Boneless masses of squishy flesh snaked searchingly across the worn wooden surface of the ancient desk, leaving tracks in the dust. They twined around every object within grasp, patiently yet urgently exploring.

                Is it edible?

                John had neglected to attend Fred due to a mixture of work obligation and scientific curiosity regarding what rapid evolution Fred might engender out of self-preservation when under duress. The man was in fact currently in a factory far away and was therefore missing the multiplication of supple appendages and the initial autonomous mobilization of his son’s “brother.” What John was observing at this very moment far exceeded the progress of his humble desk ornament, yet Fred was but one entity to the factory creature’s legion and thus his progress was admirable if middling.

                There were eight extremities, evenly-spaced and spread like the spokes of a squirming, grotesque wheel. Fred shifted and his tentacles pressed against the desk. For a single tremulous moment it was uncertain whether they would hold; quivering, they arranged themselves to evenly distribute the body’s weight. Slowly at first yet gradually quickening, they crept forward to the extreme edge of what had been Fred’s home. The feelers curled around the termination of the desktop and wavered in the stuffy, thick air. Fred had not yet developed eyes and so for what seemed an eternity he patrolled first one way and then the other, attempting to locate an escape route.

                Thunk.

                He dropped to the floor heavily and remained still. Tenuously the tendrils began to wriggle and then lifted Fred’s bulk once more. Food and water. Each new area was greeted with the same desperate analysis. Is it edible?
                Chair. Desk. Floor. Wall. Books. Shelves. Paper. Wastebasket. Door. Methodically the creature followed along the walls, across the center of the room, as far up as it could reach.

                Nothing

                Nothing

                But there was a draft under the door. Fred like all living things instinctively knew where he needed to go. He could not fit through the crack at the entryway. His tendrils snaked under to explore the other side. He needed to get out; if he were unsuccessful in the attempt the study would become his tomb.

                One day passed, and then two. The portion of the house he occupied was silent, a forbidden no man’s land where he was quarantined and isolated, leaving him free to move about uninterrupted. Steadily Fred winnowed his bulk into ever-longer extremities. These feelers reached broader swathes of the hallway yet encountered nothing of value to the monstrosity. Still they persisted; surely there was a way. Surely there was something to eat. If only they could reach…

                John was almost never home. Darren had been sent away. Cheryl never paid attention to him and was in either case indisposed and walled off in a drug-induced stupor. Without his boy, Scout was idle when heard a foreign sound in his home. It was soft enough that he did not bark, for Cheryl admonished him whenever he alerted her to things he found amiss. Instead the dog padded dutifully up the stairs to investigate, sniffing the air suspiciously and catching the aroma of an unknown entity. He’d caught this smell once before when John brought an odd container home. Scout had barked then and was reprimanded as always, but he remembered. He’d been wary of the package. He knew there was something wrong with it. He didn’t like it and he made that fact known even though his efforts were fruitless and his people heartily disapproved.

                The dog saw the tendrils a bare moment after cresting the top of the stairs. They were snaking out from the bottom of a doorway, seeking a mode of egress. He knew this was a threat to his family. He knew that if they heard him, punishment would be forthcoming once he raised the call. He knew, too, that they weren’t likely to hear him but instinct is a strong master. He barked and rushed forward. The body of the creature was hidden from him. He drew closer to the tentacles and seized the nearest, ripping it asunder with his teeth. The dying end wriggled; there was a small orifice near the tip which latched onto Scout’s muzzle, dripping digestive juices and burning the animal. He yelped in surprise and pain but did not relent, darting for the next appendage. The other tentacles retracted swiftly after Fred was damaged and would not venture forth again.

                Cheryl did not hear Scout’s cries. She was thoroughly entrenched in the drug-addled sandcastles of her mindscape where she would remain for several more hours. Scout howled at the blank face of the study door, but Fred would not emerge. He would have to find another exit as that one was far too dangerous. The injured tendril flopped uselessly, oozing. Fred backed away as far as he could, limping slightly in a manner reminiscent of a spider with a missing leg. The remaining tendrils coiled upwards and found a new possibility: John hadn’t latched the window when he left. Pressing upward, the tentacles opened a gap and fresh air entered the stifling prison. Patiently and persistently Fred dragged himself upward to the windowsill. He remained precariously poised for a moment before teetering off the edge, freefalling toward the outside world below.

                Scout paced in front of the door and sniffed, but could not detect the creature’s presence any longer. He remained there indecisively, not wanting to abandon his post before alerting his owners to the trouble but no longer sensing the danger in his home. After a time, he padded back downstairs to resume his usual spot in the living room where he could monitor the exits and kitchen.

                Fred was suspended for only a matter of moments, his appendages twining in the rushing air as he made his journey inextricably downward. Had anyone seen him, they would have been confused by the chicken breast with what looked like streamers whirling around it dropping from the second story window without anyone in the room above. There were no observers, however, as no one wished undue contact with Helling house. The creature dropped into the bushes and was so still that a slug gradually oozed onto one of the tendrils, having decided to make a beeline for a tasty-looking plant.

                ​It is edible.

                Digestive acids went to work immediately and the appendage wrapped around its prey. It would take much more to resuscitate Fred, but the bushes were plentiful small creatures to feast upon. His hunger was ignited. He needed to adapt and grow. He needed to explore his new environment.

                It is edible.

                He had all the time in the world and no one would miss him.

                Arlo’s rickety old truck trundled up the lane, jostling at every small patch of gravel as the worn shocks groaned in protest. I doubted that the Company failed to pay the man adequately; rather, he appeared to be of the highly practical mindset of any successful rich man, using what he already had until it failed him rather than buying the newest bauble touted by his peers. He said nothing, and I said nothing. I listened to the chorus of the vehicle’s metallic complaints set to the tune of a light, pattering shower. Shortly after we embarked on our nighttime quest the rain which had plagued the funeral of Porter Graemes returned as if setting the stage for an old silver screen horror film.

                The green activists and animal rights groups loathed my creations and often picketed the farms. Sometimes they grew obstreperous and attempted to break in, vandalize or even burn down the compounds. As a result, the Company hired security and required clearance at the gates of each edifice. While this cut down on the number of incidents, I still caught wind of quite a few even to this day. Although initially I’d speculated on the possibility of encountering just such an assemblage, the rain had sufficiently disheartened them and the way was left clear. The watchman didn’t so much as bat an eyelash at Arlo as he flashed his identification. As if it were a single, smooth motion the gate began to peel away from the road the moment my guide flicked his wrist, slapping his wallet neatly closed and sliding it back into his pocket deftly.

                He cleared his throat with a low rumble and gave the guard an authoritative glance and curt nod, tipping his hand slightly with only his middle and forefinger extended in a simultaneously approving and dismissive wave. The rain’s cadence steadily increased as we drew nearer the large utilitarian building. The truck sidled into the reserved handicapped parking space as it was nearest the door. I turned up the collar of my coat, and Arlo glanced over as he cut the power on his vehicle. Illuminated only by the impersonal blue light of the factory’s exterior, the crags and rivulets of wrinkles on his face deepened and became haggard.

                “Want an umbrella?” he asked absently, gesturing to floorboard where just such an implement existed as a half-forgotten courtesy. I shook my head and he nodded, stepping out. We took our time walking in the torrent knowing that regardless of our speed we would nevertheless be soaked through. He swiped a key card and seized the handle, tapping something on the access panel with his free hand. The door clicked, and we exited the storm into the building’s massive half-lit interior. I fleetingly looked at the silent conveyors and machinery which formed the processing portion of the plant, only mildly interested. I’d observed these same contraptions during the beginning stages of my work, seeking ways to circumvent as many costs as possible.

                “This way.” I followed Arlo with a growing sense of anticipation. I salivated as I reflected on the images I’d been shown of the conglomerate mass growing in a quarantined space somewhere on premises.

