will ever be able to take her place. I'm such a damned fool...
I hear the door open and close. Feet shuffle across the room.
'Doctor Johnson?' Anthony whispers behind my back. 'Are you okay?'
The fuck I am!
I draw a long, careful breath and nod, not daring open my eyes or my mouth. Anthony steps closer to the incubator and stands in reverent silence.
Seconds trickle away, but I don't care. Nothing matters any more. The fire that has kept me alive for thirty years is gone. There's nothing to live for. I wish I would die right now and right here. I certainly deserve it for what I have done. Mia didn't deserve it, but I do...
Anthony gasps and yelps excitedly.
'Dr. Johnson, she's stirred!'
What the heck do I care?
But I make the effort to open my eyes. They are still filled with tears, and the world looks hazy. I blink the tears away.
The girl's forehead twitches slightly into a momentary frown. Her eyelids tremble, and she opens the unfocused eyes.
Anthony is nearly jumping with excitement and impatience like a kid about to open his Christmas presents.
'Dr. Johnson! Shall I open it up? May I? Please?'
I nod and step back. What does it matter who opens the treasure chest? It's empty anyway.
With a soft hiss of pressurized air the incubator's lid opens up. The girl follows it with her eyes, then looks at us, the two strange men in white coats. A puzzled frown creases her forehead.
'Where... am... I?' she asks in a hoarse whisper.
Anthony almost explodes with delight.
'It worked! She talks! Yippee!'
I stand and stare at the girl, not knowing what to say. Who is she?
'You're in a hospital. Don't worry, the worst is over. But we need to run some checks. Would you mind coming with me?' Anthony is eager to take charge. He grabs the wheelchair and pushes it closer to the incubator.
The girl blinks and puts a hand to her throat.
'Water...' She coughs. 'I'm... thirsty.'
The words come out a bit muffled, but the girl can definitely speak, so some of the implanted memories obviously work.
I wonder what else she remembers. Hopefully, there are some things she doesn't remember... Now I dread the things I had prayed for...
Anthony fetched her a glass of purified water and a hospital gown.
'Here, I'll help you.' He reaches out, helping the girl sit up.
She takes the glass with an unsteady hand. The glass clinks on her teeth and some water spills onto her lap. She takes a mouthful and chokes on it, spilling more water. Anthony gently taps her on the back.
'Easy now, there's no hurry.'
This time she manages to swallow and drinks the water up. Anthony puts the glass away and helps the girl into the gown. She looks down at her feet.
'Can I walk?'
'Sure,' Anthony beams a happy smile at her and glances at me triumphantly. He must be wondering why I'm standing there like a dummy.
The girl puts her feet down and tries to stand up. Her knees give in, and Anthony grabs her around the waist.
'Steady now, it's only two steps to the wheelchair.'
Her legs all wobbly, the girl shuffles the two steps, and Anthony settles her into the chair.
'You're doing great!' He takes the handles of the wheelchair. 'Dr. Johnson? Are you coming?'
The girl looks at me, her eyes narrowed in an intense attempt at recognition. Her gaze seems to penetrate into the very depths of my soul. I don't want her to see what's there, the truth is too ugly, and I look away guiltily.
'Who are you? You look familiar,' the girl asks with an unsteady voice.
I involuntarily run a hand through my thinning gray hair, still not daring to look up.
Who am I?
An empty shell. Charred cinders of an extinguished fire. A man who has lost everything and has nothing to live for.
'I'm your... doctor. Doctor Johnson.' I barely manage to push the words through my constricted throat and hastily turn away to end this awkward conversation. 'Go, Anthony. You know what to do. I'll... come later.'
Anthony nods eagerly and the door closes behind them. I'm left alone in front of the empty glass cocoon of the incubator.
I have devised this GENIE myself and the genie has granted my wish. Whose fault is it that I wished for the wrong thing? For an impossible thing...
I take off my glasses, shut my eyes tightly and pinch the bridge of my nose.
What have I done?..
Anthony thinks that this is a major breakthrough, a piece of cutting-edge scientific research, a lucrative business project and a sure shot at the Nobel prize. Silly kid! He has no idea what has just happened.
It's not my Mia, it's only her semblance: even if a new fibre is made, the gaping hole in the Universe itself can never be mended.
