David
All at once, the power in David's house failed. Darkness fell around him and he could almost feel the electricity leave the air, like someone pulled the plug on his life. He sat in the dark feeling like a little boy who had accidentally locked himself in his grandmother's old hutch, scared and unsure, hearing the latch catch with a deafening click. He felt like he was trapped in one of those stories where in the end, everything wasn't real. That it all turns out to be a dream or a coma or something like that. But he had a feeling this was much worse. That this time, reality was the horror.
He held his breath for just a moment before a bright red flashing filled his vision. He squinted and strained to get a closer look, but he couldn't raise his head. He heard a man's voice, "End simulation." Am I dead? Is that God, he wondered to himself? There were several flaws with that line of thought. First of all, he didn't believe in God. He had been an active Atheist since his first cell division in the womb. Openly mocking those who would talk about faith and God. Secondly, why would "God" say something as absurd and confusing as "End simulation?"
The dull ache behind David's eyes was quickly turning into a pulsing throb. The rhythm of his heartbeat behind his eyes was in synch with the red flash of light that was filling the room. He searched frantically for the source of it, but his head felt like a lead balloon on a toothpick, like his neck would snap under the weight. Beads of sweat were starting to trickle down the sides of his face soaking into the gray collar of his cotton t-shirt. He finally caught a glimpse of the culprit. Beneath the ceiling fan in his living room he could see a small glass dome containing a spinning aluminum disc inside that was reflecting the light in every direction causing a riot of red on the walls. It spun in mock silence the same way the lights of a police car would do once the culprit had been apprehended and cuffed, face resting on the grit of the pavement. He felt the irony of the thought seep through the cloud that was slowly forming around his brain. How did that get there? How long has it been there? David's eyes darted in all directions expecting to see a SWAT team crash through his windows or hear a bullhorn, but the eerie silence continued. After another thirty seconds of gut wrenching quiet, the same kind of quiet that surrounds you when you open your mouth and scream in a nightmare, but nothing comes out, the lights came back on with the sound of a resurgent crescendo. The red domed light continued its silent, mocking spin, but with much less intimidation now. And then an amplified voice filled the house.
"David, I'm so sorry, we'll make the pain stop very soon. You have officially been decommissioned. We were wondering how much longer they would delay the decision. It seemed very unorthodox, not that there is any protocol for this kind of thing."
At once, David recognized the voice booming through his home, but why would Dr. Anderson's voice be speaking to him over a PA system, and in his own home? His house didn't even have an ADT system, he thought to himself.
Six months before this moment, David awoke to a golden bath of light filling his bedroom. His eyes did not flutter they just simply opened. There was no yawning or stretching. The window was partially open letting the warm breath of the day caress his body. Goose bumps broke out where the air had kissed his skin. For just a moment, he lay motionless soaking it all in, feeling each moment in its entirety. He took a breath and swung his legs over the side of his bed and looked behind him at the soft indentation where his wife slept. She was already up and about with their small daughter, Charlotte. David felt happiness and contentment fill him. This was how every morning began and there wasn't a time in the recent past that he could remember feeling sorrow.
David slid his feet into the brown slippers that were always patiently waiting for him beneath his bed. He stood up and made the short trek to the master suite bathroom where he glanced at himself in the mirror. His lightly sleep disheveled auburn hair was the perfect compliment to his piercing blue-green eyes. He had never been one to dote on himself, but today he took note of his strong jawbone and even skin tone. He smiled and revealed two rows of straight, even teeth. He clicked them together with a clack, clack, clack.
"Strong as ever." He said aloud.
Once David was finished making his usual morning bathroom rounds: brush teeth, tousle hair, evacuation of yesterday's meals; all of which happened at an abnormally regular interval, he pulled up his boxers and headed to the kitchen.
David's house was the picture of modernism meets quaint, country cottage. It was full of clean lines with rural touches like a mudroom and an old antique hutch that was passed down to his family from his great grandmother. David remembered being a young boy and getting in a considerable amount of trouble when he climbed inside the old double wooden doors below in a feeble effort to hide from bath time. He could remember sitting in the dark and the smell of the dirt on his skin mixing effortlessly with the old oak smell of the hutch. He had closed his eyes and imagined that he was crouched inside the giant trunk of one of the trees in the forest beyond his great grandmothers backyard, like a fox in a den with the smell of earth and warm wood surrounding him. His vision had been abruptly snatched from his mind as the doors of the old hutch flew open and his mother's arms raced in and pulled him out, half naked and muddied from head to toe. The trail of little brown footprints had done little in helping conceal his hiding place. A smile crossed David's face as the memory flooded his mind, nearly as vivid as the day that it had happened.