                Abruptly both of us stopped in unison. Our breath caught in our throats. In the half-lit gloom ahead, we saw a dark form moving slowly across the vacant space. We heard a low, soft shuffling noise as if it were dragging itself forward. I saw a door left ajar in my peripheral vision. A light streamed through, adding scant illumination to the scene. My body began to move automatically, and I found myself running towards the creature. I heard Arlo calling for me to wait but paid him no mind.

                It was glorious.

                Sensing another being approaching, the creature shifted and turned. Its body was a mass of Freds, all merged together haphazardly just as I’d observed over dinner. However, unlike the photos this being had a definable face burgeoning amid the muck. The manufactured food products which made up its form were engineered without eyes. Yet all the same it met my gaze with a pair of large, cat-slit reflective orbs. Discerning a need for vision, it created a complex sense organ independently within a mind-bogglingly abbreviated interval. I could make out the jutting bridge that may develop into a nose, the curve of what would become a jaw, and a pair of holes that were possibly already functioning as ears.

                What I saw made no sense. How was it even possible that these creations could merge, let alone reshape themselves so quickly? The mutation rate was inconceivable to the best of my scientific knowledge. All the same, it was literally staring at me in the gloom. My heart pounded. I heard the blood rushing in my ears, matching the torrent flooding the outside world. I scarcely breathed. It was dizzying.

                “It’s heading for the rest of ’em.” Arlo said quietly, an edge of fear tinging his voice. He stood next to the open door. “I closed up myself earlier and this was shut tight when I left.”

                “I need to take it back to the lab.” I whispered in a breath. None of the observational tests had produced results such as this. All had behaved normally: tube-fed and paralyzed, growing like plants awaiting harvest. All the same, Fred still evolved when beset with starvation. What triggered the mutation in this creature? More importantly, had it been deprived at all or was this anomaly completely spontaneous?

                “Check on the others. See if there are any more like this.” I uttered. Arlo nodded and strode quickly across the expanse, disappearing with the metallic clang of an opening and shutting portal. I meanwhile approached the mass and placed a hand lightly on its side. The eyes tracked my movement, but the creature had stopped advancing toward its brethren and shifted focus entirely to me. I was eager to observe its brain, as its development of eyes required a central processing point for the nerves.  

                “What are you thinking?” I breathed lovingly now that my audience was gone. I was almost rapturous. Never in my life had I felt such exaltation.  

                “Do you want to merge with me?” It shifted.

                “Eat me?” I paused.

                “…Become me?”

                The world faded away, and there was nothing left of my former life.

                Dark, floppy rims of time-worn flesh drooped in folded layers from the sunken eye sockets of the large and brooding mass identifying itself as the Acrebury Farms manager. His voice was a low rumble much like a peremptory roll of distant thunder. He wore a perpetual scowl, the corners of his mouth inexorably dragged downward by years of dissatisfaction, his eyebrows permanently knitted together. He extended a calloused, dry paw in my direction, standing carefully in a practiced manner in order to avoid disturbing the contents of the table.

                “Mr. Helling. Arlo Wright.” He stated unquestioningly, firmly pumping my hand once before disengaging and settling back onto his chair in a single, smooth motion. His wrinkles were deeper than his impressive stature and full head of salt-and-pepper hair might otherwise indicate, rendering his age a vague and mysterious thing. I appreciated his brusqueness which lay in stark contrast to the loquacious sorts usually found in management positions who were busier putting on airs rather than uttering anything of note. Arlo didn’t ask me the usual questions unnecessarily plaguing my reception when I traveled. He didn’t ask because he didn’t care about the answers any more than I wished to speak them. He silently opened his menu and I followed suit, pleased by the efficient manner of the man.

                “The steak’s good. Don’t recommend the fish though, too far from the coast.” I nodded in response to his advice, considering my options and reflecting that I hadn’t as yet been called to utter a single syllable. Once the waitress had come and gone, he heaved a world-weary sigh and leaned in slightly, propping his elbows on the table. I mimicked him once more, forming my fingertips into a steeple which I pressed against my lips lightly as though shushing myself.

                “About the aberrations you’ve found…” I began, trailing off. He took his cue, simultaneously nodding and rumbling his assent.

                “Developing eyes, appendages, mouths.” He paused.

“This morning we found what looked like several of ’em fused together. Big thing. Probably would’ve gotten bigger if we hadn’t o’ separated it from the rest.” He took a drink of water and lapsed into an expectant silence. I digested this information whilst attempting to keep my face neutral. The faint tic at the corner of Arlo’s mouth, however, indicated to me that he’d noticed the feverish gleam in my eyes.

                “So it’s still ali—” I began.

                “We didn’t destroy it.” He interjected in a corrective tone. This was the first and only sign of his having a personal opinion on the matter. A heady rush of blood pounded into my ears, dizzying my senses as my heart rate soared.

                “I would like to see it this evening if at all possible.” I stated swiftly and a bit breathily. He rejoined with a questioning yet quiet gaze. “I want to write some observational notes, take photos and measurements.” He seemed unconvinced. “Monitor it if you will.” I rapped my fingers swiftly against the table’s surface, thrusting my glasses up with a furious forefinger. “I need to see what it’s doing to its structure, Arlo, before I can even begin hypothesizing the defect causing this.” He stared hard at me for several long moments, gaze only breaking when the server returned with our plates, pleasantly setting them before the both of us. Apparently moved to some semblance of human decency, Mr. Wright smiled at the waitress and inclined his head, a softly grunted utterance of appreciation accompanying this uncharacteristic gesture. Arlo did not resume our staring contest, instead picking up his eating utensils and laying into his meal like a starving wolf. He did however possess better table manners and waved his fork vaguely in the direction of my comestibles.

                “Enjoy. It’s on the Company tab.” He said this casually – I hesitate to ascribe the word “jovial” to such a man – indicating that he did not wish to continue our discussion until after we ate.

                Glancing down at the steaming pile of dead matter before me, I suffered my usual lack of appetite. As I believe I’d mentioned previously, my wife Cheryl was the only person capable of inciting a semblance of normality in me for any substantial length of time and this included self-care. My withered and shrunken stomach had long ago ceased complaining of its neglect, and thus I had little interest in wasting time in this restaurant when there was so fascinating a prospect before me. What Arlo described might have been a kind of cellular fusion, only of multi- rather than single-cellular organisms. Or was this, instead, a variant of symbiotic colonization similar to that of coral polyps?  Given the unique genetic makeup of my creation, anything was possible. The prime directive for Fred understandably seemed to be survival. In this case, the conglomerate must survive, whether in single or multiple units. I was curious to study this behavior.

                “Not hungry?” Arlo muttered, waking me from my reverie. I focused my attention on him once more, knowing that this man was my key to the kingdom. I offered a terse smile, picking up my utensils and cutting a piece of extra rare steak. The blood dripped and rejoined the small pool near the incision.

                “I was analyzing the information you gave me,” I explained, “though it is difficult to assess the scope of things without seeing it in person.” The man-mountain took another bite, chewing thoughtfully. He reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew his cell phone, rapidly tapping out his code and navigating to an unknown destination. I wondered whether he was about to make a call, hopefully to plant security regarding a late night visit to see the creature. Instead he thumbed around, swallowing his mouthful and turning his phone toward me. Instantly my eyes widened, fork and knife forgotten and clattering down to the table as I seized the proffered device. Other diners turned to survey the scene in the nosy fashion of simple folk, but my attention was fixated on the image before me.

                The photo on the screen was at first unrecognizable. Slowly I discerned the skin’s surface, so like Fred’s back on my desk at home. The lumpy form was unmistakably that of several Freds, as if they’d been made of dough and hadn’t fully separated. The real question was whether they maintained separate body functions or were broken down and reformed into a larger creature. I swiped across the screen to summon up other views of this wonderfully demoniac monstrosity, yet this only whetted my appetite. I was frustrated, wishing to transfer it at once to the lab for full analysis in its current state. Instead I was in a worn-out backwater having dinner with a monolith who might not guide me to it until the following day. I took off my glasses and set them on the table, leaning in.

