became
thoughtful slits. Their ward—neither a locksmith nor a god—trapped
in the small room ate, but had nothing in the small room to eat. He drank, but
nothing existed in the small room to hydrate him.
He was their specimen .
Soon
enough he would starve and desiccate.
In his pocket sat the key to the outside
world.
~Not-god
T hey had read everything
in the room several times.
The
faucet dripped. Though the faulty plumbing would continue to drip for eight
years, when the mildewed cell was finally reduced to rubble by the carom of an
immense pendulous ball and subsequent bulldozers, the drop of water falling
into the orange-brown divot in the tired sink was the last plop of any
importance. The journals and textbooks had been enlightening. So many things
existed in the world.
Some of them abstract—the products
of human society .
Time,
for example: seconds, minutes, hours, days ; weeks,
months, years. Now Ryker was aware of decades—nearly two of them had
passed since the Second World War. Mostly, inanimate things wore out slower
than humans did; an aged person could exceed a century.
It was not unheard of.
Ryker
wondered how long he would live, if he could avoid being shoved into a jar full
of formaldehyde.
The
quiet man locked in the adjoining, smaller room had only visited them weekly
according to his journals; this was his longest visit thus far. He had been
silent for a long time.
At least a week.
His
panting and yelling had occurred regularly at first, likely drying him out quicker than if he had been able to stay calm. The One
Who Was Different had finished the mealy apple—the last of his
food—days ago.
Perhaps three days.
Thinner
than ever, the human boy seemed to deposit all of his growth in length.
If he stood more often, it would be called height.
His
trips to the sink had become less frequent.
Soon, if they didn’t act, they’d need to
feed him from their wrists and force him to take the salty grit they excreted
to keep him hydrated.
Freshly
bathed, the twins sat, unmoving, in the dark. The pale boy’s brain craved
constant dark, but his body required sunlight.
Certainly, he was deficient in vitamin D . They all were.
Establishing
a routine, the twins occupied themselves. Every 1,500 drips, they squatted in
the gray-toned world near their relatives, examining the details of each
cognate, then bathed. Then, climbing to screw in the bulb, they re-read the
journals and textbooks. They identified likenesses to themselves in the bones
and soft flesh from the jars, and also dissimilarities. Each joint that may
have formed a roundness in an animal was now flat and
canvas-like. Initially, the preservative called formaldehyde had overwhelmed
the room.
Recognizing
the smell as noxious, the twins adapted, but soon The One Who Was Different
appeared debilitated, poisoned by the pernicious fumes. Leaking from his mouth,
eyes, and bowels, he curled up and moaned and took shallow breaths. Rickard had
started to return the corpses to their jars to mitigate the outgassing, but the
bony prodigy wouldn’t allow it. Painstakingly, they had compromised. Washing
each part in the sink had taken—Ryker guessed—three days. By
handling the tissues like pieces of puzzles, they had learned even more about
their brethren. Each was a friable work—slowly rotting art. According to
the books, all of them had started as a cell, dividing and growing until
euthanized. Their time spent in jars was simply an intermission—a
chemical purgatory as their cells returned to the earth. At the hand of The One
Who Was Different, each had enjoyed a distinguished reanimation. Although, the three of them, the twins and the undernourished Aryan
child, had provided the movements—not life. Now each soggy little
dead machine lay parted out, scrubbed, placed to dry on their laundered skin
just so.
Until
today, The One Who Was Different had arisen to probe the brains when it was
time to light the room, but the
thoughtful slits. Their ward—neither a locksmith nor a god—trapped
in the small room ate, but had nothing in the small room to eat. He drank, but
nothing existed in the small room to hydrate him.
He was their specimen .
Soon
enough he would starve and desiccate.
In his pocket sat the key to the outside
world.
~Not-god
T hey had read everything
in the room several times.
The
faucet dripped. Though the faulty plumbing would continue to drip for eight
years, when the mildewed cell was finally reduced to rubble by the carom of an
immense pendulous ball and subsequent bulldozers, the drop of water falling
into the orange-brown divot in the tired sink was the last plop of any
importance. The journals and textbooks had been enlightening. So many things
existed in the world.
Some of them abstract—the products
of human society .
Time,
for example: seconds, minutes, hours, days ; weeks,
months, years. Now Ryker was aware of decades—nearly two of them had
passed since the Second World War. Mostly, inanimate things wore out slower
than humans did; an aged person could exceed a century.
It was not unheard of.
Ryker
wondered how long he would live, if he could avoid being shoved into a jar full
of formaldehyde.
The
quiet man locked in the adjoining, smaller room had only visited them weekly
according to his journals; this was his longest visit thus far. He had been
silent for a long time.
At least a week.
His
panting and yelling had occurred regularly at first, likely drying him out quicker than if he had been able to stay calm. The One
Who Was Different had finished the mealy apple—the last of his
food—days ago.
Perhaps three days.
Thinner
than ever, the human boy seemed to deposit all of his growth in length.
If he stood more often, it would be called height.
His
trips to the sink had become less frequent.
Soon, if they didn’t act, they’d need to
feed him from their wrists and force him to take the salty grit they excreted
to keep him hydrated.
Freshly
bathed, the twins sat, unmoving, in the dark. The pale boy’s brain craved
constant dark, but his body required sunlight.
Certainly, he was deficient in vitamin D . They all were.
Establishing
a routine, the twins occupied themselves. Every 1,500 drips, they squatted in
the gray-toned world near their relatives, examining the details of each
cognate, then bathed. Then, climbing to screw in the bulb, they re-read the
journals and textbooks. They identified likenesses to themselves in the bones
and soft flesh from the jars, and also dissimilarities. Each joint that may
have formed a roundness in an animal was now flat and
canvas-like. Initially, the preservative called formaldehyde had overwhelmed
the room.
Recognizing
the smell as noxious, the twins adapted, but soon The One Who Was Different
appeared debilitated, poisoned by the pernicious fumes. Leaking from his mouth,
eyes, and bowels, he curled up and moaned and took shallow breaths. Rickard had
started to return the corpses to their jars to mitigate the outgassing, but the
bony prodigy wouldn’t allow it. Painstakingly, they had compromised. Washing
each part in the sink had taken—Ryker guessed—three days. By
handling the tissues like pieces of puzzles, they had learned even more about
their brethren. Each was a friable work—slowly rotting art. According to
the books, all of them had started as a cell, dividing and growing until
euthanized. Their time spent in jars was simply an intermission—a
chemical purgatory as their cells returned to the earth. At the hand of The One
Who Was Different, each had enjoyed a distinguished reanimation. Although, the three of them, the twins and the undernourished Aryan
child, had provided the movements—not life. Now each soggy little
dead machine lay parted out, scrubbed, placed to dry on their laundered skin
just so.
Until
today, The One Who Was Different had arisen to probe the brains when it was
time to light the room, but the
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