Glass Shatters

by Michelle Meyers

  Charles stands back from the camera. He turns the screen so he can see the image of himself that the camera is taking in. He’s surprised by his image. He looks so put together, even as he’s falling apart inside. He’s still a young man at thirty-three, still boyish in certain ways, still handsome. He wears spectacles pushed too close to his eyes, a blue checkered shirt, khaki slacks, brown wingtips, a starched white lab coat over everything. His eyes are so bright that they look like planets, glimmering with the light from the stars. His blond hair is buzzed short and his face is clean-shaven.

  Charles checks behind him to make sure everything is in order. A body lies on an examining table, covered by a thin sheet. Next to the table there’s an IV stand and an EKG. The EKG blips every moment or two. The body’s heartbeat is steady, calm. About two dozen wires run from underneath the sheet to a large computer, going in one side and coming out the other. At the end of each of the wires is an electrode. Images flash across the computer screen at more than twenty per second. Charles takes one more deep breath, closing his eyes. He thinks about Julie and Jess. He sees a picture of them against the backs of his eyelids. They are out in the woods, on one of Julie’s favorite hikes. Jess is no more than three years old, and she’s just discovered the pleasure of worms. Julie is splattered with mud from having helped Jess dig in the wet earth. Jess has so many earthworms in her hand that it’s impossible to count. When Charles opens his eyes, he pushes the picture away. It’s still completely unreal to him, the knowledge that after tonight, if everything goes according to plan, he will never think about Julie and Jess again. He will finally be free from the memories, the loss. A small part of him questions if he wants to be free, but he pushes that thought out of his mind too.

  Charles checks the battery level of the camera, adjusts the lights. And then, without taking another moment to reconsider, he presses the record button. He watches the red blinking light for several seconds. He clears his throat, tilts the camera back a smidge. Once the words start, Charles is surprised by how easily they flow out.

  “Hello, my name is Charles Lang and I am a molecular geneticist at Genutech. The date is September 5, 2011, and I am thirty-three years old. I’m recording the final steps of this project because should everything go as planned, I may not be in a position to record the results afterward.

  “For the past several years, I have been engaged in a series of experiments involving cellular transdifferentiation, molecular cloning, and three-dimensional printing. Two of my most significant findings are as follows. First of all, through close examination of the jellyfish species Turritopsis dohrnii, the ‘Eternal Jellyfish,’ I have deciphered the precise mechanism through which their mature adult cells are able to transdifferentiate to become other types of mature adult cells, a process that cuts out the tedious necessity of stem cells. I have since been able to induce this process to occur in the adult cells of a variety of animal organisms. Using a sample of adult cells from any animal organism, we can use the process of transdifferentiation to grow new cells programmed to be heart cells, lung cells, liver cells, or any other type of tissue.

  “Secondly, I have discovered that the part of the DNA molecule previously thought of as ‘junk’ actually contains coding for memory. These sequences aren’t necessarily useful all on their own. However, through my research, I’ve determined that the memory of an individual can be transferred to another being using a computer that can translate the language of these DNA sequences into audiovisual memories. These audiovisual memories are then stored on the computer and can be transferred to another individual through the use of a hippocampal prosthesis. The hippocampus is part of the brain’s limbic system and plays an important role in the formation of new memories about experienced events, called the episodic or autobiographical memory. Thus, implanting a hippocampal prosthesis, or artificial hippocampus, would allow for the transfer of episodic memories from one person to another.”

  Charles opens his palm to show a model of a hippocampal prosthesis to the camera. It essentially looks the same as a computer chip. Charles then reaches behind him and pulls the sheet off of the body on the table. It is a man, who appears to be in a deep, peaceful sleep. The man is an exact clone of Charles. The contours of his naked chest rise and fall with each breath. He looks as real as any other human being.