                “It is imperative that I see it this evening, Arlo.” I stated gravely, the color draining from my hawkish face at the notion of waiting. His even gaze matched mine, and after several breaths he nodded and leaned back.

                “All right.” He tossed his napkin onto the table, plucking his phone from my bony hand and putting it back in his pocket. “I’d say perhaps it’s best you didn’t eat so you don’t get sick when you get there, but somethin’ tells me you aren’t much bothered by that kind of thing.” I smiled ghoulishly.

                “I’m a scientist.”

                There is nothing more peculiar than the sensation one feels when stumbling across the ghosts of the past. He stood there much the same as he’d been so many years ago when I’d nearly killed him: unassuming and approachable, with warmth to his eyes and vitality to his skin belying his intrinsic weakness. This selfsame likeability was the wellspring from which I’d derived my impulse to place him in a subordinate position: a test subject sacrificed in my pursuit of life science mastery. Yet Fred had lived, much to my regret.

                His eyes were downcast at this particular moment, features twisted into an expression of grief and remorse. He watched the coffin being lowered into the wet, clammy earth perfectly cut to receive it. There weren’t many people at the funeral of Porter Graemes: a buxom blonde with heavily pierced ears, two children and an older woman – presumably the grandmother – in tow, likely his family; Fred and a couple of other vaguely familiar faces; and myself. Given the lackluster nature of the curt obituary, I could only conjecture that the bright-eyed yet troubled boy I’d socialized with in my youth had grown up to accomplish little more than wasting space. He’d had more lines on his face than the average man of our generation: proof of his accumulated worries and hard-worn lifestyle. I could see from that single photo what had become of him: drinking, drugs and parties in his teen and early adult years followed by settling down with a family and little ambition to an empty, monotonous stream of meaningless jobs. He was, in the end, just the same as the rest of the human race.

                Fred however seemed clean-cut and well off, as though he’d taken care to stay out of trouble and improve his health rather than resigning himself to a life of couch surfing. That he was athletic was no secret, as his posture was arrow-straight and his clothes seemed decorative nods to decency rather than a method of hiding a body he felt self-conscious about as was so frequently the case among his peers. Porter had been a willing accomplice to the trick which sent Fred to the hospital with severe anaphylactic shock, and although the two continued to be friends after the fact I puzzled over seeing him here now. Then again, I too had surfaced.

                I wasn’t exactly sure what small spark of nostalgia had ignited within me and granted me the drive to stand watch over this pitiful procession of events in such dreary weather. Indeed, it seemed at once both cliché and cinematic, raining and grey as if it were film noir or the tragic ending to a war drama. Yet neither of these was appropriate for the useless, embalmed carcass already decaying on his final bed. His coffin was likely far richer a resting place than he’d ever known in his animate existence. Idly I pondered whether such a man had life insurance enough to cover the burial. He must have, however, as cremation was a far more economical option. Either Porter had possessed enough presence of mind to purchase appropriate coverage for such an event, or his family loved him far more than the now-faceless decaying matter deserved. Given what I knew of the man in his youth, one was just as likely as the other.

                Sheer coincidence had sent me back to my old hometown. The Company happened to own a factory farm in the region and sent me to check up on some…aberrations…that the workers had begun to notice among the manufactured meat sacks cultivated there. Given that I was the lead researcher who’d designed the things to begin with, it was decided that I was the natural choice for this particular chore. I’d flown in that very morning, taken my time checking into my hotel, and opted to make my appearance at the cemetery as my initial meeting with the plant manager was a dinner engagement.

I’m certain that Watson somehow found a way to hold sway in the matter. He’d been less than excited when I’d been granted a key to the lab. Out of spite and general loathing I knew he’d jumped at the chance to be rid of me in the short term. But really, the man was dreadfully dull-witted. After all, had he sent one of his brown-nosed underlings in my stead he might have just uncovered my little creation’s secret. I was almost eager to see the factory, knowing that I’d find growths similar to that of Fred’s back in my study. Yes, I’d named my little creation after that very same gleaming specimen of a man who seemed to radiate legitimate mourning alongside his general beauty. His severe allergy – intense enough to have been proven life-threatening by my own experimentation – was his Achilles’ heel.

The final clods of dirt were tossed over the box as delusional, tired claims of Porter's salvation were uttered by a gravel-voiced old priest. Then came the few bunches of flowers, all grocery store purchases save the beautiful, snowy display touted by Fred (who else among this bunch would have been able to afford it, or have bothered). All stood in silence. I glanced over at the blonde whom I’d concluded was Porter’s widow, noticing her stoic yet severely broken expression as she attempted to keep her emotions in check. The smaller child, color-coded as the boy, did not understand the proceedings and whined plaintively out of physical discomfort given the inclement weather. The bigger one was of ambiguous gender, with shaggy hair and no particular color or accessory denoting it as a boy or a girl. It was as sober as its mother, though as the friends of the family all left it finally ran to the burial mound and fell to its knees, sobbing quietly and calling for its father. The mother's self-control cracked when the child did. She handed the boy to the grandmother before running to the androgynous child’s side, wrapping her arms around it as they wailed together.

Such was the time for me to take my leave. I hadn’t anything to feel sentimental for, and already obliged my nostalgia as far as my rational mind would extend such courtesy. My thoughts were already bent on the notion of a hot cup of coffee. I whistled to myself as I withdrew the key to my rental car, sauntering at what was for me a chipper gait in that general direction, pleasantly anticipating taking my leave the dank, moody outdoors. Nature was only interesting to me insofar as I broke it down and reorganized it. If it wasn’t in code format, under my knife or microscope I simple could not be bothered. Unlike Fred, I’d never been more physically active than my general health required.

“John!” I pretended not to hear him. The simpering fool seemed to feel the need to reminiscence with me for reasons beyond my comprehension. I unlocked the door to my vehicle, snapping my umbrella neatly shut and tossing it onto the passenger-side floorboard, slipping my key into the ignition while pulling my door shut. I was not rewarded with the satisfying slam I’d intended, however, as Fred materialized with his hand staying the entrance and his large umbrella spanning the gap. “John!” he said again, quieter now, his smile painfully brilliant and genuine. I stared up at him blankly, feigning ignorance.

“Excuse me, do I know you?” I hissed, my voice a mixture of indifference and irritation. I wanted to ensure that he understood that his continued presence was an imposition.

“You did in grade school.” His smile grew maddeningly wider as he extended his hand. “Fred Wilkes.” I looked at his hand, removing my glasses and making a show of wiping them.

“Ah yes. You were hospitalized.” His smile faltered slightly and I felt a twinge of cruel satisfaction, the corner of my mouth ticking upward slightly. “Can I help you?”

“I just thought we could catch up a little.” Idly I wondered if I could have generated some form of gas I might have administered to trigger his allergies. I’d have rather enjoyed watching his form crumple and gasp for air in my wake.

“We didn’t keep in touch for a reason.” I placed my glasses back on my face, feeling them immediately begin to slide down my nose again. I peered up at him with dead eyes over their rims, using the metal for effect. “Now if you would please—?” I uttered, gesturing to the hand preventing my door from shutting.

“…Yes, of course. Take care of yourself, okay?” He replied quietly, smiling again as he withdrew his hand.  

I did not respond. Shutting my door at long last, the engine roared to life. I drove off, glancing up at my rearview only once to see his gentle expression trailing after me, an irritating reminder of my first failed experiment.

                The muscles in the old woman’s face pulled taut, drawing her lips back from her teeth in a kindly yet impersonal smile. The movement seemed to trigger a certain cracking of her liver-spotted and sagging flesh, sending ever more wrinkles fracturing across each square inch of space. Her gnarled hand sought my own and felt like cold, soft, dry leather upon contact. Her nails were cut short and properly manicured so as to set an example for the little girls in class, just in case there were nail biters among them. Her snowy hair was like a neatly-coifed cotton tuft crowning the bright eyes and withered features in aged glory. She wore timeless pastel raiment easily identifiable as “grandma on an outing” clothes.