But it's too late now. I've let the genie out of the bottle. And there's no telling what disasters it will bring upon my head-and the heads of many others...
Paper Cranes
The first time I found myself in a male body I was shocked. And not without a good reason. To begin with, it was my first 'astral trip' as I came to jokingly refer to it many years later. Secondly, I was only thirteen at the time, and though I knew a bit about astral navigation, I had never heard about 'out-of-body experiences'. Thirdly, the very moment when I discovered myself in that alien body was a somewhat embarrassing one. One minute I was standing in the airlock, pretending to be an empty spacesuit in hopes that mom wouldn't find me, and the next moment I was looking down at the yellow stream coming out of... er... that ugly thing in my hands. Yuck! I got another shock when I realized that the, uh, thing and the hands looked white! I mean, not only I am a girl, I am a black girl!
But as they say, meteors come in showers-so even that surprise wasn't the last one. The yellow stream was coming down and disappearing in the green grass! I mean, grass! Real green grass dotted with some tiny blue flowers!
'Oh, the mighty black hole in the center of Galaxy!' I thought to myself. 'Have I suddenly gone mad? Has the spacesuit sprung a leak and was I getting delirious because of oxygen starvation? Or have I already died?'
While I was watching in bewilderment, the hands gave the, uh, thing a shake and put it back inside a... loincloth! I managed to recall the word just as a giggle sounded behind my back.
I turned around and saw a girl, pink with suppressed laughter. She had Asian features and wore a simple dark green... kimono! The word came out of the blue and startled me.
'Yumiko-chan...' I felt my ears burn red hot with embarrassment. 'I'm sorry, I thought I was alone...'
The girl let out another squeak of laughter, covering her mouth with her kimono sleeve and keeping her eyes down. Her glossy black hair was pulled back and held together by a wooden comb.
I suddenly knew that I was a boy named Takeshi. My family lived in a village on the shore and my father owned a small grocery. I was thirteen and had two older brothers and a younger sister.
The information just came flooding in. I realized that I could see, hear, feel and understand everything Takeshi was feeling and understanding. But I couldn't control his body. I had no idea how I got into that body. Worst of all, I had no idea how to get back out! I found myself imprisoned inside somebody else without any hope of escape!
At first I panicked. I tried shouting, swinging my arms, kicking and stomping, but not a muscle twitched in Takeshi's body. He was clearly unaware of my presence. I ran out of steam and tried to think. Dad always said that in a pinch self-control counted more than anything else.
I had already had a chance to apply his advice. Last year dad took us outside to help collect some rock samples. Danny and I were literally jumping with joy. The gravity on the Moon is much weaker and one can easily jump like two meters up in the air-or rather the space. That is, if one's muscles are trained for the Earth's gravity. We had been living on the Moon for three years, but dad made us exerci
se hard every day. So we were in good shape and ran around like crazy despite the spacesuits weighing us down. We were cooped up inside the station for months on end and it was a rare chance to go wild.
Unfortunately, the Moon is not a place for humans to frolick freely. The lack of atmosphere makes the contrast of light and dark very sharp. The rock shadows were pitch-black and I didn't notice a narrow crevice. I fell right in and got stuck. Luckily, there wasn't a scratch on the spacesuit and I didn't die a slow death of suffocation. Even more luckily, Danny saw it happen and called dad. But dad couldn't get me out on his own and had to return to the station to bring help. He wouldn't let Danny stay with me-my baby brother was only six at the time. So I was on my own for two hours until they came back and got me out.
All alone, squeezed among cold rocks so tightly that I couldn't move, I felt my mind flood over with panic. What if something happened to dad and Danny and they wouldn't make it back to the station? Nobody else knew where I was. They would go looking, of course, but would they find me? And how long would it take them? Would I run out of air? How much of it was left anyway? And how long had I been trapped? Was somebody coming for me?
Then it seemed to me that the crevice was slowly closing, crushing me between its rocky jaws. I pushed and kicked madly, only succeeding in sliding further down into the trap. I panted and gasped until I worked up a sweat. Worn out, I stopped struggling and tried to think. I realized how foolish I had been. My wild thrashing could have damaged the spacesuit. Rapid breathing was exhausting the air supply. My best chance to survive was to keep still and to
aNgel and Other Stories Page 3