  “I introduce you to the ‘other’ Charles Lang, who I will hereafter refer to as CL,” Charles says, gesturing to the body on the table. Charles pulls up a shirtsleeve to reveal a thick layer of scar tissue across his own right arm. “The cell samples necessary to develop healthy, viable organs were extensive, and even using three-dimensional printing technology, it took almost a year to create CL. However, CL is now well equipped for life. He is constructed totally of transdifferentiated cells, with the only exception being the hippocampal prosthesis implanted in his brain. For all intents and purposes, CL is a human being no less real than you or me.”

  Charles pours himself a glass of water from a nearby pitcher. He takes several gulps. There’s a heaviness in his tone as he continues. “This isn’t a flawless process, and unfortunately before CL, there were numerous cloning attempts that proved far less successful and had to be terminated. I hope the same is not true of CL, but I acknowledge this as a possibility. Science is imperfect, and it is only through this imperfection that we are able to improve and grow. I hope that those who later stand to judge me will weigh the ethical risks of this experiment against its likely contribution to the betterment of humanity.”

  Charles stops again, takes another sip of water. His hand is shaking. “The most ambitious of the previous experiments took place between May 19, 2010 and January 17, 2011, and involved the use of cell samples from Julie Lang and Jessica Lang, who I will refer to as J-1 and J-2 for the purposes of this discussion. Due to the use of faulty samples, including partially damaged cells and DNA molecules, J-1 and J-2 emerged from the incubation chamber with severe observable physical and mental deformities and were only able to survive for several hours.

  “Initially, I believed that the faulty samples were also the cause of the subjects’ extremely limited capacities in encoding, storing, and retrieving memories. However, upon examination of the subjects during the autopsies, I was surprised to find that both subjects had fully matured brains that should have been capable of much more advanced memory processes. This was when I came to realize that DNA molecules could not in and of themselves be used to transfer memories but rather needed to be translated by a computer and downloaded onto a hippocampal prosthetic. Moreover, while I haven’t yet deciphered the biological explanation for this phenomenon, I have determined that the DNA molecules of a deceased person cannot be translated and thus cannot be transferred to another individual. At this time and with our current methods, we cannot resurrect the memories of the dead.”

  Charles points to the computer behind him. “Therefore, as mentioned, memory content can be uploaded and transferred from one living organism to another, so memories can be transferred from me to CL. Using the program that I’ve developed, I can even be selective in which memories I transfer to CL. And finally, by using the same computer program to deliver small, targeted electric shocks, I can select and delete specific memories from my own hippocampus.”

  Charles sits down in the desk chair. He fastens a vast web of electrodes to his scalp. There is already a crown of electrodes attached to CL’s shaved head.

  “When I flip this switch,” Charles says, pointing to something similar to a light switch at the edge of the computer monitor, “an intense wave of electric voltage will flow between me, CL, and the computer. CL will inherit copies of all of my memories, while I will delete from my own mind all memories dealing with my family and my scientific career. This transfer will cause CL to emerge from his artificially induced coma. And upon this emergence, he will be me. He will become Charles Lang. And I will be somebody else.

  “You may ask why I have programmed it so that I will lose what others may consider
to be my most valuable memories. The truth is that I don’t want to be Charles Lang anymore. I want to start a new life with new memories. With my memories, CL will be able to take over my duties as one of the world’s most influential scientists. He will have the celebrity, the money, and the honor. And I will be able to lead a quiet, happy life, away from all of the memories that have haunted me, especially my memories of Julie and Jess.”

  Charles fits the last electrode into place. He breathes in and smiles. “So thank you to everyone who has made this possible, and may today become one of the most significant in scientific history.”

  Charles flips the switch. At first there is nothing but a low hum. The hum grows higher in pitch. And then, suddenly, everything is distorted. Charles and CL both begin convulsing. The lights crackle and pop as the bulbs blow up, spraying glass across the room, briefly illuminating a face in the door’s small window. Charles’s body jumps and jerks against the chair, a frothy mix of spit and vomit bubbling from his mouth. CL’s head seeps blood as he falls from the table. The video camera crashes to the ground. The computer overheats, sparking and sending smoke into the air. Someone bursts in through the door and it’s Peter, who has been watching through the window. He flips off the switch. Everything goes dark for several moments, as if the entire world has shut off.

