Glass Shatters

by Michelle Meyers

  “Right,” I say. Jenner. There’s something there, at the tip of my tongue, memories that leave a bad taste in my mouth. Peter paces back and forth, as a professor might if he were just about to deliver the thesis to his lecture.

  “You see, it is my belief that there is a paradigm for scientific breakthroughs, a recurring, algorithmic process that has occurred throughout history. And this algorithm that I have deciphered will enable societies to engage in more fine-tuned research practices and consequently lead to very accurate predictions about when a given scientific breakthrough is likely to occur. It’s my job to analyze these historical figures and statistics, and they point to you. You are the next step.”

  The information comes to me, sour and heavy in the back of my throat. “Wasn’t Edward Jenner the one who first tested his smallpox vaccine on an eight-year-old boy?”

  “Yes, and his discovery went on to eradicate one of the most destructive diseases from our planet.”

  “Jenner vaccinated the boy without his father’s permission and then exposed him to smallpox. It would be like exposing a child today to Ebola or anthrax. The boy was violently sick for ten days. He could have died.”

  “Sacrifices have to be made for the sake of scientific progress,” Peter says quietly. “It is illogical for our sentimental attachment to one life to get in the way of our potential to save many lives in the future.”

  “And if I don’t want to make sacrifices? If I don’t want to be compared to a man who nearly killed a young child?”

  Peter pauses. “You are going to be one of the most famous and prolific scientists who has ever lived, Charles. It doesn’t matter what you want.”

  January 17, 2011

  Age Thirty-Three

  Charles stands in a laboratory very late at night. There are crow’s feet pinching at the corners of his eyes from lack of sleep. A thin stream of fluorescence filters through a crack in the ceiling above, reflecting off one of the metal surgical tables. Somewhere at a distance a janitor pushes a container of cloudy mop water down a hallway. One of the wheels is off-kilter and squeaks.

  The lab is dark except for the single sliver of light from above. Several empty coffee cups lay discarded by the waste bin. It seems like Charles isn’t supposed to be in the room at this time of night. Perhaps not at all. His movements are careful and discreet and he has also pushed one of the file cabinets against the door, presumably to prevent anyone else from entering. There are no windows to this room and the door is very short, only about five and a half feet tall. The room smells like cleaning alcohol and expired flesh.

  Humming against the back wall is what appears to be some sort of large metal refrigerator, the outdated design and collecting grime suggesting that it’s an archaic model or that it has at least seen better days. Charles washes his hands under hot water, puts on a pair of latex gloves, slides a mask over his face. He makes several starts toward the refrigerator, stopping, starting again. He rocks back and forth on his heels, breathing rapidly, until finally he tears off the latex gloves and mask and begins to bite his fingernails in a ravenous fashion. He bites them until they start to bleed.

  Charles releases a deep exhalation and disposes of the soiled gloves and mask, then commences the process again. He winces as he places his hands under the hot water. This time he approaches more slowly. He allows himself time to breathe and wait. He’s both very excited and very scared.

  Charles’s hand quivers as he reaches for the handle. When he opens the door, he immediately releases it, jumps back, gagging, blasted by a wave of warm air that reeks of decay. The machine is not a refrigerator after all but seems to be some sort of incubation chamber, harboring two putrid, barely alive bodies. The larger one raises its head, wheezing through its deteriorating lips, skin peeling off of its cheeks. It attempts a smile, a smile that causes blood to leak from the corners of its mouth. The smaller one lays nearly immobile on the floor, its mutilated limbs curled under its stomach. Its breathing comes out in short, quiet hisses. The smaller one becomes aware of Charles’s presence, as Charles sits on the floor, covering his eyes and continuing to gag.

  “Daddy!” the small one squeals with delight, although the word is mangled, barely decipherable for what it is. It tries to pull itself up, grabbing at the bottom of Charles’s lab coat and leaving a bloody handprint before falling to the floor once more. Charles raises his head, attempts to look at this small, emaciated creature before him, this creature who is supposed to be his daughter. But in the end he can’t. He can’t look at the creature, nor can he shut the door. All he can do is sit, sit and hope for everything to be over soon.