                “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Helling, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I trust you didn’t have any trouble finding the classroom. Cheryl tells me that you’ve been very busy with work and are, in fact, leaving in the morning on business.” Her voice was that of a younger woman, full-throated and rich, with a certain edge to it. Her manner of inflection and the slight hardness she affected in the use of particular words suggested a sort of warning, or perhaps more accurately a challenge. Through these means she attempted to establish her dominance as the authority in this situation, and I the vassal meant solely to consent and enact change in order to rectify what she viewed as a disturbance in her realm. I shook her hand firmly, calculating that she was likely at least mildly arthritic. The slight twinge as I did so confirmed my assumption.

                “Mrs. Baker. No, I didn’t, and yes, I am.” She gestured to an armless plastic chair she’d pulled up to her desk, carefully positioning herself in her more comfortable seat even as she folded her hands into a seamless mass of crags. I sat in my allotted space, sliding my glasses back up with one hand as our gaze locked. There was a pregnant pause long enough to trigger my impatience at interruption to my usual routine. “Tell me why I’m here, Mrs. Baker.” 

                “Yes of course,” she breathed, shaking her head slightly as if stirred from a reverie. She’d been sizing me up and likely attempting to psychoanalyze me. Good luck. She opened a manila folder on her desk complete with a tab labeled “Darren” in thick blue marker. She withdrew a sheet of construction paper and looked at it pointedly before handing it to me. Taking and examining it, I could easily intuit the given project.  A house (presumably ours) was in the distance to one side. There were several disproportionate, flat people rendered with nonetheless acute attention so that each was instantly recognizable. Cheryl was holding a laden plate and a Bible, an exaggerated smile on her face. Darren was playing with his toys near his mother. Scout was next to him as a nondescript brown blob identifiable only by his wagging tail and ears. I however was standing apart, very tall and spindly with large insect-like glasses for eyes. I carried a vial in my hand containing bright green liquid. The crowning glory of Darren’s depiction was the pale, pinkish blob attached to its feeding apparatus, multitude of limbs spread out as if the boy had counted them as he drew, the small tentacle protruding from its stomach with a spider at the end of it. Apparently he had rather recently been in my office while I was away. I couldn’t help but smirk slightly despite Mrs. Baker’s watchful stare.

                “Interesting.” I said pensively, remembering to shake my head in order to affect wonderment.

                “Isn’t it?” she replied in a slightly accusatory tone. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees as if she were a coach about to give me an inspirational talk. “The assignment was to draw his family. I asked him about that—” here she pointed to the creature between me and the rest of my family, “—and he told me that it was his brother. That his name is Fred.” I looked at the drawing and then at the teacher. 

                “This is what you called me in for?” I uttered, mildly incredulous. 

                “Cheryl recommended that I speak to you because this is obviously tied to Darren’s impression of his father.”

“I’m a genetic engineer, Mrs. Baker. The neighbors reportedly take great pleasure in ascribing the role of Dr. Frankenstein to me particularly because I’m a very busy man. Children are quiet imaginative. If there were a problem with him don’t you think his drawing would be more frightening than a little pink monster sitting at my feet like a pet?” She stared at me long and hard for the span of several moments. Finally she broke the trance with a sigh.

                “I’m also worried about his emotional state, Mr. Helling. He won’t play with the other children.”

                “He doesn’t share their interests.”

                “He doesn’t have any friends. Don’t you find that a little odd?"

                “I don’t. I was a quiet child, myself.” 

                “I think your son would benefit from counseling.” It was my turn to lean in close, raising my brows and tilting my head to look at her over the rims of my glasses, clasping my hands loosely. I enunciated each word firmly and distinctly. 

                “If Darren is exhibiting behavioral issues or doing poorly in class, you can certainly let me or Cheryl know. My boy doesn’t like the children in your class and isn’t going to like you for forcing him to interact with them more than is necessary. Rather than pushing him, you need to let him be himself. Children are bullies enough on their own without help from their teachers. Good night, Mrs. Baker.”

                She was entirely dumbfounded by my denunciation of her presentation and found herself unable to reply. Inevitably Cheryl would receive a lengthy email or phone call about the meeting supplying exaggerations of my response and vehemently offering rebuttal, but it was Cheryl’s contrivance which placed me under fire. She wouldn’t dare broach the subject of Mrs. Baker’s reaction with me. As to my son…

                It was high time I gave him some introductory lessons in biology.

                The nostrils of his broad, whistling nose flared with indignation even as his lower lip quivered and promptly stiffened. Mr. Dovak considered me silently with an untrusting and calculating gaze, the keyboard tray half retracted under his desk in a forgotten fashion and the ringing of his office phone disregarded as so much white noise. He was, I noted, the father of two bright-eyed blonde girls and a devout Christian as indicated by the bric-a-brac hanging like trophies along the wall behind his desk amid the maze of certificates marking his more general scholarly and Company-specific achievements. Everything bore a fine, long settled whitish-grey film of dust across the upward-facing edges. The minute flakes of human skin – mostly his own – had been wiped clear of the work surface and more visible areas of the room by the janitors. These contract maintenance workers cared not a whit for the various honors or windows into Mr. Dovak’s forty some-odd years of life. Apparently he himself bore a similar response as he hadn’t chided the custodians for their oversight. The dead skin thus remained a testament to the man’s attendance and hard work, just as lost to oblivion as the meal he’d eaten on this day a month ago.

                “You want a key to the lab,” he stated in disbelief, repeating my earlier request. This prompted me to adjust my gaze back to his beady black eyes, miniscule against the wrinkled, tanned creases extending from the corners like rays. Flecks of the fluorescent office lighting reflected from the upper curves, revealing the slight bump of his contact lenses. His sight wasn’t poor enough to require glasses yet, and I surmised that he’d resisted the temptation of corrective surgery due to old-fashioned values. These were stolid indications of how best to manipulate my answer to placate him. I didn’t wish for the Company to learn about this development in Fred.

                “For working after-hours,” I responded smoothly in a near-purr, offering him a cool smile in deference. “I realize the Company’s urgency. At times I’ve had epiphanies strike at home, and I keep finding myself wishing I had access to the lab to get a head start on testing my adjustments.” I paused, glancing at the caller ID as the phone sprung to life again. Noting my shifting attention, Mr. Dovak extended a hand and flicked the ringer on mute without breaking his studious gaze. I turned my head back to him, thrusting a finger up to shove my glasses against my brow line as they’d slid inexorably downward once more.

                “Why are you coming to me rather than your supervisor?” he shot back, “I’m not in charge of the lab.” I allowed a respectful interlude long enough to show mild obeisance before responding with strident honesty.

                “Mr. Watson doesn’t seem to grasp the sincerity of my efforts,” I advised, recalling with acute distain the flat rejection he’d offered. “Nor does he seem as interested in furthering Company interests as controlling his particular niche.” I allowed a trickle of my disapproval to seep into my voice, my lip curling up ever so slightly, flashing a hint of teeth. Judging by the trifling tic I noticed whilst Mark’s eyes remained calm, his opinion of the man was lower than his wariness in the face of my request.