  And then I am there, for the first time. I am in a memory for the first time. My eyesight feels blurry, my limbs weak, my body freezing. I’m lying naked on the concrete floor, and every part of me hurts. Peter runs over to me and detaches the wires from my head. As he holds me up, I see Charles, Charles who just moments before was young and handsome. His hair is singed around the electrodes, fluids staining the collar of his blue checkered shirt. He lies unconscious in the debris, and he appears to have instantaneously aged fifty years, his skin dry and wrinkled, his features sinking into themselves.

  I feel myself slipping in and out of consciousness. I look up at Peter, his face chopped up and segmented like a Cubist painting. Before he can say anything, I drift away into a black, expansive sea of nothingness. And it is this nothingness, this emptiness, that is the beginning of my life.

  PART IV

  July 9, 2006

  Age Twenty-Eight

  A hiking trail winds up through the hills behind the house, surrounded by vines growing thick as pythons, shrubs scattered dry against the ground, trees crawling on top of one another, grasping at something unattainable. Charles and Julie stand at the foot of the trail, poised, about to race. The sign reads Birch Lake Pass.

  Charles’s face is scruffy, sandy stubble like pebbles against his chin. He wears a plain white T-shirt and khaki pants. Julie has her hair pulled back into a bun. She wears a patchwork jumper that makes her look like a child again. Jess is strapped to her back in a carrier, giggling in the sunshine, a hat protecting her cheeks and neck from the summer’s heat.

  Julie plants her feet in the dirt, turns to Charles and flashes him a small, mischievous grin. Then, like a jackal, she begins sprinting through the forest, Charles soon following behind. They plunge through the trees, the forest coming alive around them, a breathing creature, the colors vibrant and shifting, the trees yawning in the afternoon light. Charles reaches out, again and again, never quite able to catch up to Julie and Jess, Jess howling with laughter at the bumpy ride. Finally Julie arrives at a clearing at the top of a cliff overlooking the lake. The feeling of eternity stretches around them as small waves lap against the shore where they so often sat together as children, as gulls swoop through the sky, as the plants around them unfurl and stretch. Charles catches up and he and Julie whirl around together, scooping Jess up in their arms so that she can see the entire world. They collapse on the felted grass around them, heaving in deep open breaths.

  Charles holds Julie’s hand in his, feels the warmth of her flesh, feels the wedding ring against his fingers, and he remembers the day they first ran up this hill, remembers stooping down on one knee and sliding his mother’s ring on Julie’s finger. He can think of no place he would rather be, of no family he would rather have in his life than this.

  “CHARLES?”

  Time cracks apart. I feel myself fragment, the pieces cracking into fragments themselves. A dust storm of memory whorls through my mind, shattered images raining down on a wasteland. The images land like tattoos on my skin, four birthday candles smoking as Jess blows them out, a worried furrow across Julie’s face as she tries for the last stroke on an almost-finished painting.

  “Charles?”

  The voice lingers in the air as I look around, Steve’s voice, but I’m no longer in the lab, I’m running home along a deserted sidewalk, streetlamps glowing orange through a cold, impenetrable fog. My mind reengages with the environment around me. My knees buckle and I fall, landing on the dewy grass of somebody’s well-manicured front lawn. I begin to cry, throaty sobs from deep in my chest, sobs that cause my whole body to shake, my cheeks streaked with salty tears. None of this has been mine. This isn’t my life. These aren’t my memories. I’m a nonentity. All along I suspected, knew that these weren’t my memories, that I was watching them from a distance as an observer, an outsider. The truth is that I’m only the echo, a servant indentured to the memories, the tragedy, the loss suffered by the first Charles Lang. I’ve never even met Julie or Jess, not really. I don’t have a history of my own. I have nothing from before I woke up in the laboratory, before I woke up on the couch in the living room, nothing that couldn’t be somebody else’s. All I’ve done is borrow someone else’s life.