  WHEN I BECOME AWARE OF THE LAB AGAIN, I CAN STILL smell the stench of the decaying bodies, nightmarish bodies, impossible bodies, the warm, bloody handprint stark in contrast to the white of my lab coat. I’m crouched on the floor, in a squatting position. Peter sits at one of the computers, transcribing various numbers and figures. He scratches his ear in an absent way, completely tuned in to whatever it is that he’s doing. The bodies and the hidden laboratory feel close, alive, but as I rise to my feet and look around, the remnants of the memory begin to dissipate. I still feel a hopelessness weighing down on me, though, like the air around me has suddenly become denser. I want to convince myself that these terrible bodies were just part of a dream. Everything felt exaggerated, surreal, larger than life. But the details were too minute, the emotions too raw. Whatever awful thing I just experienced was most certainly real.

  Peter smiles and hums as he types, an upbeat song from The Music Man. I envy him. He seems completely at ease, completely himself, a man whose wholeness has never been subjected to any significant tragedy. I approach Peter, tap him on the shoulder. He startles.

  “Didn’t realize you were still in here, Charles!”

  “I’m sorry for earlier. Maybe I overreacted,” I say. I put out a hand for Peter and he reaches out, giving it a nice, firm shake.

  “Well then, Human Resources will draft a copy of your contract, benefits, payroll information, etc. that you can come pick up tomorrow. They’re around the corner, down the hall. And then you’ll be all set for Monday, full lab privileges and such. If you need to start slow, part time, that’s fine of course, but any time you can put in we’d be happy to have.”

  “Peter?”

  “What is it, Charles?”

  I hesitate. “What if I’ve already figured it all out? The mimicking of these stem cells, the prolonging of life, but the results are … undesirable.”

  Peter pauses, looks me straight in the eye. We stand frozen for several seconds.

  “You always were a funny one, Charles,” he says in a dead-pan tone. “Very funny. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  I leave the office building at dusk after cleaning up the lab a bit, just as the sun is starting to drift down behind the skyscrapers and restaurants, the air like steel in my lungs. I decide to take a more circuitous route home, meandering, exploring. I know that eventually I have to return to the house, to its claustrophobic and stagnant environment, but for now, I’m enjoying the fresh air and the solitude. Worst-case scenario, I can always call a taxi.

  There’s something too sterile about the lab. It’s overcompensating for something dirty and savage underneath the new paint and state-of-the-art technology. I wonder what happened between my mental breakdown two years ago and the memory loss I experienced six months ago. I also don’t know what to make of Peter. He’s lying about something but I can’t tell what.

  I focus on the environment around me, the cedars swaying in the wind, children playing basketball at a park, the smells of trash and gasoline, the sounds of car radios and a couple’s terse conversation. I stroll aimlessly up and down streets, streets that feel anonymous, each one simply a replication of the last with some minor adjustments. There are neighborhood cafes, pharmacies, dry cleaners, grocery stores. The residential areas are even more homogeneous. I wonder if people ever have trouble distinguishing their own houses from those o
f their neighbors.

  At a certain point, the houses grow farther and fewer between, replaced by long stretches of uncut grass and weeds. It smells more like nature than the city, like fresh leaves and mud. The air grows damp. It’s going to rain soon. I stop and look around, trying to imagine what direction might take me back to the house, when I notice a narrow road to the right, curving off into the distance, the asphalt pitted and crumbling. A barrage of emotions washes over me, emotions so intense that I lose my footing for a moment. I feel elation and despair and something even stronger. I’ve been here before. I’ve been here many times. I start down the road, past a post office, an antiques shop, a shuttered restaurant, until suddenly, unexpectedly, I’m knocked down to my knees. At first I’m convinced that somebody else did this to me. But as I look around and find myself alone, I realize that the force is internal, an overwhelming nostalgia that I struggle against as I make my way to my feet.