                He placed a hand to his clean-shaven chin, rubbing it almost imperceptibly as if lost in thought. I examined him as one might examine an insect crawling underfoot. This incognizant Company man sitting in his overstuffed chair was the deciding factor in whether or not I would have unobstructed access to work with Fred’s genetic code at my own discretion. I needed the lab equipment in order to conduct the chemical testing necessary to seek out and isolate the section of rDNA responsible for his as yet inexplicable adaptability. I didn’t wish for prying eyes to discover the specifics of this research. I was the lead scientist working on the F-series coding, but I had a team of technicians working to assist me with monitoring, testing and other such tasks. After the initial production of Fred’s brethren I was given permanent employ in the R&D department as the Company dabbled in more than just a restaurant chain or two and had its finger on the pulse of the food production industry. Self-sufficiently it therefore kept staff on hand to examine further possibilities into the manufacture of new monsters to feed the general populace. 
                The inimitable Mr. Watson was quite the micromanager, adept at hovering over each employee and ruining the concentration of even the most intense technician with a volley of questions. He wanted to know if this analysis was strictly necessary to the work at hand; if this were the first or fifth trial and how many variables had changed; whether this or that sequence had been isolated, properly bonded, et al. He jabbered on and pinched pennies, driving many of the gentler hired hands to drinking or smoking, if they hadn’t previously possessed that vice. The R&D lab continually suffered from poor morale and the HR department – including Mark Dovak – had tasted quite enough of the fruits of Mr. Watson’s labors.

                “Let me remind you, John, that you are salary. If I were to agree to this, you would not receive any further financial compensation.” My reptilian smile widened. He believed he knew precisely what I was hinting at: that Mr. Watson was the cause of some sort of slowdown in my teams’ progress, and thus I was really asking for permission to pursue my research without my supervisor’s interference. The former was untrue, but Mr. Dovak was disinclined to sleuth things out for himself. He was by and large a hands-off sort of dictator with egomaniacal middle manager syndrome. In my case, however, I knew he would personally handle my inquiry the moment I left his office. His reaction, though subtle to the average observer, spoke volumes. He disliked the recalcitrant Mr. Watson more than he felt uneasy around me. I worked quickly, quietly and bothered no one.

                “Of course, Mark. I wasn’t expecting any. I am simply eager to pursue this as a scientist.” He examined me momentarily before looking away, and I knew I’d won. His computer screen had entered power save mode and had flicked off several minutes prior, thus he pulled his keyboard tray out and wiggled his mouse. The monitor obediently flashed back to life. He straightened and scooted his chair closer to his desk as he cleared his throat.

                “I’ll see what I can do. I can’t make any promises.”

                “Thank you.” I responded with as much warmth as I could muster. I turned on my heel, taking my leave. I expected to receive my key tomorrow morning.

Fred’s tentacle had developed only under prolonged life-threatening duress, yet required a few days to manifest. The short-term power outages had not been enough to generate the response. In my home office I’d left Fred independent of his life support, and had in fact set a dish of water out of reach before leaving for the day. I was excited to know what might have come of the experiment. The man-made horrors furnishing “chicken” meat to the Company’s fast food chains should not have cause to develop in the same manner as Fred. Even if they did, the average processing plant employee would just dismiss it as a mutation and move the monstrosity down the line. All the same, I had to work quickly to learn all that I could. Any of the technicians in my team – all working with my creation in order to streamline different parts of the growth, development and harvesting – could potentially stumble across this oddity as well. I needed to mislead them during the day, pursuing my true research at night after they left.

I was the one piecing together the puzzle of these recombinant creations, yet I was hired by men desiring to feed their fellows genetically modified meat from animals with far too many legs, far too few bones, and little to no brain. These employers in fact decreed that society must pay them for the privilege of these tasty morsels. My department’s goal was to drive costs down so the upper management could reap heftier profits. I doubt a single one of them had ever tasted Fred’s brethren. Fewer still would ever consider it. In the face of this, who then was the true demon?

                She wished to fornicate. I couldn’t fathom why. Perhaps it was the dashing young valet at the theater who’d kissed her hand with a charming smile as we’d taken our leave. It may have been the play itself, which featured some inane love affair of the sort that always seemed to arrest her attention and transformed her face into something light, vibrant and rapt with wonder. Still another alternative to which I so frequently attributed her inexplicable, wasted notions was that she was hormonal. She’d reached the age when women are at their ripest for proliferation, thus it was the most logical solution to the equation. I knew for certain, however, that this desire hadn’t been triggered by my unassuming demeanor. It was only in my younger years prior to being granted the acclaim and resources befitting my genius that I’d had the time and inclination towards such frivolities. Quite the interesting subject she had been then, in the era when my body sought to examine her in those carnal methods so distinctly foreign from my usual clinical manner.

Cheryl’s breath quickened, growing shallow. Her skin assumed a rosy tint as the blood rose to the surface, her capillaries opening all the way. A few wisps of hair had fallen loose from her barrette, trailing across her bare shoulders. The small gold medallion of Saint Margaret of Antioch lay nestled in her bosom, an ever-constant companion intended to ward off family trouble and devils. I ceaselessly derived wry amusement from this as the charm has proven ineffectual in my presence during our weary years together. Her knees spread a little wider in a manner which would have been nigh imperceptible to the average unobservant male. She spoke volumes without parting her lips.

“You look ravishing this evening.” I told her as I turned the final corner winding us out of the ritzier arts district and into the decay of downtown. It would take one hour and twenty-five minutes to return home from this old yet modest city, the nearest civilization containing an iota of culture. Cheryl insisted that we partake of these entertainments at least once a month. She had been born into a modestly well-off family, and thus required a few basic luxuries despite an otherwise textbook existence. As it’d been a couple of months since I’d last done my husbandly duty, I knew it would smooth over the next leg of the year should I acquiesce to her unspoken wishes. Her maidenly blush indicated that she hadn’t yet grown sick of my general disinterest. She still hung on my praises as she had for years. I suppose I yet remained a curiosity to her.

“I paid the babysitter for an extra hour,” she began suggestively in a soft lilt. Her painted lips parted momentarily, but she reconsidered her words and trailed off with a glance toward me in askance. Cheryl was hardly adept at reading my expression, yet she valiantly attempted it every chance she had. Popular culture had instilled in her the belief that as my wife and long-time lover she should be fully capable of peering into my soul with the merest glimpse. Ironically she hadn’t ever stopped to notice that I didn’t have a soul.

Without another word I pulled into a local motel of questionable repute. It was the sort of place that screamed “hourly rates.” This fine establishment was notorious as an unholy yet necessary stomping ground for discreet love trysts, affairs, one-night stands and anything else requiring the room be scrubbed with bleach from top to bottom prior to admitting the next client. The particular flora and fauna of each compartment was likely a colorful mixture that would overwhelm any petri dish, yet it was specifically because of its seedy reputation that Cheryl simply adored it. I conjectured that it was the element of taboo which aroused such enthusiasm. She consistently grew angry and ashamed when I inquired after her reasoning, thus in order to preserve my quietude I’d abandoned pursuit of that particular knowledge. We’d frequented the place upon our initial arrival to this region, and still partook of its perennial glory here and there over the course of the years. For whatever reason Cheryl was almost adverse to propagation in our own bed. I believed that this fact more than my overwhelming apathy was the cause of her failure to play the part of a good Catholic and fill the streets with little wild-eyed, God-fearing holy rollers. Not that I was complaining.

How, my colleagues queried amongst themselves any time they saw her, had I managed to both bed and wed so lovely a creature as Cheryl? Though I possessed a moderately attractive countenance, it was often devoid of warmth and attached to the gangly body of a naturally long and thin individual who spent most of his time in one spot. I’d never been poor, yet I’d similarly not been rich either. While Cheryl and I had once shared some common interests, I did not inconvenience myself to include her in my doings. The truth of the matter lay in my powers of observation and tireless, dispassionate modification of my methods of pleasing her. My relationship with her was treated like any other form of research I undertook, and thus I would attempt innumerable techniques aimed at engendering good will and catalogue her response to each. Some had a consistent effect; others only seemed to work under specific conditions; still others were considered absolutely repugnant at all times. Occasionally the results surprised me. The lingering wisps of her religious pretense often deterred her from less socially accepted forms of sexual gratification despite her obvious pleasure, for example. This love motel, however, was one reliable vice which she’d eternally preserved.

