My Brother Jonah

When people hear the phrase, ‘meet your maker,’ usually they mean to die, to return to a place of emptiness and nothingness where they came from.

I was not like other people. I have met my maker. We were friends.

He was an old bloke, thinning, white hair atop a head criss-crossed with deep wrinkles, bags fleshy and dark beneath his eyes, like they were made of melted wax. A hunch in his shoulders, like he was carrying a backpack stuffed with weight and had adapted to its bulk. Kind eyes of a man who looked like he was a father, but I knew he wasn’t. Well, unless you counted me.

‘Hey, John,’ he said, his voice croaky and wavering, like a strong wind could take it away from him. ‘Come on in.’

I smiled and stepped into his house. It was one-story with a brick chimney and a tiny kitchen; no lab or dungeon an unfinished basement, in fact, no basement at all.

‘I’ll put the kettle on. Why don’t you sit down?’ He beckoned at one of the high-chairs in front of the kitchen bench. It was far too small for me since I’d grown up, but Howard didn’t have a dining table, and I could see from the ring of water left behind that this was where he ate dinner every night.

‘Thanks,’ I said. I hooked my backpack over the back of the chair, fishing out a piece of smooth, hard card I had wedged in there. The Helix Award of Scientific Excellence.

Howard placed a ceramic mug in front of me. He dangled a teabag inside and momentarily vanished, emerging with a rusty, black kettle, plumes of water vapour erupting from the mouth.

‘Here it is,’ I said, breaking the seal of his focus as he poured.

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Very impressive. And at only twenty-three.’ Howard said, his voice sounding both full and flat at the same time. He glanced at the certificate but didn’t meet my eye. I had been working towards it for years, and was very proud of myself. ‘Well done, John.’

I smiled and tucked the certificate back into my bag. My name was scrawled in curvy black ink: Jonas Carter, 2025. But I hadn’t been Jonas in years. Not until I was called up to the stage to receive the certificate, and I hesitated.

My name wasn’t Jonas. Well, it was, but only to those who didn’t know me. To everyone else, I was John. John Carter. Genetically identical –clone –of Jonah Carter, age thirty-three.

Howard was the one who ‘made’ me. It’s funny, I can almost remember it, even though I didn’t exist yet. Jonah was only ten. He was Howard’s late wife’s son from a previous marriage, and when she died, he took the kid in as his own.

‘You’re something special, Jonah,’ he said, clapping him on the back. ‘You’re going to do great things.’

He wasn’t retired, back then. He worked at a genetics lab. Maybe it was promise of greatness he saw in Jonah’s blueberry-blue eyes, or maybe it was a yearning for something more, something he hadn’t achieved yet. The desire to create something for all mankind.

He took a sample from Jonah’s body –skin cells, I think it was –and placed his DNA inside a donated egg cell, discarding the traces of life that already existed. He grew me inside a lab, a fake womb, and delivered me himself.

Before he was promptly fired when someone found out what he had done.

I was the same as Jonah in every way. We had the same face, the same eyes, the same sandy blond hair, both of which sat in ringlets on our foreheads. Same lisp when we were younger, same love for all things science. But he hated me. Despised me with every fibre of his being. I didn’t blame him. We were the same, but I was always the one who was favoured. I came out on top. I was cuter and more charming when I was a kid, and I was smarter than him from when I reached my teenage years, even though he was well into adulthood.

‘You’re a clone,’ he’d sneer at me, ‘you’re nothing more than a stupider version of me. I was here first. You’re just the spare parts.’

‘I am happy to be the same as you.’ I’d say sweetly back. ‘I can give you my parts, if you want.’ I’d get a pat on the head while he’d get grounded.

One day, when I was nine, Jonah packed up his bags and moved out. ‘Bye, John,’ he spat, as if my name was so distasteful he wanted to get it out of his mouth as soon as possible. It wasn’t even my name. He’d refused to call me Jonas since I was three, since it sounded too close to his name. I’d been John ever since.

‘Bye, Jonah. Call me, sometime.’

He wouldn’t, but it felt like the right thing to say.

‘Yeah, sure,’ Jonah scoffed. He leaned in close, so I could smell his hot breath, which was nothing like mine –minty and fresh –and spoke against my ear. ‘You’re not human,’ he said, and I shuddered. ‘You’re engineered. You’re fake. It’s written in your blood. No one wanted you here. I heard Dad talking –you were the first trial for “The Future of Humanity”.’

Before I could ask him what it meant, he was gone. A dark cloud of negativity and spite vanished, but uneasiness gnawed at my gut. What did he mean? What had Howard said?

From my childhood, that was the only time I could ever remember one of Jonah’s insults being correct. He wasn’t just taking a dig at me. He was right. Howard confessed: I was a trial at creating the perfect citizen. Smart, polite, peaceful. ‘If everyone was like you, we wouldn’t have world wars,’ he tried to explain. ‘It has nothing to do with Jonah. You’re your own person, John.’