  I’m kneeling in front of a small tavern. A dark wooden arch that appears centuries old curves over a set of stairs leading down into the basement. It’s the sort of place that doesn’t have a name. People have always just known how to find it. I walk down the creaky, dusty steps into a spacious underground room, the walls lined with thick slabs of stone, just as I imagine they would have been in the medieval days. Behind the bar there are at least a dozen wooden barrels of beer stacked one on top of the other. A few hand-carved tables and stools are scattered throughout, and besides an aging couple sitting together and drinking pints of ale, the tavern is empty. Although I know that the space is most likely decorated specifically to evoke the imagined peacefulness of older, simpler times, I also feel an earthy sense of home within these walls. I’ve been here many times before. I’ve felt comfortable, safe, and happy while here.

  The bartender emerges from behind the barrels, wiping his face with a dirty towel. His face is like a desert scrubland, tufts of beard here and there, his dark hair combed back slick and smooth in comparison. He squints up at me, in a way that makes it difficult for me to know whether or not he’s pleased I’m here.

  “You want something to drink?” he asks gruffly. I would’ve expected something friendlier, more familiar.

  “Yes, whatever you’d recommend.”

  He leans down behind the bar for a clean glass and fills it from the tap, golden and frothy. I sit down at the bar, take a sip. It tastes exactly as I imagined it would, like warm, yeasty bread. I’ve had this beer before.

  “Have we met? I used to come here a lot, I think. The name Charles Lang ring a bell?”

  The bartender frowns. “I’ve only worked here for a few months now. The bar changed ownership and the old bartender left cause he didn’t like the new guy.”

  He seems to think this is enough of an explanation and disappears into the back. I sit there in silence, tipping my glass one way and then the other so that I can watch the bubbles shift around. I hear the sink running, the bartender whistling. He seems much happier alone.

  A few minutes later, the bartender pops his head back out again. This time, he’s holding a photo.

  “This you?” he says, sliding a Polaroid across the bar. If I had to guess, I’d say I was in my mid to late twenties. The photograph is in black and white. I’m gazing up, a dark, wandering expression on my face, wearing a white button-down, suspenders, and a pair of charcoal-gray slacks.

  “Yeah, that’s me.” I look sullen, morose.

  “Apparently you were a very loyal customer.” There’s a touch of contempt in his voice for some reason, and he leaves the photograph with me on the countertop.

  I pause and then I begin to remember. Every Thursday. Julie and I would come in around five or six. I would be in my work clothes and when I got here, I would take off my tie and undo the top button on my shirt. And then Julie would always come in ten minutes later, and she would be wearing the same purple dress. A ritual. Our ritual.

  December 29, 2003

  Age Twenty-Six

  Charles sits at the bar, finishing off a beer. His tie is slung back over his shoulder. The bartender asks if he would like another. It’s a different bartender, twenty pounds heavier and significantly balder, someone of a previous generation. Charles nods. He pushes his glasses back up his nose. They’ve slid down with sweat. The tavern is warm, warmer than Charles expected. Not that Charles came with expectations. In fact, Charles isn’t sure how he even got here in the first place. He was walking home from the lab along his typical route, his mind drifting. The next time he looked up, he was standing in front of the tavern, his coat slouching off his slim shoulders in the chilly evening.

  Charles isn’t normally one to stray from his routines. Every day after working at the lab, he walks the same route back to his apartment, showers, fixes himself a microwave dinner, and watches the news. He likes it that way. He’s never been interested in spontaneity. But that night at the tavern, he’s immediately drawn inside. There’s something that pulls him, some subconscious force. And besides that, he likes the atmosphere, the down-to-earth feel.

  The bartender offers Charles another drink, and Charles smiles as the bartender fills up his glass. As he takes the mug from the bartender, he notices something, somebody, vaguely reflected. Charles’s glasses have again slid down his nose, the lenses foggy with condensation. He takes off the glasses, wipes them on his shirt, and when he puts them back on, Julie stands before him, silent and ethereal.

  “Julie?” Surely it can’t actually be her.