As he strode down the hall toward the kitchen, the sweet smell of pancake batter and warm syrup drew him closer, he glanced at the pictures hanging on the wall. There were family photos from many years of happy memories together. Pictures of Charlotte just weeks after she had been born, him and his wife on the beach in Maui on their honeymoon, and even a JCPenney photo session that featured the three of them in tacky Christmas sweaters with plush reindeer antlers comically poking out from each of their hair. That had been the photo that was included in the Christmas card they sent out that year with a detailed letter explaining the past several months in full. It had been a good year. One for the books, he would say. Charlotte had turned 4 and learned how to ride a bike, his wife Claudia had been accepted to NYU's Doctoral Program for Child Psychology, and he had received a promotion. He was now the Head of Scientific Research and Development for a company called Biomatch Life Systems. It was a company that specialized in the integration of biological or organic matter and synthetic technology. The idea was that when biological material, such as tissue, was fused with synthetic material, such as a prosthetic heart valve, both working together resulted in a hybrid organ that the human body could eventually grow into and integrate into the rest of the body. The sustainability was much, much greater. The result was something that lasted a hell of a lot longer and had a significantly lower failure rate than anything the human body could develop on its own. Sure, you could grow someone a new liver, but it was still in essence, no better than the one that had already failed. And if David were bragging, the word promotion really didn't do his position justice. The money was phenomenal, but more than that, he was changing the world, the world just didn't know it yet.
As he entered the kitchen, with hardly a limp in his step or a hunch in his back, or any of the aches that usually come with the territory of growing older, Charlotte jumped from her perch at the kitchen table and ran to wrap her arms around his legs.
"Daddy!" She exclaimed. "Want to see the pancake I made? It has a whip cream smile, chocolate chip eyes, and a strawberry nose!"
"Who ever got joy out of eating things that look like people?" He asked her slyly and with a wink as he snatched a chocolate chip from the pancake staring back at him. Charlotte simply called him silly and then deeply dipped her pointer finger into the grinning pancake's white, foamy smile.
"Good morning, honey." His wife said to him in her smooth as butter voice. "Do you recall what it was that I asked you to do last night? Under no circumstances should you forget because you always say you won't and yet somehow always managed to?" She continued to whisk the eggs, not shifting her gaze to meet his. He knew exactly what he had forgotten to do. Every Monday morning the trashcan must be sitting patiently on the sidewalk for the men in the big angry truck to come and munch it away. He had always had a problem remembering to do that on Sunday night before bed and always promised that he would not forget. Inevitably, he always did.
"Oh, Darling!" David proclaimed in a very over exaggerated and sing-song kind of way. He raced over to her, snatched the whisk out of her hand, plopped it into the bowl of liquid eggs, and grabbed her hands in his bringing her in to him in a very Fred Astaire kind of way. He turned her around and around as they gallivanted in a circle around the kitchen table all the while Charlotte clapped her hands rhythmically. He stopped just short of the full round back to the foamy bowl of eggs and dipped her backwards over his arm bringing his face very near hers.
"Darling, how can things as insignificant as trash matter, when there exists a love such as ours?" He was nose to nose with her, lips partially opened on the verge of a kiss. She parted her lips and let a soft exhale of hot breath wash over his cheek and in a very seductive, velvety voice said, "if you forget one more time, you'll be sleeping on the couch for a week." She pecked him lightly on the tip of the nose and swung back up to standing position.
"Who wants eggs with lots of melty cheese?" She yelled and smiled back at David, knowing full well he would forget again, but he would never be sleeping on the couch.
In David's rational mind, life could get no better than this. He couldn't remember a time when there had been struggle in his small family. In fact, he couldn't remember much before Charlotte was born. David shrugged and "all well," ran through his mind. Why waste such a beautiful morning trying to think of unhappy times anyhow? Still, some thoughts nudged at him in the very recesses of his mind. He quickly pushed them away.
As the day wore on, it seemed of no consequence to David that he never showered or dressed for work. In his brain, he knew that he was the Chief Research Scientist for Boimatch, but he worried little for his responsibilities there. It seemed almost irrelevant. He ate a beautiful breakfast with his family, played Candyland with Charlotte while she giggled in her Cinderella costume, and made love to his wife that night. He then drifted off into a dreamless sleep. No, it wasn't dreamless, but the dreams were not new. They were very familiar. More like memories really. They were memories from a distant time in his child hood, memories that seemed a million miles away.
This sort of behavior went on for weeks, months really, but the bills never came. No debt collectors were calling about outstanding balances. Summer never turned to fall and the leaves on the Sycamore tree outside the kitchen window never fell or turned. Yet David and his family went on eating breakfast every morning, playing board games in the afternoons, and reading bedtime stories at night. The longer this went on, the more dark David's dreams became. One night he woke up sweating and shaking but couldn't remember what he had dreamt. He also started to notice a certain slowness in his wife's movements. It was all very subtle and a person who didn't know her probably wouldn't have noticed at all. It was in the way she turned her wrist when she was flipping pancakes. It was just that, a turn, not so much of a flick like it usually was. She used to scoop up the half cooked batter and flick her wrist, landing the pancake gooey side down with a splat into the sizzling pan. Now it was more of a turn. She simply scooped up the batter, turned her wrist, and let the pancake fall back into the pan. The first time he saw this he couldn't stop himself from staring. He just kept staring the entire time she made breakfast until Claudia was waving her hands in front of his face like a person trying to flag down a passing car.
