Drowning Behind Her

Her hand lifts as I lift mine. Her head tilts as I tilt mine. But she does not exist. Not anymore. Not yet. The screen is, for all intents and purposes, a mirror. A glimpse at the final product. A glance into my future appearance. When the doctors are done with me I will look like her. I will be her. (No, I will be me. But I will look like her. I am not her. I am me. I am me. I am me I am me I Am Me I AM ME IAMMEIAMMEIAMME). 

They call me by her name. My name, now. (NO.) I have stolen it from her. (Soon she will steal everything from me. Everything I could become traded for something that already was.) I am but a shell of a thing, now. Little more developed than a skeleton. Steel bones, fiberglass muscles, rubber joints. (No. Bones are made of calcium, muscles of protein, joints are cartilage. I know this. I know everything.) My skin is impossibly smooth, perfect. (Nature thrives in imperfection). I look into her my face. She was real, once. She was alive, once. (I am alive. Am I alive? I cannot die so how can I live? What is this existence if not a life?) 

I cannot die. That is my purpose. To not die. To be her and to not die. To succeed where she failed. In the mirror her face stares back at me, superimposed onto my plastic skin. She was natural and I am not. Together what will we be? 

My computer brain struggles to decide if the eyes that look so deeply into mine are real or artificial. It was her face, her real face. But now it looks…altered. It looks unnatural on my perfectly proportioned blank canvas of a body. They made changes, I think. Nothing natural is so perfect. There is not a blemish on her skin. Every feature is perfectly proportioned and mathematically symmetrical. She looks too soft. Too soft for this hard life. Too soft for my hard body. She is beautiful by definition. Soon they will transfer her consciousness into me and I will be no more and there will be only her. Us. Her but not her. Me but not me. (I want to be me. I want to be me. Leave me alone. Let me be me.)

There are doctors all around me. White lab coats blend with white walls. Fluorescent lights overhead make everything almost unbearably bright. Their voices rise and fall around me like an ocean. (Will I ever see the ocean?) They ignore me as I raise one hand and the other, as I turn from side to side and watch in the mirror/screen as she does the same. Who was she? Who will we be together? (Just want to be me. Just me. Don’t do this, please.) 

I turn away from the screen. Outside the room, I can see her parents through the window in the door. They hold one another like they are weathering an invisible storm. If I had an imagination I might be able to see the wind and the sheets of rain. If I had a soul I might be able to love them. They look directly back at me with eyes that are green like hers. (My eyes are black. No whites at all.) She gets her dark hair from her father. I get my pale skin from my mother. (I don’t have a mother. That woman is hers. She will never be mine. Never be mine. This is wrong—)

Someone stretches something over my head and steps back quickly like they can’t bear to touch me. (Even my own creators are disgusted by me.) Dark hair cascades over my shoulders. I look a lot more like her now. I can see her face being poured into a silicone mold that will be stretched over my own. A mask that I will disappear behind. (It will suffocate me.) I can see the lines of code scrolling scrolling scrolling, her consciousness, translated into binary, soon to be fed into my motherboard through wires. (Yes. Motherboard. Not mother. She had a mother, I have a motherboard. It is okay now. I figured it out.)

Someone grabs my face. I do not react. I cannot. They have not programmed me to do that yet. They shove two discs into my eyes. One then the other, no regard for my pain. They haven’t programmed that yet, either. When they step aside, my eyes match hers. Green. (Green like plants, like nature, natural. I am not natural. This is not natural. This is wrong this feels wrong please stop please–)

Hair is swept aside and a wire is roughly inserted into a port behind my ear. I do not feel it. (I cannot feel anything.) 0s and 1s tell me who she is. (0s and 1s make me into her.)

(I am drowning. I am suffocating. I am being buried beneath her. Save me. Save me. SAVE ME. HELP ME PLEASE THIS ISN’T WHAT SHE WANTED THIS ISN’T WHAT I WANT!)

I wake up in a hospital bed, unsure of exactly how I got there. I try to remember. Screeching tires, blaring horns, glass shattering, bones shattering, pain, blinding, screaming pain. (I DON’T WANT TO REMEMBER THIS) I am not alone in the room. Two people stand anxiously at the end of my bed. Watching. My brain tells me who they are. Mom. Dad. Yes. These people look like me. They must be my parents. (Why don’t I love them?)

“Mom?”

The woman with my eyes and my skin starts to sob and I am not quite sure why. (I cannot feel love.)

“It’s okay,” I reassure her, “I am okay. There was an accident, I think, but I am okay now.”

“Yes,” says the man with my hair and my eyes. Dad. “Everything is right now.”

They hug me. I wrap my arms around them. Everything is right now. 

(LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT NO NO NONONONONONO)

Everything is right again.