She came across him in the evening, having been sent up to tell him that dinner was ready. He was unpacking box after box in the old, dusty attic. His tall frame barely squeezed into the space, and his normally pristine jacket had become a home for around a thousand dust motes. His hair was tousled as though it had been rubbing against the top too much. He leafed through album after album, picture after picture, his eyes far away and distant.
"…Roger, dinner is ready…"
He looked up at her, but only for an instant. She stood just outside the door, staring at him curiously. If an android could be curious.
"Have Norman bring it up here," he stated flatly, and returned to looking through the boxes.
"What are you looking for?"
"…that room you sleep in… I don't know who was there before. I want to find out."
"May I help you?"
"Sure, but I advise against wearing black up here. You'll get it all dirty, and God knows that the drycleaners are getting more expensive every day."
"I will be back in a moment in something more suitable, Roger."
She left the room, her feet padding softly against the creaking floorboards. He looked to the well-played, fuzzy brown bear at his side. One of the eyes was on the verge of falling out, and some of the felt had rubbed off the nose.
What IS it about that bear…? That room?
He sighed and looked through the pictures in the album. Most of them depicted a young couple – no older than thirty at the most – doing various activities… getting married… the home… the rooms… nothing you wouldn't find in any other photo album in Paradigm.
But there was something about the people in the photos.. something in their smiling faces, perhaps, that intrigued Roger, and he kept leafing through the book. Occasionally he would stop at a particular picture and pick it gingerly out of the album. There was one of the woman sitting on a swing in what must be a garden, reading, with a glass of something by her side. There was a little boy on her lap of no older than two or three. He was pointing at the book with great interest.
"Roger, would this be more appropriate?"
Dorothy had come back into the room, this time in a floaty blue-gray dress. It draped over her slender body in a way that looked befitting to a statue, and the gray made a stark contrast to her auburn hair.
"Yeah, that's better."
She came to sit beside him. "Where do I start?"
"Just look through these boxes… and if you find anything interesting, tell me."
They sat for awhile, looking through album after album, journal after journal, and hundreds of pictures. They showed the house before Roger could remember it. There were several watercolor paintings of landscapes – beaches, plants, life thriving in every corner.
One of these watercolors stood out in stark contrast to all the others. A dark room, lit only by blood-red fixtures on the walls. Children all over the floor, pale and huddled up, with fear in their tiny hand-drawn eyes. All over the room there were mechanical fixtures that looked eerily familiar to Roger. There was blood on the floor, bullets littering the jackets of the children, the red light gleaming and setting the room afire. And, in the middle of all the chaos, one boy stood alone in the center, and looked straight at the viewer.
A barcode.
An eye.
My eye?
He froze, staring at the picture. Dorothy looked over from the volume she was currently holding for a moment. "Roger, there's an entry in here… it…"
Her voice trailed off as she looked at him, rigid and pale, his hands shaking, holding the painting as though it were a death sentence. His eyes were wide and his posture looked as though he had fallen onto the ground.
And, no matter how hard she tried, she could not wrench the picture from his hands. Instead, she looked onto the back and read the looping script.
This… this is where they took him. I went to visit him today – my one visit to my son for the year. It was a horrible place, all those children being tortured, learning to use those machines… and all the blood that those too weak to carry on had shed. I wonder what will become of him… my child…
Dorothy slowly undid his death grip on the watercolor. He sat as though paralyzed, his eyes staring blankly ahead.
"…Roger, please wake up…"
There was no response from him. His pupils dilated, unfocused, as he stared into nowhere. Her eyes widened and she began to shake him.
"Roger, please wake up!"
He fell to the floor, taken back by the force of her pleas. His head hit the wood with a rather loud bang, and he started from his reverie. He bolted straight up and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Dorothy… that woman… who was in your room… is my mother…"
Not even inches from his face, she put her hand on his cheek to wipe away a tear.
"She was my mother… and she… died…"
The garden was blooming better than ever that summer. She sat out on the swing in the backyard, with him on her lap.
"Do you want to review the alphabet again today, Roger?"
He nodded vigorously. He had loved to read, especially outside where the warm air could wrap around him like his mother's arms.
She opened the book, revealing brightly printed letters on the page. She took his hand in hers and pointed at each letter as she recited it.
"A is for apple. B is for button. C is for cat. D is for dog. E is for elephant."
All of a sudden, she turned him around on her lap and made an elephant face, sticking her tongue out with her hands up by her ears, widespread. "Arooooooo!" he squealed, laughing. She laughed along with him, and went back to the alphabet, still giggling.
A young man came out of the doorway. "Oh, so you're not going to include ME in the fun?"
The boy laughed some more. "C'mon Daddy, let's play! Piggyback ride! Piggyback ride!"
The man picked him up and set him on his broad shoulders. She smiled, watched her husband and son laugh, and sipped her lemonade. Her blue-gray dress flowed in the slight summer breeze.
"Look Daddy, the sun!"
"Just like Mr. Sunny, right?" he said, pulling a teddy bear from inside his hood.
The boy smiled. "Right, and just like you and mommy and happiness!"
She folded her arms around him, and he cried.