  “Charles!” Julie says, and she wraps Charles in the most enormous hug. She still smells like she always has, like almonds and rose hips and Earl Grey tea. She looks older than the last time Charles saw her. Her face has matured. Then again, Charles imagines he must look older too. He can’t even remember the last time they saw each other. Charles thinks about Julie often, but the more he thinks about her, the more unreal she seems, a fairy-tale being in a past that Charles is sure didn’t exist. He has picked up the phone so many times, only to put it back down again.

  “How did … uh … what brings you here?” Charles asks. Julie sits down on the stool beside him. A tendril of hair falls in front of her eyes. She pushes it back. She’s perfect, so perfect, the way one can be perfect in dreams.

  “My uncle owns the tavern. He designed it himself. A nearly identical replica of a French tavern in Provence that’s been standing since the seventeen hundreds. His art specializes in the re-creation of history. There’s something beautiful in trying to recreate history and admiring the inevitable flaws, don’t you think?”

  There’s a pause as Charles gazes into Julie’s eyes. It’s as if they’ve never been apart. As if no time has passed. And yet when Julie puts a hand up to Charles’s face, feeling the grooves in his cheekbones, the grizzle along his jaw, Charles is suddenly aware of how old he must look. He has transformed into a tall, solitary man with hardened eyes and a perpetual five o’clock shadow. He’s still nice, at certain times and in certain ways, but he’s no longer the nice boy who grew up down the street from Julie.

  “It’s really something,” Charles says.

  “I would have to agree,” Julie says. The bartender brings Julie a drink, something sweet with honey. Julie hands him a basketful of muffins.

  “They’re from my mother, fresh baked.” The bartender smiles and nods and takes the basket behind the counter.

  “How did you find your way here?” Julie asks.

  “I don’t know. I just looked up and here I was.”

  “How serendipitous.”

  “Indeed.” The air is cold and still between them.

  “I haven’t seen you in a long time,” Julie says quietly.

  “I know.” Charles looks down. “After I graduated, I just couldn’t bring myself to go back to my parents’ house. I’m sorry, Julie, you have no idea how sorry I am.”

  “It’s okay,” Julie says, taking Charles’s hand. Charles holds it for several moments, feeling how perfect it is.

  “Are you still
living with your mother?” Charles asks.

  “Yes, it’s the type of place that’s difficult to leave. In a good way, of course. The artists are such amazing people, I can’t imagine wanting to be surrounded by anybody else. So I help my mother keep up the facilities, run errands. I also have my own studio where I can sculpt and paint. Sometimes I think about leaving, but you know how it is.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” Charles says.

  “It can be sometimes. Sometimes not.” Julie finishes her drink. “What about you?”

  “I’m working at a genetics lab.” Charles finishes his drink too and pushes the empty glass next to Julie’s. “It’s difficult, but I love it. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.”

  Julie places a hand on Charles’s thigh. Her touch is gentle and light, ghostlike. Charles looks into Julie’s eyes, so alive and bright that it’s difficult to look away. Before Charles realizes what’s happening, he is kissing her. They kiss for a long time before Charles pulls away.

  “I’ve always wanted to do that again,” Charles murmurs, still looking into Julie’s beautiful eyes, seeing every color in them, green, blue, a fiery orange. “Since the last time we … well, I don’t know why I never did.”

  “Because it was meant to happen now,” Julie replies, her mouth turned up into a half smile. She slides off the bar stool, pulling Charles along with her. “Come on, let’s get out of here. There’s somewhere I want to show you.”

  Charles follows her as she winds her way across the floor and up the stairs. It’s raining outside, a slow drizzle, but the air feels warmer as well. Julie doesn’t simply walk into the night, she dances, taking care to splash in the puddles and spin through the fat droplets of water pouring off the edge of the roof. Every so often it looks like Julie is about to fall, and Charles swoops forth in his awkward, gangly sort of way to rescue her from danger. They kiss and kiss and kiss again, trying out every different way to do it. Charles can’t believe how happy he feels.