For the rest of my life, when I am alone, I will always think over these moments. How everything was normal – safe, secure, perfect – and then, not normal.
I saw the sun go to sleep and the stars come for their watch. It was a night that he would have liked, if he were here. Cloudless. Shining. Beautiful. But I know I’m to blame for the reason he’s not. And I can see it in myself, now, when I look in the mirror. I’m not who I used to be.
✤✤✤
“Good morning, sweetheart.”
The voice drifted through the ether. The familiar voice lifted me from my slumber and warmed my heart, though I still didn't want to get up as it instructed. “Wake up! Come on, baby girl.” I opened one eye to see my mum leaning over me. I smiled when I saw her face. I hoped I’d look like that when I was older; dark, shiny locks, deep brown eyes – so deep you could swim in them – and not looking a day over thirty-five, even though she was approaching twenty years older than that. But I knew my choices would dictate how I went, and she had only made good ones.
“Why?” I asked as she tried to coax me gently, taking my arm from under my sheet and starting to tug.
She splayed her hands under her backside to smooth her dress before sitting on my mattress, just by my leg. “Because,” she began, before a large smile spread across her features, “Olive had her baby!” My eyes widened now; I propped myself up on my elbow to look at her. “Come on! Let’s go see if she’s as cute as they say!”
My excitement dwindled then, and I couldn’t help but laugh at my mum. “Honestly, mumma, you get excited over the most trivial things,” I said, slowly swinging my legs over in the process of speaking to stand them on the floor. “She looks the same as any other baby. Let’s wait and visit when she’s four, when she’s Different. Then I’ll be impressed.”
“Oh, darling, it doesn’t always happen that way,” mum said, nudging me softly with her side. “You started looking Different when you were only one year old.”
“Okay, so let’s wait a year.”
Mum gave me a smile that looked like a mix of exhaustion and ever so slight amusement. “Come on, Dylan, please?” she asked. I was surprised to hear the begging note in her voice; she really wanted to press this.
I let my brown eyes – almost replicas of my mum’s own, but without the blue ring around them as she had – pass over her. I could really tell I was not about to win this argument, and honestly, the adorable look that came over my mum right now was wavering my resolve. She always did that; put on her small smile, brightened her eyes, and stared at me until I gave in.
But honestly, how could I refuse someone as beautiful – as righteous – as her?
“All right,” I relented. “Let me shower, change and we’ll go.”
“Great.” Mum squeezed my hand, and gave me a good morning hug, before getting up and walking off in her elegant manner. “Come downstairs in twenty minutes and we’ll leave.”
✤✤✤
I don’t know what it was, but I felt comfortable in hospitals when I wasn’t the one in them. If something went wrong all of a sudden, or I felt ill, there was a wealth of doctors on call to make sure I was okay. So the minute we stepped into the ward, I felt I could get sick and not worry about it.
My mum’s and my own heels clacked along the linoleum floor. She and I were always in sync with dressing, and I could thank her for that. Everyone said I was just a younger version of my mother, even though I knew I’d made bad choices in my life that prevented me from truly being so. But, when I looked at us, and saw how much similarity we had, it made me wonder if perhaps she and I were more the same in some respects than I realised.
We headed to the elevators that would take us up to the Maternity ward, and I decided to people watch. I tended to do that. The ones we could classify as Beautiful ones, I smiled at, and he smiled back at me, taking me as one of his own. He had dark auburn hair, blue eyes, a lean body. I could only truly classify him as a Beautiful. The others ranged from the Inbetweens, to the Afflicted. Inbetweens were the most common in the world; pretty to average. Afflicted were the ones you shied away from, so grotesque was their disfigurement, but it was their own fault; they’d chosen that.
I looked over the Afflicted and the Inbetweens; I noticed marks, scars, hollow faces, skeletal to fat bodies, less-than-healthy hair. I looked at them, and could almost classify them, how they got that way. Fat; greed. Skeletal; lies. Scarred; hands that shed innocent blood, or did wrong to someone. I compared them to myself – tall, thin, healthy. Some could say ‘flawless’. I had no scars, no marks. My cheekbones were high. My breasts were nicely sculpted, as was the rest of my body. My eyes were bright, almond in shape, that took in everything around them. The one flaw I had was a tiny mark on my arm, but that was from an injury, not who I was.
The Beautiful one kept smiling at me, obviously enjoying looking at me. The others in the elevator did the same, but they did so in a draining manner. I wondered if they all thought the same thing: Will she stay like that? Of course I would. I couldn’t change who I was.
“Come on, Dylan,” my mum said. I heard the elevator ‘bing’, and then say in a cool, luxurious female voice, ‘Level 3 – Maternity’.