Her hand began petting my thigh the moment I’d pulled into that familiar parking lot. She opened the car door before I’d put the vehicle in park, barely clearing the curb with the tall heels of her dress shoes. She stumbled and fell into my arms as we mounted the stairs in our pursuit of the appropriate room number. While Cheryl adored romance with the inborn, wanting hunger of the dispossessed, she’d legitimately tripped in her childlike eagerness. This afforded me no small amusement, and for this I tilted her chin and kissed her so deeply that another couple – under the influence of any number of mind-altering substances – guffawed and whooped at the sight. The man tossed his short-skirted companion onto the hood of the nearest car with the intention of mimicking my apparent eagerness only to find the alarm tripped and the sharp, insistent wail piercing their ears. They yelped and guiltily scurried off around the corner, chased by the foul curses of those disturbed by their plight. I couldn’t resist a rare chuckle as Cheryl and I ascended, and I felt the stirrings of desire rousing from its stupor of disuse. It may have been triggered by a spike of testosterone: a primal need to compete with another male in the presence of a ready and waiting female. Regardless of the source, we hurried off to our room and allowed our humanity to overwhelm us.

                The ride home was taken in that sleepy and sated fashion reserved for creatures who’d eaten their fill: cats with cream, snakes with entire rats bulging noticeably along their sides, buzzards with whole carcasses to themselves. Cheryl dozed lazily with her head lolling against the window, her gown disheveled and her makeup faded, revealing puffy lips swollen from “kisses and lovemaking,” as she preferred to call it. The miles whirred by as I sealed my mortality away for another month, mind filling with formulae and theory. I still had a few more adjustments to make to Fred’s kin at the Company lab before I could release the little horrors for examination and ultimately mass production. Mr. Dovak had the FDA in his back pocket. Every man had his price, and that genial southern gentleman had a way of finding it. I’d been an easy sell. What of the government? After its approval stateside, the Company would seek worldwide distribution authorization. Foreign nations would be trickier to handle, and in particular foreign news sources would have to be treated with the utmost respect. Bad press could make or break the whole enterprise, but if Mr. Dovak and his cronies could sell this product to the public as a more compassionate method of meat production – the creatures only had brain stems rather than fully-developed brains, after all – and spin some line about ending world hunger while tossing some donations to a charity or two they could likely pull it off. My case study of Cheryl provided me invaluable insight into the selfish and self-righteous dispositions of the general populace, thus it was with no small confidence that I’d embarked upon this particular voyage of employment anticipating its success.

                The babysitter placidly took her leave upon our arrival at the house, indifferent to my wife’s disarray or our atypical tardiness. Darren had already gone to bed, and thus after seeing Cheryl off to sleep I retired to my study, the creaking of the floorboards left unnoticed by the unconscious members of the household. Flicking on my desk lamp, I noticed two astonishing things: first, Fred had fallen over, apparently having struggled to alert someone to his starvation and dehydration; second, a small tendril hesitantly squirmed in response to the light, protruding from what would have been Fred’s belly. The thin tentacle had looped itself around a spider and was pulsing, apparently squeezing the dead creature.

                My creation seemed to have rapidly modified its structure as best it could in order to survive. The spider was decayed as though dissolved by digestive juices, even though there was no visible mouth on the tendril. I could only conjecture upon initial observation that the skin secreted the juice and perhaps reabsorbed the dissolved arachnid. My mind whirled with possibilities and I immediately withdrew my notepad, jotting rapturously. Some facet of Fred’s genetic makeup afforded him the capacity to evolve at an unparalleled rate. Rather than altering generationally, he created a new mechanism for obtaining food in a matter of days. I smiled, my face a hellish wasteland devoid of compassion. The darkness shifted around me as my gloating laugh reverberated lasciviously. I would uncover the nature of Fred’s change and exploit it. Visions of what I could do with this knowledge wracked my body with the throes of desire and ecstasy, the Company’s goals forgotten.

I was God.

I was the Devil.

And I had only just begun.

From my earliest imaginings I was obsessed with becoming God. The sheer power granted to one capable of deconstruction as well as assembly –intimate knowledge of what makes an object inherently motile – was simply beyond measure, and I desired it above all other things. Had I applied this in becoming a watchmaker, mechanic or another of the varying strata firmly embedded in the sediment of manual labor it would have been immediately accepted and encouraged. Unfortunately for my family, my driving need to understand inner workings was centered exclusively and rather enthusiastically on organic rather than inorganic matter.

The first creature I recall dissecting was a fly that had been caught on a pest strip twirling in the breeze on our patio one summer. I remember how excited I’d become in seeing it struggling there, still living and intact. I’d run inside and commandeered my mother’s tweezers, taking the fly paper down carefully and watching the creature struggle for several moments. Satisfied with my observations, I seized one of its legs with the metal instrument and pulled until it ripped free, collapsing onto the glue. I paused and watched it squirm. An idea struck me and I wondered what might become of it if I tore all its legs off, setting it free in removing its glued limbs. Intrigued, I set to work extracting each of the tiny black appendages. They were no thicker than a piece of thread, and so I quickly found the tweezers to be ungainly and difficult to maneuver on such a small form. The last popped off and I half expected the fly to buzz and jerk free, but instead it collapsed on its side in the glue, barely struggling. Did flies have pain receptors, I wondered? I reached for a wing, fully of the opinion that I shouldn’t let this opportunity go to waste.

When my mother found me, she screamed. She ordered me to put the pest strip back and never do such a horrible thing again. When she discovered her tweezers in my small hand replete with fly remains firmly pressed between the metal tips, she was nearly hysterical. My father materialized as if from the air itself whilst her hyperbolic reaction escalated, inquiring as to the cause. He was by contract unperturbed by my actions and barely glanced at me, telling his wife that she was overreacting. That all boys eventually did things like this by their very nature, just as little girls play house. When she carried on, he promised to buy her an entirely new beauty set, winked at me and told me to keep the tweezers. This solved the bulk of the issue in my mother’s eyes as she’d been given a reward for her tirade. The matter settled, my parents left and I was thereafter far more careful with where I performed my experiments.

They never found my little laboratory behind the shed. My tools were makeshift utensils swiped during special occasions when the house was full: a steak knife from the holiday dinner party, a skewer from the barbecue, a set of pins from the sewing club and so forth, leaving my mother to conjecture which good-for-nothing invitee had taken it. I’d found a discarded piece of plywood to use as a dissection table, and pulled a pair of my mother’s cleaning gloves from the trash after she’d bought new ones. All of this accumulation was a slow process, but was quite necessary to my budding career as a biologist.

At first I dissected other insects, which no one cared about: flies, moths, worms, cockroaches and so forth – anything I could catch. After that came small animals like frogs and mice, of which I required several and thus were best collected and examined in the spring when they were reproducing and in large supply. I made diagrams and only later compared these to the books in the library, interested in discovering it all for myself. I couldn’t fashion a reliable blueprint from only one carcass, particularly because I lacked the chemicals necessary to preserve it throughout its disassembly.

The following year my father constructed a second shed in the backyard which was to be my “clubhouse.” I theorized that he’d observed my steadily growing and completely unquenchable thirst for science, and had opted to give me a place to follow my whim. Initially I’d feared that he may have found my outdoor lab, which I’d been careful to tear down and disperse after each session. In hindsight it was more probable that he’d stumbled across my diagrams and notes and hadn’t bothered to sort out where I was creating them. It would provide me with a place to do “boyish things” with my friends: this was the mask which hid the truer purpose of its construction from my mother’s horrified eyes. My mistrusting mother was only assuaged when my father insisted that he, too, had a clubhouse when he was young – only his was in a tree, so she’d better not keep fussing or it would be up in a tree he’d place it. My father knew full well that I lacked a use for friends, being so entirely self-contained and independent as to always have my own agenda. I had no urge to socialize, and in fact I found it tiring. My clubhouse, then, became a makeshift lab, upgraded from the one I’d pieced together behind my father’s shed.

