hermiaetlysander

My grandpa recently found a box, tucked away in the back of a closet he shared with my grandma, for as long as they lived in their house. She passed away about ten years ago, but I usually round everything up. If it happened five years ago, I'll say ten. My mind works when things sound even. He's moving into assisted living arrangements, and the house is much too big for him to take care of. Going up and down stairs is not an option. Even though he looks sixty, his body is closer to ninety.

According to my grandpa, my grandma was an angel. A woman sent to him from heaven, his soul mate. Never was there a woman during or after their marriage. The family considered their marriage something to aspire to. I thought so, too. When he opened the box though, probably expecting to find pictures of their children or grandchildren or possibly even some money she had squirreled away for emergencies, my grandfather found letters instead.

Letters wrapped in frayed ribbon. He sat down with those letters, the box with a few trinkets rattling around in the bottom, on his lap. My uncle was helping him clean out the house, and I was there hoping to find mementos to remember them by. I'm not big into that sort of thing, and I don't like cluttered spaces. Nonetheless, I wanted something and figured it would speak to me when I saw it. As I rummaged in a chest, a long rectangle box with two doves holding a sprig of garland between them, I heard my grandpa cry out. It wasn't a 'Oh, my God', but more of a choking gasp.

I was a full minute behind my uncle who had been in the same room with my grandpa. I heard him say over and over, "Dad, what's the matter? Answer me."

My grandpa let the letters fall back into the box on his lap and without saying a word to either of us, got up and shuffled from the room. I looked at my uncle who had caught the box before it lost its contents all over the bedroom floor. He was shifting through the letters, one by one, his eyes narrowed.

"What're those?" I asked, wandering over to stare over his shoulder where he knelt on the floor. "That looks like grandma's handwriting."

"It is..." He replied standing up.

I tried reading the letters where I stood at his elbow, but he turned away making it difficult for me to see. "Who're they from?"

"Nobody." Tucking the letter back into the bundle, he looked at me and said,"It's time for you to be heading home, I'll drive you."

I learned later that the letters were from a 'dear friend' of my grandmother. A lover. She had been in a relationship with another man for years during her marriage to my grandfather, and he never knew or suspected. Apparently, she also had a favorite son and left him an antique broach worth a couple thousand dollars that was tucked away in the same box as the letters.

One of my uncles told my grandpa not to tell him what they found, that it was none of his business. In the end, my grandpa gave him what my grandma intended for him to have. That uncle still doesn't know everything that was in his mother's box or house for that matter. I feel sorry for him, but as my grandpa discovered, family can be secretive, and sometimes even vindictive.

