I went home after that, poured myself a glass of wine, switched on the TV, and collapsed on my couch.
The TV show was a dull, but relaxing, fiction.
All of the channels were government regulated. R-rated movies and shows had been banned long ago; what was left were the tepid, shallow, crowd-pleasing family-friendly movies that offended no one.
It wasn’t just TV. All art was government regulated. Novels, TV shows, movies, even paintings and charcoal works. Artists were no longer allowed profanity, nudity, or violence within their works. It was all so clean and sanitized.
There was nothing left to life but cold, hard numbers and inhuman science—movies that were coldly calculated to please everyone in the audience.
My attention drifted.
I looked at the rose carpet underneath the couch.
It had been torn and frayed; it drew me into a web of conflicting feelings and suffocating memories.
__
When I was fifteen, I was just as lost and confused as I was now.
Even back then, I loved numbers, and disliked people.
I would lock myself in the library and solve math equations between classes whenever I had down time. I had no friends, so I had little else to do. I tried to get along with the other students, but they liked to exclude me, so I figured I would exclude them in return. I was an invisible student, neither liked nor disliked.
I had nothing to show for myself except for good grades. And I wouldn’t admit it, but a life of reading text-books and solving equations could get lonely.
There was a teacher who often liked to hang out in the library—one of the English teachers—and one day, he invited himself to sit at my table.
He was a very handsome man; all the girls at the school had a crush on him. He had emerald green eyes and jet-black hair.
“Why are you always alone in here?” The teacher asked.
I wondered why this teacher thought that I wanted his company. I was embarrassed by it and hoped no other students saw. I glanced up from the book I was reading. “Because it’s quiet.”
“I never see you talking to anyone before I start class…” He went on. “You don’t seem to have any friends.”
He reached a hand over the table and put it over mine.
My instinct was to jerk it away and I did.
My mind went blank with apprehension. What could he possibly want from me?
__
“Should I fix you up with her?” Rosy asked me the very next day at work.
I had blanked out for a moment, but I came back to reality with a start at Rosy’s question. “With who?”
She shook her head with a little smile. “My friend, Janie. She’s looking for a smart, sensitive guy.”
“Oh…” I took a moment to think before I gave her an answer.
I remembered when Rosy had asked me out on a date a week after I began working at the facility; I wished with all my heart that I could be attracted to her. She was just about the kindest person I had ever met, and I knew she would have treated me well. I was glad I didn’t register as gay to her. I thought it was a credit to me.
I dared to hope that I might be attracted to her friend. Perhaps I just had to find the right woman to be attracted to, and then I could stop being attracted to men. My words were faster than my good sense. “Sure, I’ll go out with her. Do you have her number?”
Rosy beamed with joy; she had gotten married long ago and had been trying to fix me up with someone ever since. “Absolutely!”
She handed me a sticky note with her friend’s number on it. I took it eagerly.
Somehow, I felt better about myself already. Perhaps this will be the woman I marry.
“By the way, thank you for being so kind to the shells. Kay has been raving about how much he wants to see you again later.” Rosy told me.
I tried not to blush. I did my best to act normal. “He seems pretty smart for a shell. He must be one of the shells who has a regular IQ, right?”
Rosy nodded. “His IQ is around one-hundred. Kay is an interesting case. Like most shells, he isn’t particularly good at math, reading, or writing, but he’s brilliant at art. He dictates beautiful poetry; he just can’t write it particularly well. He used a new word in poetry just this morning thanks to you; idyllic. He’s also very smart socially. He reads other people very well and is very compassionate toward them. His decision-making skills are as good as mine or yours, too. He’s twenty-two and smart as a whip, so he should graduate the clinic in no time.”
I crossed my arms and tried to keep from snorting at her insistence of him being ‘smart socially’. Being smart socially… What a joke.
Rosy looked both ways and wouldn’t stop the nervous habit of scratching her head. “Did you see that shell the other day? The one who flinched away from you? I’m positive he’s being abused.”
I froze in shock and looked both ways, myself. “Why are you bringing this up?”
“I was hoping that you might know who was doing it…”
“I don’t.” I said shortly and continued to the chiropractic office.
__
I tried to stop thinking about the shell who I was certain was being victimized, but it was difficult.
To distract and entertain myself, I scrolled through website after website on my phone—looking for blogs and posts that might cheer me up. It lost its entertainment value quickly, however, and I was back to thinking of unhappy things.
My mind felt like it was on a freeway without an exit ramp.
It kept turning to my second boyfriend. I had only dated three people in my life, and he was one of them. He started out nice, like all of them did. I met him at a bar; for some reason, I thought a bar would be a good place to go to meet someone. He bought me a drink, he gave me compliments, and he made me feel like the world revolved around me and only me. A year later, he was punching me in the face and calling me names.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but back then, I was.
I looked at the clock.
Only an hour had passed.
__
The day dragged on at an achingly slow pace. The clock seemed to be… Sticky. Why was it so slow?
I had seen the first batch of shells, and now the second batch was arriving. Jesse, the shell who was being abused, was among them.
They were all following Rosy, who did not show any sign that she was angry at me from our confrontation earlier.
Jesse looked worse than he did yesterday. He looked pale, emaciated, and frightened.
My eyes were drawn to his arm, which he had scratched until it bled.
I adjusted the group of shells as fast as I could so I wouldn’t have to be around him.
__
Kay arrived during the final hour of my shift.
It had been a crying sort of day for everyone, it seemed, and Kay was no exception. He arrived with tearful, red eyes and a picture in his hand.
