in darkness by contrast.
Out of nowhere, his Nonna’s voice seemed to echo back from his childhood: “Jude, carissimo, you are responsible for your own actions. Not your father. Your namesake, St. Jude, chose to love the Lord, but the other Judas did not. Your father… well, we did our best, but sometimes I worry about him. I worry what he would do for thirty pieces of silver. But you, carissimo, you don’t have to follow in his footsteps.”
But Nonna, I want to follow in his footsteps… I want him to be proud of me.
“What type of research are you doing?” Jude asked his father, trying to reclaim a place in the conversation and quiet his anxious insecurities.
For the first time, Dr. Pierucci beamed. “An excellent question, son. We are using our MentaLink console and simulator technology to test the very limits of the human mind. If we can suppress the memories of violent criminals, replacing them with a carefully-crafted past of our own choosing, we can reduce the likelihood of a repeat offense by over 60% and subtly shift the thinking of the population at large, without wasting funds on inefficient prisons and ineffective political campaigns.”
“That’s incredible. An elegant solution to some age-old problems.”
“He’s spinning it, Jude. He’s chosen pretty words but you have no idea how ugly the reality is. The side effects of the memory suppression are nauseating, even to those who haven’t received it, and his stats are skewed because he has the prison guards execute anyone who commits a repeat offense in the simulation.”
“My methods are unorthodox, I acknowledge. But desperate times, as they say. And my results speak for themselves. Wouldn’t you rather have well-adjusted school teachers and salesmen living in a hundred neighborhoods, rather than a hundred violent wretches living under one roof?”
“Of course I would, father. I’m hurt that you didn’t think I was ready to tackle this project, but I must say I’m impressed by what you’ve accomplished so far.”
“I’m glad to know that you approve. I look forward to further conversation on this topic - perhaps we can meet late next week? We will be rather tied up until that time.” He glared pointedly at Leah.
“Tied up?”
“Well of course. We must deal with Ms. Harvey’s betrayal of us and of everything that this Institute represents.”
“Father, are you still going off about the engagement? I know this stings, but surely-”
“Jude, if you persist in even the consideration of a union with this woman, I will never speak with you again. I can no longer see her as a member of our family. But no, I am speaking of punishing her for her actions as an employee. I cannot allow her to continue - she must be terminated.”
“Terminated? You mean fire her? Terminate her contract?”
“I do not.”
Jude was speechless. He’d always been told that his father’s passion for his work knew no bounds, but this was almost beyond belief. The sound of the rain pounding on the window faded as his peripheral vision went dark. He breathed deeply and clenched his fists. Slowly his vision returned to normal.
“You would… kill someone over this? Kill Leah?” He had to struggle to keep his voice measured. If he showed the rage and shock he felt, there was no telling how his father would react.
“Capital punishment is the appropriate response to an offender who cannot be prevented from committing the same crime again. I have full confidence that Ms. Harvey would find a way to continue spreading this information from any prison unfortunate enough to receive her.”
“I…” He could no longer keep his voice steady, so his let the sentence trail away.
“You don’t have to agree to this, Jude.” Leah’s voice wasn’t pleading or anxious. It was a simple statement of fact.
“Silence, Ms. Harvey. This discussion no longer concerns you.”
“It concerns me quite intimately, Dr. Pierucci. And while I am fully prepared to accept the consequences of my actions, I think it’s important for your son to keep in mind that you are not a law enforcement agent, and any punishment you administer beyond simply firing me is, once again, an egregious human rights violation.”
“Leah, you would give your life for this?”
“Absolutely.” She seemed saddened but not distressed, like Jude would have expected.
With each moment that passed, Jude’s world closed in on him more tightly. Sure, things between them had been rough lately… but this? Death?
“Well, son, do you have any alternative suggestions regarding an appropriate punishment?”
I’m trapped. No matter how I respond, I have to be Judas to someone. I can’t be Jude to both of them. What do I do? Do I save the woman I love but lose my father’s respect? Or do I win with my father even if it means losing Leah forever?
He hesitated. “Well, father, in light of her years of service to the Institute, and her connection with our family, perhaps we could consider a more… fitting resolution.”
“Fitting in what way, may I ask? What punishment do you believe fits this crime, if not death?”
Jude began to speak before he had a fully formed thought, hoping he could walk his father back from this cliff. As he spoke, a twisted idea came into his mind. Perhaps there was a way he could save Leah and win his father’s approval at the same time.
“Could she not become a test subject? Could we not suppress her memory and replace it with a past of our own crafting? After all, she is no use to us dead…” He paused before adding. “And if the attempt fails, more extreme options are never off the table.”
He immediately regretted the last sentence.
“An intriguing concept. Please do say more.”
The more Jude thought about it, the more he was willing to defend his idea. “If we create a false past for her that includes a neurological diagnosis, we can ensure that she comes to the Institute for treatment. We can conduct regular scans of her brain to monitor the effectiveness of the memory suppression, as well as any side effects. I assume your inmates are being tested in the simulation for repeat offenses; well, a real-world test subject is the natural next step. And she has no violent past, so she’s no threat to the public.”
And she won’t be dead. And maybe one day…
“Very well. I accept your proposal.”
Outside, a bolt of lightning snaked across the sky, followed almost immediately by a peal of thunder that shook the building.
“Spooky,” Jude said. He couldn’t help himself. Both Leah and his father rolled their eyes. It was a shame they disagreed so fiercely on so many topics. Their personalities were eerily similar.
Jude’s father stood up and placed a heavy hand on Leah’s shoulder. “Well then, Ms. Harvey, I will escort you to the MentaLink console.”
Jude tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat. Leah stood up as well, nodded to his father, and then turned to him.
“I’m not sorry, Jude. This is why I didn’t tell you what I found. I knew you wouldn’t care. I knew you would side with your father.”
“Is that so wrong?”
She didn’t respond. He desperately searched her face for some trace of emotion - anger, sorrow, disappointment, anything. But all he saw was peace. Deep peace and a confidence that baffled him. The first tendrils of post-rain sunshine crept into the room, landing on her face and setting her green eyes ablaze.
Leah slipped the engagement ring off her finger and held it out to Jude, “I suppose I won’t be needing this anymore.” He took it.
She opened the door and didn’t look back.
Oh man... pretty heavy stuff here. But well written for sure! Good work!
Way to push it to the limit!
Very gripping story, Sara!