Gasping and clawing at their body, fingers digging into the skin of their arms and scratching at their neck, the copy gurgled a scream, their entire body wracked with spasms. Slowly, the sensation of needles piercing their skin subsided. The vision of shadows and mumbling voices distant, a hazily remembered nightmare.
The copy lifted itself into a crouched position, upper body resting on its forearms, head limp. Breathing deep, heart a frantic staccato drum in its chest. It opened its eyes, a wariness to its blinking gaze. Sight blurry and unfocused, it concentrated on a path of bluish tunnels, running the course of its hand and snaking up its wrist, the bloody ropes weaving back and forth beneath its dermis. Distorting into dozens of spidery legs.
Slumping forward, the copy wretched as it struggled with an overwhelming sense of vertigo. A puddle of clear fluid slowly spread out, inching toward the seam in the floor. Wiping its mouth with the back of its hand, it watched as the clear liquid seeped and caulked in the floor's crack, drying to a viscous sheen.
For the first time, it noticed a plate about the size of a saucer with oblong pills. Varying shades of green floating in sharp contrast to the clinical whiteness of everything else. It looked around. Am I alone? Hello? Did I say that aloud? Help. Please! 
Pushing the plate away, it watched as the pills scattered. Rolling this way and that. Squinting its eyes, it concentrated on distinguishing from one corner of the room from another. It seemed to lesson the feeling of floating. With cautious rigidity, it attempted to stand. Back straight, muscles tense, it struggled to maintain balance. Teetering, it took a shuffling step forward then another. The copy managed a few steps more, before dropping to its knees, afraid to struggle further within its prison of unknown depth and proportion.
Grasping its head, it made swirling motions as if it expected to find hair instead of bare skin. Massaging its scalp, it trailed fingers down its face, and lower to its arms. Wrapping itself in a hug, it trembled.
Must focus! Did my lips move? Lost. Tangled. Emotions disjointed. Am I me? Is this a place or a state of being? Answer me!  Anyone?
Frustrated, the copy stared at its hands. Long, pale fingers. Soft to the touch. No fingernails? Wait? What were fingernails?  Again it reached up to its head, as if to push hair from its face. Finding nothing to push back, it clenched its hands into fists and slammed them down onto the floor.
Pain, sharp and jarring ricocheted up its arms. Shocked, it leaned close to the floor. Eye level with the elongated fissure. A crack going nowhere. A simple seam on an otherwise smooth surface. Tracing the outline of the seam with its fingertip, the copy closed its eyes and concentrated on the textural differences between the smooth surface of the floor and the shallow indention of the crack. Back and forth, seam to floor. Over and over.
Static broke the silence. An echo of electronic back talk. What was that?  The copy stopped its hand from reaching for hair that wasn't there. Black strands, thick and chin length blotted out the room. Fluttering its eyes till the room became clear once more, the copy stood. Turning its head from side, it waited for the sound to repeat.       




 

The room was white. A vast open space. Seemingly endless. The floor, smooth and indistinguishable from the ceiling or walls stretched to invisible corners. The copy lay on its stomach, palms flat on the hard surface which was neither hot nor cold to the touch. Its head hung limply between shoulders narrow and wisplike, as it tested its strength and found it lacked the ability to hold its head up for longer than a second. Shoulders buckling, it collapsed. Arms folding underneath its body.
A hairline seam cut a line on the floor, inches from its nose. Tracing the crack with its eyes, it worried the spot until its eyes glazed with dreams or maybe memories:
"A bright light illuminated the night sky with a beam brighter than the sun, but colder, without the sun’s warmth. Bathed in the light stood a figure, head tilted up, one hand shielding their eyes and the other hand grasping the arm of a much smaller form. I stood watching, insubstantial and indistinct. As I watched, the two seemed to fade. Panic swelled within me, constricting my chest and making it difficult to breathe. I reached out wanting to stop them, but they were gone."
Panting, thought and reason seemed to return to the copy as it lay on its side, and continued to worry the hairline seam in an otherwise unblemished floor. Too weak to move anything other than its eyes. Questions intermingled with feelings that could be past experiences jostled for dominance in an otherwise submissive subconscious.
"Am I alive?"

3010 BE (Beyond Earth)
“Should we terminate, sir?”
Justice watched the young scientist’s hand hover over the black button as it was reflected on his side of the two-way mirror. Staring past the reflection through to the room beyond, he studied the prone figure huddled on the floor in the fetal position. Bare flesh smooth and unblemished. Maybe he should be concerned with how his first reaction was to ask if its organs were viable for transplant purposes? After all this time, and all this effort, the fact he could still be impartial, even indifferent to what lay on the other side of the glass, surprised him. Besides, he told himself. It was a mere copy, not the real thing.
“Sir, should we terminate? It appears our latest attempt has failed.”
The indifference bothered Justice. He had invested much of his time and energy in this project, for it to fail wasn’t an option.
Shaking his head he waved his hand dismissively and stood with a frown puckering his brow, arms crossed at the chest. How many has it been? How many copies have they tried to replicate from the originals? On the flipside, how could they ethically keep all those people in hibernation? Probably for an indefinite period, he thought with a smirk. If only he knew how old the specimens were.
“Do not terminate. I want to study this one further.” Taking his hat from behind his belt he arranged it firmly on his head.
“But sir…”
“Tha's an order, citizen!”