"David. Yoo hoo, David. Anyone alive in there?" She snapped her fingers at him. He immediately came back into focus.
"Claudia, sorry, I must have been in a daydream." He looked at her apologetically.
"Well, it must have been a good one cause you were gone, outta here!" She made an umpires gesture, shaking her fist with her thumb thrust toward the ceiling.
"Ya, it was. I was thinking of you in your wedding dress, skipping through the surf like you did in Maui on our…" he stopped. Claudia stared at him dumbfounded.
"David, are you ok?" He looked in her eyes. She really was beautiful. Then he vomited.
"Oh my God, David, are you alright? What's the matter? Was it the eggs?" Honestly, David wasn't really quite sure what it was. It may have been the eggs, but somehow he doubted it.
"No, no, I'm ok, really. I think I just ate too fast or something. I'll be alright, please hun, don't worry. I know how you always worry."
"I won't," she promised, "as long as you're sure."
"I'm sure."
That night, David dreamt of the old, antique hutch. He dreamt he was frantically searching for a place to hide from his mother's groping hands wanting to toss him into the tub of soapy water, but he couldn't see the hutch. He reached his hands out and stumbled forward like a person who had lost their sight in an instant might do. He touched the small porcelain knobs with his finger tips and opened what he thought were the doors. His body fell inside as darkness closed in around him. Once he was huddled, with his arms wrapped around his knees, he wondered if he really had found the hutch. There was no way to be sure because the smell of dirt and wood was absent. How could he even be sure that it was his mother that was seeking him out? All at once, he began to cry. Warm tears made little clean trails down his dirt covered cheeks. The sound of his crying was the only tangible thing around him. He couldn't see the grain in the wood, he couldn't smell the musk of the dirt on his body, but he could hear the crying, sharp and distinct. He awoke. He was sweating again and his cheeks were moist with tears.
As the days wore on, his family began to fall apart. His dreams worsened to the point where they were merely muddled sounds and groping in the dark, but they always ended in him waking sweat covered and shaking. Most of the time his pillow was wet with tears. His wife shuffled around the house. She still made breakfast every morning, but with no enthusiasm. Zombie like in movement. His daughter, his poor little daughter Charlotte, slept most of the day. He tried to wake her once for a game of Chutes and Ladders, but all she did was roll over and tuck the blanket more firmly around her body. He touched her skin. She was cold. David himself was not on the up and up. He felt numb all over, like there was no blood flow in his body. He bent his knees to sit on the couch and nearly fell backward. He cupped his head in his hands and closed his eyes. It felt like he had a skull full of cotton.
David rolled his head to his left and could see his wife sitting at the kitchen table with her forehead resting on the hard wood surface. She had both feet planted on the floor and her arms were stretched out on either side her face, her biceps touching each ear, palms to the ceiling. In between him and Claudia, Charlotte lay on the floor in the fetal position. Her hand was clasped around the soft, satin "frosting" of her pink princess blanket with the thumb of the same hand stuck squarely in her mouth. Her breath came short, shallow, and quick. He wanted desperately to go to her, but his body just would not allow it. What was happening to them? All at once he thought about the fact that he couldn't remember the last time he had felt the warmth of the sun on his face. When was the last time that he had been outside? He couldn't remember being in his lab and discussing current events with his colleagues. What were the current events anyhow? Aside from his day-to-day routine, all that David could seem to remember was the birth of his daughter, Charlotte. Everything after that seemed like a dream. Had it happened, had it not? She was 4 years old, almost 5. He thought he could see her taking a step, pointing at the sky, "bird," she said, but the more recent he tried to remember, the harder it was to see. He began to cry again. Silently. He had no energy for heaving sobs, which was what he felt inside him.
And there he was, listening to that impossible voice. His brain was in pain trying to make sense of what was happening to him and his family. "Dr. Anderson, is that you?" David asked, in a tired voice. "Please help me. Help my family. We are sick. Where are you?"
"Oh, don't worry, David. We are here to take care of you. You and your family have shown us a great deal. The knowledge you have provided us is invaluable. The client is sure to be pleased with the results."
David struggled, his ears drums pounding.
"You see, Mr. Coleman, our research, your research, will help us change the world. Yet, unfortunately for you, your time is up."
"What do you mean? I don't understand why you are in my home?"
"Oh, David. For such an intelligent and successful man, you are so naïve. You always were. How can you still not see what is right in front of you?"
"What do you mean? Please, my daughter is sick." David looked at Charlotte and saw her shallow breath quickening.
"Your daughter's time is nearly up. As is yours. And your wife's." Said Dr. Anderson in a mocking tone.
