"Every night it's the same," he began raspily with closed eyes, almost in horror of experiencing these terrors once more.
"Is it?" A different voice asks, prying for information, "Elaborate, if you could. Walk me through what you see. Genesis through Revelation, if you please."
He sighs, he feels his valves and wires spit and shiver in an attempt to imitate internal anxiety and fear. Butterflies are a human experience, but he was barely a human anyways.
"I'm not a cyborg...in my dream I mean. My arms, legs, skin...I feel them all the way I did before I changed. It's a field of amber and smoke clouds. Somehow, this field is familiar, and it looks like the place where I was born."
"Liberia," the other voice interjects, "your childhood trauma is flaring up again, isn't it?" He makes scribbles in his notepad, triumphant of his diagnosis.
"No, I'm not a child. I'm a man in my dream...looking at my own child." He intervenes, annoyed with the other voice's pretentiousness.
"You see John?" The voice sounds disappointed, as if he earned a fraud degree and had counterfeit foresight.
"Yes, it's little John...only it's not him. My kid couldn't hurt a fly; hell my kid finds all the crickets in the shed and takes them outside to the garden so they can have a better life. I'm watching my son in a torn military uniform...holding a semi-automatic rifle." There's a pause, the other voice dares not speak but allows his patient time to process.
"I run to him, and in anger I grab the gun...I'm emptying the chamber faster than I have ever before in my life and throw it to the ground. Next thing I know, I have John's shoulders and am shaking him furiously. He..." The story trails off.
"He what? Please try to finish," the other voice urges nosily. Artificial tears gloss the cyborg's eyes. The quack therapist watches as the tears stream down his imitation cheeks with synthetic skin. His eyes are still closed.
"He's terrified of me," the cyborg whispers, "I know I'm shaking him too hard, and I'm yelling too loud, but I can't stop myself. I loose control of my own body and strength, and I'm hurting my own kid. I tell myself to stop, but it's like my body has an override and won't listen to me. Finally, there's a snapping sound that's the equivalent of the earth splitting in half. I break his neck, and in my arms I'm holding my dead child. I kill John by my own hands each night. That's when I scream so loud that our whole apartment wakes up; Rose holds me. My son who has school and a book project the next day comes scared to death in our room to make sure there wasn't a murder."
"Then what happens? Rosemary told me that you sometimes leave the apartment all together? You leave your family in the middle of the night?" The therapist questions.
Suddenly with an incredible speed, the cyborg sits up from the leather chaise and opens his eyes. To say that his eyes were blue was like saying that the sun was yellow. Sufficient but not accurate to capture the burning. Doktor had attempted to match his false eye to an exact hue of his real eye, and executed this endeavor perfectly. His hair looked like a perfect mess of ice and gray snow. Permanently bleached by uncompromising African sun, it swept and kicked out from his face at precise intervals.
"Look, this is now my sixth month with you. I'm not getting anywhere with your available treatment." He spits this word like it's toxic, "There's no amount of anti-depressants, narcotics...anything that could make me brain-dead enough to not be a complete pain in the ass to everyone else involved. I'm beginning to see exactly what that notepad of yours says: a lost cause. A casualty to moguls of the military." The cyborg barks this. Equipped with an eye that could zoom an image in 4000x, he could with ease just make out the scribbles of the psychiatrist. Embarrassed, the doctor puts a hand over his notes hastily trying to grab a hold of words to express an excuse,
"Now Jack-" he begins, an infection of magenta seizing his face like a platoon.
"Put this in your thesis for a Nobel Peace Prize, Doc." With ease, the cyborg flicks two middle fingers at the man. With a hard swagger in dark blue denim, Jack exits stage left as he practically rips the door off to escape.
"I'd rather die with my pension than give you a penny of it!" He shouts over his shoulder down the hallway, which gives a fright to waiting patients in the lobby area. He flicks his collar of his jacket up to ward off the impending New York cold as he steps outside. The drastic temperature difference immediately calms him, and as he fills his artificial lungs with the frozen oxygen, he takes on a whole new demeanor entirely.
New York in the autumn time was a sight that one could never tire of, the atmosphere celebrated the harvest and flaming colors. The only time of year when dying was beautiful. Thanksgiving break began today after school for little John, who was exploding from excitement that his dad would pick him up. Jack strolled his way down the avenue towards the elementary school. There was a black iron fence that encircled the entirety of it, that Jack couldn't pass without the proper permits. His "circumstances" isolated him from many opportunities to be with his son. Outrage from concerned parents would outbreak like a wildfire if there was a cyborg of Jack's caliber seen in a classroom with impressionable young children.
There was nothing in this world more precious to Jack than children, particularly John. But there was never any prejudice with them, and thankfully they didn't scapegoat John because of his weird dad. It was always the parents who instilled fear in their kids of the cyborg. It was never the kids who complained, it was always the parents.