I’d figured out by that point I wouldn’t live as long as Jonah. Because he was already ten when I inherited his DNA, ten years would be shaved off the end of my life. But this? I was a model for humanity? The ideal citizen, a genetically engineered clone?

‘I don’t want that for me,’ I explained quietly. ‘Everyone is unique. You can’t just genetically engineer everyone to be the people that you want. It isn’t right.’

Howard looked down at me with a ghost of a smile on his lips. He told me he was proud of me, in a full, deep voice and wrapped me into a hug. He told me I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to. I could lead my own life and he knew it would be great, whatever I decided to do with it.

I took a sip of my tea. Warm –lemon and ginger. A touch of sweetness from half a teaspoon of sugar. Just the way I liked it.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Howard asked, his eyes low on his own drink. He seemed to be treading carefully around me lately, his mood dim and his eyes that used to sparkle had grown dull and lifeless.

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. I had plenty of job opportunities sitting in my inbox, but I was searching for more. Something meaningful. ‘Perhaps I could reconnect with Jonah,’ I said. ‘It’s been a while.’

Howard’s head snapped up, like he had been bitten by a snake. His hand jerked in shock. His tea splashed over the edge and landed in a puddle on his hand.

‘Ouch, damn it. Jesus.’ He dipped it under the tap and watched as cool water soothed his skin, his brow creased in unease and concentration.

‘Are you alright?’ I asked worriedly. ‘What’s wrong? Should I not call?’

‘No, it’s… It’s not that. It’s just –It’s nothing. Sorry.’

‘No, tell me,’ I gently persuaded.

Howard sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. ‘Jonah’s just –well, have you talked to him recently?’ He continued when I shook my head. ‘He’s going through a rough patch. Having a clone that was better than him at everything wasn’t great for his mental health, as it turned out.’ He glanced pointedly at me. I got the feeling they hadn’t spoken in a while.

‘Oh, of course. Yes, that must have been tough,’ I said, trying to empathise.

‘Yeah, it was.’ Howard replied. ‘Have you been to see someone? It can’t have been easy on you, either.’ He said it so tentatively, as if I was a wild animal that could lash out at any second.

‘No, I haven’t,’ I responded.

‘Maybe you should. You’ve mentioned having nightmares in the past. Might help.’

I sighed. I’d told Howard how I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating, screaming at dreams that felt all too real. My hands would be clammy and cold and I would be convinced they were covered in blood, like they had in my nightmare. I’d even begun locking my bedroom door at night. Not to keep other people out, but to keep myself away from the kitchen. Away from the knives. So none of them would end up in my hand.

‘I don’t know, I don’t think I have the time, at the moment,’ I said, massaging my forehead. For twenty-three, my joints creaked like I was eighty and dark circles that bracketed my eyes like bruises had a waxy look to them.

‘You could make time.’

I looked up. Howard held my gaze.

‘I’m busy,’ I said, a little more firmly.

Howard quickly looked down, staring into his mug. ‘Right.’

‘And anyway, the nightmares have become less frequent,’ I said, trying to change the subject. It was a lie, but Howard didn’t need to know that.

‘That’s good,’ he replied flatly, without looking up.

‘Yeah. I’m glad. It’s hard to work when I can’t sleep at night. Hard to get something like this.’ I jerked my head back at my backpack, gesturing at the certificate. It was more prestigious than a Nobel prize. Why wasn’t Harold more excited? He used to celebrate my every achievement when I was younger.

‘I can’t imagine,’ Harold replied wryly. At my silence, he flashed me a tight-lipped smile, the kind someone gives when they are too tired to engage.

I pressed my lips together. When had he become so distant?

‘I should be going,’ I said stiffly. I expected him to protest, but Howard only nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You are busy.’

There was a tautness to his voice that rubbed me the wrong way. He didn’t used to be like this. Although maybe he was just getting old.

‘Uh huh,’ I said, pulling my backpack over my shoulder. This wasn’t how this visit was supposed to go.

Howard trailed me to the door. In the last few years, it looked like he had aged a decade. He didn’t call Jonah anymore. He seemed to walk tentatively, carefully, always saying the right things, always remaining guarded. His face didn’t break out in contagious grins that stretched his skin from ear to ear anymore. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time he smiled.

‘Bye, Howard.’

‘Bye, Jonah. –John. B—bye, John.’ Howard stammered, suddenly clasping a shaking hand over his mouth. ‘Sorry. John. Get the two of you mixed up. You look so alike,’ he tried to joke, but my blood had run cold.

‘Yeah.’ I said icily. The kitchen suddenly seemed all too close. The knives, the blood, the screams –no, not again. I couldn’t do it again.

Howard looked terrified. I could see the whites of his eyes as they met mine. He was afraid of me. And he had every reason to be.

But I couldn’t kill Howard like I killed my always-better-than-me clone, John. The one whose life I inhabited like it was a piece of clothing, that I could try on and see if it suited me.

Yes, John’s life fit me very well. He was my clone, after all.

I decided I’d keep it the night I showed up to his house with a knife in my hand and murder on my mind.