  I hate Charles for his selfishness, for his recklessness. But most of all I hate that every moment I’ve experienced with Julie, Charles has gotten to experience in real life. I hate that he got to feel her skin against his face, that at night, he said to her, “I love you,” and Julie said it back across the bed. I hate the first Charles Lang—I hate him with every part of me, because even if it’s only through his memories, even if I’ve never met her before, I’ve fallen in love with Julie.

  I’ve fallen in love with the sweep of Julie’s hair and the one dimple in her right cheek. I’ve fallen in love with her creativity and talent and the depth of her instinct. I’ve fallen in love with who she is and who she has the potential to become. I’ve fallen in love with her image, and yet I’ve fallen in love with her too. Whoever Julie is beyond the memories, I know that I love her to my fullest capacity. I hate the first Charles Lang for thrusting on me a predetermined existence that has no hope for anything but sadness and mourning. But I understand him too. I hate Charles and understand him at the same time. The memories he experienced, the pain they invoked—how can I blame someone for wanting to run away from that?

  The back of my head throbs, and when I touch my sticky hair, I find that the blood is still wet. I’m reminded of the pain I felt from where the electrodes burned my scalp. I thought that pain would never dissipate. Suddenly I realize I’m breathing hard. The memory of what just happened returns to me in chopped images, mental photographs pieced together. I remember holding Peter against the wall. Waking up sprawled on the floor. Steve standing over me with a round-bottomed flask, flecked with blood. Peter locking himself in his office. Steve telling me to stay put, that he was going to get some bandages from the other room. And then I was running, running as fast as I could, down the stairs, out the door, my vision slipping and crackling like a film at twelve frames per second, the night distorted, the stars swimming around me.

  I’m on my knees on someone’s lawn. I take a breath and look up. There she is, standing in the middle of the street, watching me. The moonlight reflects off of Jess’s hair, her cheeks rosy pink like a doll’s. She wears saddle shoes and pom-pom socks, a pink princess dress and a little white sweater. She smiles at me, waves when my eyes catch hers, and I slowly rise, mesmerized, taking one step forward, another, my breath steaming in the night. Jess takes a step backward, another, stumbling.

  “Charles?” the little girl says, her pigtails bobbing against her head. Je
ss’s face melts away, replaced by Ava’s ridge of freckles and fiery red hair. She looks up at me, at my hopeful arms, still outstretched. Smoke curls out from a nearby chimney. I shiver with the cold of the night air.

  “Charles? Charles, what happened to you?” I hear a baby crying, howling from far away. The world sways. And as I look at Ava’s delicate figure before me, I wish I could have held Jess just once, could have felt her small, warm body tucked against my shoulder.

  August 23, 2004

  Age Twenty-Six

  The curtains flutter against the windows. Charles jolts awake with a sick feeling in his stomach. The blackness of night is just beginning to warm into a deep purple-blue, and Charles immediately reaches across the bed to find the sheets cold and abandoned. He hears a loud moan from the bathroom. His bare feet thump against the hardwood as he runs down the hallway. Julie squats on the bath mat, her knees up to her chest, her back to the door. There’s a pool of wetness around her, seeping through her nightgown, and in the darkness, Charles can’t tell if it’s water or blood. Charles crouches down next to Julie and she clutches him against her, leaning and sobbing into his shoulder. He rubs a soft hand against her back while taking her elbow, helping Julie to her feet. He knows what’s happening and they cannot stay here. They must get to a hospital, before it’s too late.

  “It’s not time yet, Charles, it’s too early,” Julie wails as Charles leads her to the car, a trail of fluid dragging behind her. Her face is swollen, her eyes chapped and puffy. Charles has never seen her so distraught before. He can’t feel anything. He cannot allow himself to feel anything right now.