I found the value in work at an early age. Money was a means by which I could acquire more tools for my research and experimentation. My mother was pleased when I began running errands and doing chores for neighbors for pay, because it raised her status in the local eye as her son was so industrious and responsible. Had she but known what I’d turned around and used that same money for she’d have torn down my clubhouse and despite her general distaste for me, forbid me from leaving her sight. That never did happen, however, and so my secret was quite safe.

My interest in life expanded to an interest in chemistry and I immediately became that much more powerful. I could create explosives from common household materials for example, not that I’d needed them. The other children at school were but mice inherently frightened of my owlish stillness and intense observation. I was not bullied; rather, I was generally avoided. This was perfectly satisfactory to me; I had little use for humans as I couldn’t legally experiment on them.

The only exception to this was one compassionate and low-born yet amazing little boy who displayed intelligence equal to my own. His interest lay more in history than science and he had a rather peculiar taste for unexplained occurrences. He would unfailingly begin our conversations by telling me a story, following it up with a series of open-ended suppositions that he laid out just before settling and looking to me in askance for my opinion. He inquired after the scientific theories behind my answer whenever I offered one. When I didn’t, he would come to some succinct conclusion about the tale’s greater meaning. He at once straddled the world of the affable jock and the studious recluse, both impulsive and thoughtful. He was, in short, a string of contrasts thrown together and somehow cohabitating in a single body: the type of boy that other boys wished to become.

He was the trigger that ignited most of my few fond memories of my younger years. He had an angelic face and soft-hearted nature, but his restless interest often left him bored and in need of something to feed it regardless of the recklessness or potential harm inflicted by his chosen course. That is where I and my science came in, much as his fearlessness and social adaptability intrigued me. In reading his obituary now, I can only laugh. He’d amounted to nothing and had died pointlessly, as so often happens. Had the robber who’d shot him only left his brain intact, I might have requisitioned it for study in the name of science using my pull at the university, as he was surely an organ donor. I’d long ago forgotten his name, much as he’d been such an amusement to me during grade school.

Porter Graemes. 

     All day he sat patiently. The sky changed from ebony to deep pre-dawn blue. Rays of warmer hues lightened the ultraviolet as the sun approached the horizon only to surpass it in its steady trek across the firmament. He, like the Sun, stood watch day after day without eyes to witness the splendor of the world. The celestial being was a fixed point in space commanding all manner of planets, stars and other space debris to twirl in a never-ending dance about it. The same was true of Fred, though no one and nothing revolved around him. He was after all manufactured to serve one purpose only: to be grown, slaughtered and processed in the most economical fashion possible so that the masses could eat his meat for the lowest cost while still turning satisfactory profit through volume.

     The feeding tube was nearly dry. John hadn’t attended to Fred’s apparatus in some time. The creature had lost weight, but the scientist was so thoroughly enthralled in his work that he hadn’t noticed. At first Fred flailed a little when John was in the room in an attempt to get his creator’s attention. Having no mouth or vocal cords, he could not call and his efforts were in vain. He sat there on the desk with a dry tube and nothing to nourish him, patiently dying.

     Many would argue whether his existence could be considered living. Whether it mattered, as he wasn’t a creature of God but instead an abomination technologically constructed by man. Fred had no soul, they’d say. The pittance of grey matter that his genetic code allowed for was just barely enough to afford his growth. He affected life, but he was horrible to behold with freakish multiple limbs like a spider, no features or mobility and indeed no survivability at all without the pipettes. He was dependent, like a fetus. His mother was neglectful however and the womb was outside John’s body, thus greatly endangering Fred’s capacity to continue on without manual maintenance.

     He sat patiently dying and affecting life whilst great lofty intelligences debated the morality of his coming into being. Little did he know that he would become a catalyst for nightmares, urban legends, and activism. He was wholly unaware of the many people who would retch and swear off fast food for a week upon first beholding his form just prior to lapsing back into complacency and indifference. Simultaneously ignored and focused on, Fred suffered in that singular fashion reserved for glamorous stars, abominations and children.

     Hours passed, the clock on the wall methodically interrupting the silence as motes of dust floated on unseen currents of air, catching the light as they crossed the beams peeking in from the drawn curtains. It was stifling, but Fred didn’t have to worry about sweating out his dwindling water supply as he had no such glands to regulate his temperature. They were inconvenient and thus excluded from his genetic coding. John was away, and so the window A/C unit hadn’t been set for some time and the ventilation in the old house left something to be desired. None of this was apparent to Fred, whose lack of sensory organs and larger regions of the brain kept him from the tedium of his wasting existence.

     Sometime in the afternoon as the sun began to shift and elongate the shadows, the air stirred and danced invisibly away from the door as it creaked ominously open. Smallish feet scuffed the floor as Fred’s brother Darren entered the office despite having been forbidden to do so. Carefully he looked around and shut the portal behind himself, wincing as the hinges offered up dull groans of protest. His eyes locked on Fred. He paid no attention to the papers, furniture, books or other objects in the room as they held less fascination for him than the specks of dust gliding past the window on unknowable missions driven by inertia. The strange creation engineered by his father, however, was of immediate and ongoing curiosity.

     Darren drew close and stood on the chair, leaning over the desk carefully so as to leave the allegedly organized chaos of John’s workspace undisturbed. He breathed slowly and hotly through his mouth. He didn’t blink. He lingered this way in anticipation of Fred’s eventual motion, not knowing that the thing had grown weak from starvation. After several minutes, he shifted his weight and placed a hand on the worn wood, extending the index finger of his opposite hand in an almost accusatory gesture. He paused several inches from Fred’s skin.

     “Hey!” he tested. Fred did nothing, as he could not hear. “Hey, Fred!” Darren tried again. Still no response. “Fred…are you alive?” This continued through a gamut of variations on a theme, until the boy grew impatient as mobile and truly living beings are apt to do. The restlessness caused him to become brave, and he poked the creature. Fred did not react.

     “Eww.” Darren breathed, wrinkling his nose and frowning at the alien sensation of his brother’s skin. He pushed harder this time, and the creature fell over. Finally Fred stirred, ineffectively flailing with what reserves of strength he had left. This startled Darren, who simultaneously cried out and jumped back. He immediately fled the room, leaving the debatably living yet definitely perishing creation in its toppled state.

     The sun continued to lengthen the shadows.

     Fred lay patiently dying on the desk.

Buzz buzz. I’d set my cell phone to vibrate in a vain attempt to dampen its damaging effects on my concentration. I proceeded to return to my work rather than checking it. Buzz buzz. Scant moments later the device kindly reminded me that my wife was intent on sabotaging my efforts to correlate the newest data from the lab. My eye twitched and I exhaled through my mouth as if I were breathing fire. Snatching up and unlocking the offending modern convenience, I read her all-important message:

--Dinner’s ready.

                I inhaled a slow, noisy breath through my nose, setting the phone down and placing both palms on my face. I rubbed ever upward slowly, my fingertips prying underneath my thick glasses, squirming towards my eyes to gently massage them. When that was done I repositioned the digits to my temples briefly as the blood throbbed painfully. I looked down at the dimming screen, perched atop my handwritten scrawl on the clipboard I’d lifted from the research facility. My focus vacillated between the paper and the repugnant summoning instrument shrouding it: first up to the right, then to the screen as it clicked off, then down, then across to the upper left before moving in a clockwise direction tracing across the visible portion of the notes.  As if prompted by the notion of potential sustenance, my stomach growled. The thing was wizened, grey and shrunken like some sort of sad and tired grandfather. When it deigned to request something of me, I found myself compelled to oblige however grudgingly.