Car pool was in full swing, and the bell about to ring. Obediently, Jack awaited right outside the fence by the gate for the youngsters to be released. The bell chimed and almost immediately a tsunami of excited children and weary parents mass exodused from the door frame. Not trying to notice, but most if not all parents were holding on to their kid's hands adamantly as they veered them away from the cyborg with a barely visible puzzle piece face. With eyes on the lookout, Jack looked past all the disapproving glances on a search to find little John. Soon enough, a child with a flurry of legs scurried out the door and smiled a ridiculous grin when he spotted his father behind the fence. His backpack with vinyl transformers on it bounced with his sprint. For a while, that's what John had assumed Jack was, and he insisted on this particular backpack to remind him of his Dad when he was far away on missions.
The second that John's first foot graced the other side of the fence and hit the pavement, Jack scooped his son up in a hug. His touch receptors doing their best to imitate the warmth and softness the child offered. Setting him down, Jack got on his knee to examine John. He noticed that his jacket had not been buttoned properly, much less it was inside out. Trying to not show his son his anguish, he couldn't help but feel envy of the other parents. For they were allowed to make sure their kid's coats were on properly before they entered the freezing cold.
"Let me help you, buddy," Jack offers as he gently but quickly removes the backpack and the coat. He turns it out the right way and wraps it around John lovingly. There was a little difficulty in finding one of the arms to stick through the sleeve,
"Oh no! Did you lose a arm? Where could it have gone? I knew I saw it this morning, you must have lost it." John is in a fit of giggles at his Dad's silliness.
"No Dad," John stifles through his laughter, "that only happens to you!" Jack offers a chuckle, his son was learning how dark humor worked. Suddenly a pale hand sticks out from the cuff, that Jack kisses.
"There it is!" He muses as he fastens the toggles of the yellow coat. Jack stands as he takes the transformers backpack and slings it across his shoulder, taking his son's hand in his own. "Did you have a good day?"
"Yes, we had a Thanksgiving party today. I got to pass out the plates and we made pilgrim hats. Mine's in my backpack, I can show it to you later." John answers, still smiling with delight to be with his father.
"I'd like to see it. Your mom won't be home for a little while, want to go to the park?" John gives an excited jump like a young fawn,
"Yes please!" Giving his son a small squeeze in his grip, he grins at his enthusiasm. They come to a busy crosswalk and wait for the police officer to signal their allowed passage. "Now don't let go of my hand, ok?" John gives a nod. Soon enough the rotund police officer offers a hand signal to let the pedestrians cross.
"Dad, the police officer is looking at you." John says this, almost sounding like a question. Looking up to see what his son was talking about, Jack does notice that the police officer isn't so much glancing as much as he is observing; staring with an ugly demeanor, he tries to gather as much about Jack as he possibly could. He feels his gaze outline the seams of his face, notices how his gait is not one of a human's. The cyborg can feel his internal mechanisms causing him to be all the more alert. Clearing his throat, Jack attempts conversation,
"Good afternoon, officer." Nothing. He stares behind mirrored aviators. Soon enough Jack and John are far out of his sight, but Jack doesn't allow his caution sensors down just yet. They continue down the avenue, it was only another five blocks to the park. The street bustled with vendors, people in business attire rushing, taxis pulling in for fairs, steam coming from the subway vents that rose like ghosts with long tails.
"Dad?" John almost whispers, a completely different mood has taken the little boy.
"Yeah?" Jack asks.
"Does it hurt your feelings when people stare at you? Does it make you mad?" John asks. His father considers the question,
"They're staring at me? Here I was thinking they were staring at you." John doesn't offer the usual chuckle,
"Dad, I'm serious." Jack is curious by his son's words, but attempts to appease him,
"Well, at first it did make me mad," he answers truthfully, "mainly because I didn't choose this. At the same time...well perhaps I deserve it."
"What are you talking about?" John persists, frustrated that he couldn't understand, "You're a hero, a veteran. Why would you deserve people staring at you?"
They reach the Park, Roosevelt Park it was called. The trees were on a gradient of fire, flames that sprouted from the branches. The wind would rustle and it would allow flurries of leaves like snow to dance around the father-son duo. Because I did a lot of unforgiveable things when I was your age.
"Well, it's a little out of the norm, don't you think?" Jack begins to lie his way out of the truth, "I mean you don't just see cyborgs walking around New York City on a daily basis, do you?"
"I live with one," John speaks, this again causes Jack a smile to play at his lips.
"Well you do, but most people don't. Most people never see this, so when they do it's different for them. They don't understand and they may be afraid. That's why if there is an opportunity to say hello, I try to take it."
"I don't like when they don't say hello back," John pouts.
"I don't either, but it's ok. That's their call, we don't have control over that. Do you understand?"
John nods, although Jack can tell that his boy still seemed a bit upset. Thankfully, the playground is in sight right next to the lake, but even that seems to not cheer him up. Setting the backpack down on a bench, Jack spins around quickly to John's surprise and taps his chest,
"Tag, you're it." Jack begins to run with a smiling boy right on his heels. With pleased ears and audio receptors, Jack is relieved to hear his laughter. It was quite possibly the best sound he had ever heard.