“How are you doing today, Kay?” I cleared my throat. It wasn’t uncommon for shells to be crying when they showed up, but it never ceased to make me uncomfortable.
“My girlfriend died.” Kay continuously wiped tears away.
I was surprised that he should give me such personal information so lightly. I put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. How did she die?”
“The place was getting too crowded. They had to set her free.” Kay replied.
My heart ached for him.
All facilities housing shells were only allowed to keep a certain number of them. Because shells were not considered human and few of them had real-world uses, we humans decided to keep the shell population under one-thousand, otherwise, they would only suck up resources.
The scientist in me, the man who loved numbers, saw the logic in that decision, but another part of me recognized it as being unfathomably immoral.
“I drew you a picture.” Kay managed to choke out through his tears.
He held the painting out in front of him.
My heart was warmed.
It was a lovely portrait of me. I murmured, “You made me look much better than I actually do…”
He was still wiping his tears away, but he replied with a wobbly smile, “What are you talking about? You’re one of the handsomest people I’ve ever met! Your face is so symmetrical, and your eyes are… Are… Enchanting!”
I was beet-red in the face.
“Do you like it…? I wanted to cheer you up. You do such good work, and yet you never smile.”
I was shocked that he should ignore his pain in favor of mine. I nodded. “I love it. Can I keep it?”
Kay nodded and handed it to me.
Suddenly, he reached out toward me with both arms.
My eyes widened, I stepped away from him.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot to ask first. Can I hug you?” Kay asked.
My heart was pounding out of my chest. When it evened out, I shook my head. “Sorry, I’m not much of a hugger.”
He looked crestfallen. “Oh…”
He laid face down on the adjusting table.
“What was her name? Your girlfriend, I mean?” I asked him while I pressed my palms into his back.
“Cherri.” He replied. “I’ve known her since I first spawned a year ago.”
“Was she special?” I asked him; I knew the question would help him feel better.
There was a long pause. Eventually, he replied, “She was. She was smart, too. Her pictures were much better than mine.”
“I see. I suspected as much.” I said gently. “Only someone special could conjure such intense tears.”
I thought I had cheered him up, but he was eerily quiet.
“Dr. Green…” Kay whispered as he turned face-up. “What’s the point of shells? We can’t have children, we aren’t smart, and we only live thirty years. Cherri has already been forgotten by staff.”
I paused with my hands on either side of his face.
That question had crossed my own mind several times.
I told him something that not even I was sure I believed. “Your life has value—all life does. You’ve already added something to this world with your art. How long you live doesn’t matter; it’s what you do with the time that you have that matters.”
Kay let that sink in. He stared blankly up at the ceiling. He seemed to be transfixed by my words.
Because my heart liked him very much even though my head told me that liking him would only make me miserable, I continued to try and cheer him up. “There’s a theory about why shells began spawning two-hundred years ago. You see, it was around that time that we humans began banning provocative art, certain words, and even religion. We walled ourselves off from as many things that could possibly cause as pain as possible. God resurrects humans who died so that they can express the pain that they couldn’t express in their previous lives through art.”
Kay was looking past my head. It was as if my words had transported him to a different place. He didn’t come back to reality until I had finished his adjustment and helped him to a sitting position.
He hung his legs off the side of the table and whispered, “God…?”
Realizing what I had said could get me into trouble, I begged him under my breath, “Don’t tell anyone.”
Kay sat there in silence, thinking deeply about my words, and then he nodded. “I won’t tell. Can I hug you now? I feel like I owe you something for being so kind to me!”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Kay. I don’t like hugs. Your painting of me is more than enough.”
Kay made a face. “But who doesn’t like hugs?”
I laughed. “I need to adjust Lyle! Get off my table!”
Kay chuckled a little and wiped away the last of his tears. He hopped off the table and joined the other shells.
Lyle approached me with a stormy face.
I wondered what was wrong with him.
Because I didn’t want to be outdone by Kay in social intelligence, I decided that I had better practice my social skills. “Hi Lyle, you look a little down today…”
Lyle didn’t reply. He was bizarrely moody and pent up as opposed to when I had met him the other day.
He climbed up on the adjusting table and lay on his stomach without a word.
His voice was muffled, but he finally responded, “My stomach hurts.”
I tried to cheer him up. “I’m sorry, buddy. Don’t worry, my adjustment will have your stomach feeling better in no time!”
No response.
I pressed my hands into his upper back and elicited a resounding crack!
He did not giggle and comment upon how loud it was like he did yesterday.
Instead, he began to cry.
I pressed my hands into his lower back, intending to adjust it, but his body became searing hot. I jerked my burned hands away with a grunt of pain.
Beneath his skin, I could see orange fire raging.
Rosy immediately ran to my side and intervened.
Lyle’s crying became louder and louder.
“Shh, shh…” Rosy grabbed a pair of oven mitts from her bag and rubbed his back. “You’re alright Lyle.”
Rosy took out a metal bracelet from her pack and wrapped it around his wrist. “Bracelet on.”
I looked over at Kay who was frozen in worry at his adopted brother’s pain. He had one foot forward, and I could tell he wanted to intervene, but he knew it was best to let Rosy do her job.
Slowly, Lyle’s skin faded to its regular color. He was still crying, but his mood seemed to have evened out. The child repeated, “Bracelet on.”
Rosy turned to me. “I’m so sorry, Matthew. I wasn’t expecting this—please don’t tell anyone this happened.”
I nodded without a moment’s hesitation.
Rosy kept a comforting hand on Lyle’s back and shepherded the shells out of the room.
Comments (13)
See all