                There were skid marks in the hardwood floor where the legs of my rickety antidiluvian chair laboriously dragged across the surface. The grooves were filled with dust and tinged with remnants of old wax from Cheryl’s former efforts to maintain a semblance of order in my office. Fred had scared her off, particularly after Darren declared the little monstrosity to be his brother. The corner of one side of my mouth perked slightly as the muscles deep in my cheeks tugged insistently, forming a faint and lopsided smirk in response to the memory of that day. How glorious it’d been. Dinner might in fact be more pleasant than anticipated, should my son opt to demonstrate his singular expressiveness again. I would have to attend, then, and see for myself.

                Skriiiitch. The chair moved backward and slightly to the right along its predestined path as I stood. The furniture pads my wife once carefully applied had long since worn down to nothing or had flecked off, the adhesive too weak to withstand the force of friction along such an uneven surface as the ruts my repetition had created. Per their prevailing tendency, my unused joints crackled in protest. I rotated my shoulders back and flicked my neck first to one side and then the other, rewarded with a crisp snapping sound as the gases escaped the synovial fluid occupying the joint capsules. As usual I began to convince myself that perhaps I needed the break after all.

                The floorboards outside the door just two steps to the left always creaked under my weight, gangly as I was. This functioned as a sort of alarm system for me, warning me whenever my inner sanctum was seconds away from being infiltrated. It was similarly a notification to the other occupants in my home that I was on the move, which was a rare scenario. Wraithlike and lost in thought, I passed through the hall and descended the stairs as if floating. Had Cheryl the mind to throw a Halloween party she wouldn’t need to decorate as my presence alone was sufficient, particularly given the reputation I’d acquired. Darren would never bother with such a trivial social endeavor, but my wife felt a mysterious need to integrate with the local populace. Despite the consistent failure of her efforts, she was tireless in this specific cause. I couldn’t fathom her urgency, yet her single-minded drive was a common trait between us. Perhaps at one time long ago we’d shared one vision, but that era was left to dust and darkness. I chalked it up to hormones.

                Darren noticed me even as I silently walked in the shadows, not bothering to flick the switches to illuminate my path. Cast in the warm glow of the dining room’s cheerful lamplight, his form was soft, having years left before his features shed their childlike gentleness. His eyes however were hawkish and deep, pools of intensity that mirrored the unhealthy monomania possessed by both of his parents. I wondered what he might adopt as his crusade, and furthermore when the signs would begin to surface. When had I in my youth taken so intensely to science? Darren was eight now, possibly. I couldn’t be sure. I never remembered such things unless they impacted my occupation. My present doings related to streamlining Fred’s brethren and despite his insistence of relation to the semi-responsive contrivance on my desk I hadn’t taken my son up as a test subject.

                Cheryl flinched a trifle, caught off guard as I stepped into the genial radiant circle staving off the night. Light created shadows. My existence shouldn’t have surprised her, yet somehow it did all the same. Humanity had an interesting way of lying to itself rather convincingly, or simply omitting facts to suit the pervading worldview. Coping with my simultaneous permanence and impermanence was a daily challenge.

                “Oh! Good evening, honey. I wasn’t sure if you’d be joining us. We just sat down. Here, let me get your plate.” She uttered with a half-smile as her face flushed a delicate pink. The discoloration was likely due to her embarrassment, knowing that I’d of course seen her jump. I took my seat at the head of the table.

                “Thank you. What’s for dinner?” It soothed her when I elected to embrace social norms. I even made a show of peering over at Darren’s place setting. He didn’t react until my eyes locked with his. We exchanged a knowing leer.

                “Steak, green beans, mashed potatoes and salad.” Cheryl responded from the kitchen as she served up my food. Long ago she’d realized that I would only ladle up a small portion for myself, and like the mother she was she insisted that I eat more. She additionally asserted that I was not to leave the table until I cleared my plate of whatever she put on it. Although it sounded absurd, I was predominantly fueled by coffee and the sparse instances when I sat down for a meal away from my work were so few and far between that she was the last bastion preventing my already emaciated form from becoming wholly skeletal. Thus, I didn’t fight her on it. Darren was similarly obligated and I wholly believed that without her acting as the linchpin affixing us to a semblance of an eating schedule the two of us would waste away.

                “Here you are, John.” I had to admit that the food smelled delicious. My stomach stirred from its usual stupor and announced its intention to digest everything promptly. Cheryl sat down next to me across from our son, who seemed lost in the corridors of his own mind. “Darren, let’s say a prayer.” She bowed her dark head, folding her small, soft hands in on each other as she muttered quietly to herself, almost unintelligibly. It may as well have been in another language for all the use it served. Darren however obediently mimicked her motions and mumbled his own incantation. Out of curiosity I attuned my hearing to his request.

                “Dear Lord, please let the teachers at school stop trying to make me play with the stupid kids in my class since I just want to read my book. And Mom too. She keeps bringing these dumb neighbors over and I hate them. Amen.”

                Had I been forced to offer a plea to an alleged invisible protector, I may have said something similar myself. I stored this information in my memory for later use. Of the late I’d begun noticing that Darren was unavoidably a little human, yet still separate from the run of the mill herd. He was in fact remarkably akin to what I’d been like at his age. Was he seven? Ten? What grade was he in, anyway? It was difficult for me to discern particularly as his mother treated him like a child much younger than his demeanor projected.

                The ceremony was over, and it came time to consume the food my wife had so carefully prepared. She was, if nothing else, a phenomenal cook. She took delight in manifesting the countless recipes she found in magazines and on the internet. Her skill in the kitchen was her saving grace and lit the beacon of hope for her eventual assimilation into the community. I’d married her in part for her drive, but she was also the only person I’d met who was capable of instilling a desire to eat within me. The rigors of my mind required nourishment, yet the very act of taking time to masticate, swallow and digest – not to mention prepare – the necessary comestibles were a tedium I barely tolerated. It was almost painful, except in the case of her cooking.

                “It smells wonderful, Cheryl.” I smiled genuinely, a slight inflection to my voice that pleased her as she returned the gesture. The times I demonstrated approval were scant and nearly all related to her efforts to act as my lifeline. Her eyes seemed to sparkle.

                “I hope it’s okay! I tried a new marinade.” I didn’t bother to respond, instead cutting a piece of steak. I preferred my meat rare, and it was appropriately bloody and pink. My mouth watered at the sound of the flesh severing beneath my knife. I took a bite and savored it, rolling the juice with my tongue as I chewed. I nodded as an expression of my enjoyment. The meal progressed as usual, but I noticed that Cheryl paused in her daily activity report twice, glancing down at my steak momentarily each time.

                “What’s wrong?” I inquired directly. She looked befuddled.

“What do you mean?” I took my time chewing the bite I’d taken, swallowed and took a sip of my beverage. I gesticulated at her with my fork, using my free hand to thrust my glasses up again as they’d slid down once more.

“You keep staring at my plate. Did you poison me?” I asked this with a mildly jovial lilt, intending to help her relax despite the fact that I was so rarely jocular.

“No, of course not.” Darren nonetheless looked between her and my plate, then down at his own. He stopped mid-mastication, absorbed in the notion that his mother might have attempted to kill me. “I’m just preoccupied, is all.”

“With?” There was a long pause as she hesitated. I knew that it was a problem with me that she didn’t wish to discuss in front of our son. “Go ahead.” I encouraged.

“I was just thinking about your—the—that—” She was having difficulty forming the words. I smiled, this time in amusement.

“You were thinking about Fred.” Cheryl looked confused. “The experiment on my desk.” Her shoulders and back stiffened as she realized that I’d given it a human name. Some of the blood left her cheeks and lips.

“Uh…” she glanced momentarily at Darren. “Yes. That.”

“What about it?” She was silent again. I waited.

“Do you have to keep it here? I don’t…like it.”

“That’s okay. I doubt you’ve hurt his feelings.” My son chuckled softly and returned to eating, entirely unmoved other than his mild entertainment at her absurdity. She fell silent and focused on her plate for the rest of the meal. When she stood a short time later to clear away the dishes, I noticed that she’d only consumed half of her steak.

She was imagining eating Fred again.