Where’s mommy?

Ever since I could remember, it was just me and my dad. My mom died when I was five. I didn’t remember much of her to be honest. My dad said she had died in a car crash and that I was with her when it happened. He said I would’ve died too but by some miracle I survived with only a scar on rhr back of my neck. That’s why we never drive anymore or go anywhere. He said that if anything happened to me he would never forgive himself. He said I looked like her alot but there were no pictures of her that I could compare myself to. 

We live in a small town. Each house is really far from the other. If you wanted to walk to your neighbour’s house it would be a fifteen minute walk. All the houses are separated by trees too so you couldn’t even see the other houses. Not that it mattered. Each house kept to themselves, including ours. I had never actually seen any of our neighbours. My dad said the people liked it that way and that was the appeal of the town. People who came here were either running away from something or just running away from society. We came here because he couldn’t handle my mother’s death. It was too much for him to bear, he had said.

We had a huge garden where we grew all the fruits and vegetables we could need. We also had a small barn that had a milking cow and some chicken for eggs. We ate whatever we could harvest or extract. My father loved to work in the garden. Whenever he tilled the soil, despite the hard work and the sweat that drenched his clothes, he looked content. I once tried to help him but I got so tired that a few minutes in I sat in the shade drinking lemonade, just watching him. 

He didn’t mind, he said watching is part of learning but that one day I would have to push through, else I wouldn’t be able to eat. 

We had a cat. She was a stray cat that kept coming to our house. I would often find her sleeping in the barn or under the chicken. So I called her Chick. That made me laugh. My dad also found it hilarious. She was a cute orange kitten when she first started coming and now she was an adorable adult cat who still had acted like a kitten. I had wondered if she had any siblings or if she had lost her mom too. Sometimes I gave her some of my milk. She liked milk a lot. She became my best friend. A lot of times she would leave for a few hours and I would look out the window, waiting for her, worried that she might never come back or that something happened to her. But she always came back. Sometimes I felt envious of her, she got to leave and come back anytime she wanted. She got to explore the world as she pleased. I, on the other hand, didn’t know what existed beyond the safety of my home. What I knew was only what I had read in the books. I dreamed of travelling to Asia, to Europe, to Latin America, to Africa. Sometimes, I would ask my dad if we could travel, he would just say that it was not safe to go beyond this house. But when he saw my face drop he’d add “maybe someday”.

He often told me that people were evil and if they saw a young girl outside on her own, they would do unspeakable things to her. That’s why women weren’t allowed to go outside on their own. Mom died because she was driving outside on her own, he’d say. All I could do was dream of the solo adventures I could never have. 

The town didn’t have a school so I was homeschooled. Thankfully though, my dad was really smart. There was not one subject he didn’t know. He taught me mathematics, chemistry, physics and even German. He used to be a teacher but he quit when we moved here. As part of my education, I was supposed to read at least one book per week. Most of the books I read had some pages missing. I once asked him about it but he said that these copies were modified for women. The missing pages always followed a scene between a man and a woman. I once asked him how humans came to be. He said god created us. I asked how god came to be. He said he was an idea and we were all born out of that idea. Then I asked whose idea it was. He said it was ours. I was confused but he said that one day I’d understand. I didn’t think I would, but I trusted him. 

This week, we were reading 1984 by George Orwell. I didn’t like it very much. It gave me the creeps. The idea of something or a “government” watching you, knowing what you’re thinking and having that much power over you, forcing you to “love” it and basically your whole life being dictated for you was a terrifying notion. 

One afternoon, I was laying in the garden reading my book while my father had his afternoon nap. All of a sudden, the cat started digging at something on the floor right at the corner of the house. I stood behind the cat watching it dig and dig. Until its nails started screeching at something metallic. I thought that was strange. I had never noticed something there before. I crouched by the cat and started clearing the dirt. The metallic floor became wider and wider as I removed more and more dirt. After wiping it with my sleeve, I saw a door on the floor. There was a lock on it. I got the pliers that my dad left in the garage. It took me a few minutes but I finally clipped the lock. 

I opened the door and it made a huge creaking noise. I was afraid that it would wake my dad up but thankfully I could still hear his snoring coming from the window upstairs. I looked inside, there were stairs that disappeared into the darkness. I grabbed a lantern from the garage and made my way downstairs. Chick followed me.

I made it down the stairs and saw a light switch. I flicked it on. Fluorescent lights illuminated the room. It looked like a lab of some sort. I heard Chick meowing as she pressed her paws onto the glass of a pod. I went in her direction.

There were dozens of pods lined up on the wall. I got closer to get a better look and the hairs on my arms rose. I felt my heartbeat racing.

Inside, I saw a girl that looked exactly like me. It was me. I looked at every pod and inside were more of me. Each pod had something written on it. “Mother died during childbirth”. “Mother was kidnapped.” “Mother was brutally raped and murdered.” I didn’t understand but I felt frightened so I felt I had to run. 

I took Chick in my arms and ran as fast as I could. For the first time, I ran outside the borders of my home. Five minutes out and I saw men in uniforms chasing after me. “Number 322 has escaped,” I heard a man say into his walkie-talkie. “Surround the borders.” I kept running knowing that I had to escape in any way. I looked back to see how far I had gotten and in that moment I collided into a man. It was my dad. “Hi sweetheart,” he said as he injected me with what I assume was a sedative. “You’re gonna be okay.” He said to me, holding up his walkie-talkie. “322 is secured,” I heard him say as I fell into unconsciousness.