I exited the elevator, feeling eyes on me. I’d always felt that throughout my life, but it varied in intensity when I grew. When I was young, I was regarded as cute; now I was regarded as gorgeous. I didn’t like to think of myself that way – it felt rude, and disrespectful to others who weren’t. So whenever someone told me, my first instinct was to say ‘Thank you, but I really am not’. Though internally, I knew, I knew it was not kind to admit to it. My mum said that was one of the hundred reasons why I looked the way I did. But I really did not see my beauty. I figured it was just a thankful coincidence.
Mum led the way towards where Olive was. She had done this many times – our family always had babies, and Olive led the charge in breeding them. We walked past a large window, and I saw an elderly, motherly-looking nurse tending over babies in small plastic cribs. They all looked identical – small, pink, all with silver eyes and no hair. It was literally as if someone had gone Ctrl+C, and then Ctrl+V’d all over the place. I wondered how they would turn out later on in life.
Mum walked – perhaps glided was the best word – to the reception desk. There was a pane of glass separating her and the receptionist, with only a small grate to talk through and a small cut in the glass to shove things through. The woman there had dreadlocks, was rather thin, and thick make-up to try and obscure her flaws. An Inbetween, but I felt with another blow she’d become an Afflicted. Nevertheless, mum still smiled at her. That was the thing about my mum – she was nice to everyone, no matter what.
“We’re here to see Olive Wood, please,” mum asked. The Inbetween looked at the Beautiful in front of her. She made a ‘tsk’ sound, and opened her mouth to blow a bubble with her gum, before it popped and she sucked it back in. Mum kept her smile up, but I knew if I looked into her eyes, I’d see a subtle hint of distaste and anxiety. The woman pushed a finger with many cheap silver rings through the slot, shoving out a card, before twirling away on her office chair and proceeding to file her finger nails, chewing loudly. Mum looked at me; I shrugged. “All right, well, um… thank you,” mum managed, gently taking the card into her hands and looking at it. “Room M-21. Thank you, miss.”
The woman merely grunted.
“Not the nicest person in the world, is she?” mum questioned softly as we walked off. “Well, maybe she had a bad day.”
I said nothing. I could risk the thought that she was a terrible person, but I didn’t want to voice it.
We walked along the long, white, bright corridors. I could hear some muffled yelps here and there of women in labour, and my mum was quick to say, “I went through that for you; you owe me!”
I laughed softly. “I know I do,” I replied simply. I looked at all the numbers on the doors – M-18, M-19, M-20 – “Here we are,” mum said.
We opened the door to Olive’s room. She’d paid extra for a luxury birthing suite. It looked like an upper-end hotel room; spacious, bright, and well-appointed with the latest in design of furniture – crisp, well accented light wood with rounded corners where applicable. There were soft, gossamer curtains, a whirlpool bath, and a long loveseat that would unfold as a bed for the dad.
Olive was in a huge California king bed, with white sheets. But she was so pale she almost blended in. My poor cousin, usually rather good looking, looked so drained from the ordeal, but she did have a smile on her face. She grinned and beckoned us in. Mum and I both went to hug her, gently, and as I looked over her shoulder when I did, I saw a baby clone – small, no hair, silver eyes. It kicked slightly and gurgled.
“He’s so beautiful,” mum told her niece, kissing her forehead. I nodded my agreement, even though he was just a copy right now.
Olive breathed out, and looked over at her baby. Olive was an Inbetween, but one of the better looking ones; she had done some hard times in her life. “He is gorgeous,” she smiled. I guessed everyone thought they child was gorgeous. Perhaps when they officially met them down the track, it might be different, or it might be more truthful.
“You never told me exactly how hard it was,” she said to my mum, who laughed. “I am… exhausted.”
“Where’s Jon?” I asked of her husband.
“He went down to get some food,” Olive told me, but I could see a little bit of unease in her eyes. “He’ll be back soon.”
Mum and I exchanged knowing glances. Jon was one of the members in the family who were Afflicted. We were always nice to him – he’d had a rough time, after all, but sadly his choices with how to deal with it had made him ugly. I thought it was magical that Olive loved him all the same, but I knew she worried every time he left her.
I looked to the corner of the room and saw two small egg-shaped chairs, and I went to bring them over for mum and me to sit on. The baby continued to gurgle, and Olive put her hand on him softly. “What are you naming him?” I asked.
“I was thinking of Maverick,” Olive said. Mum and I smiled, nodding our agreement. “Maverick Jon Lorelike.”
“Excellent,” I replied.
Olive cast her brown eyes to mine; hers weren’t as bright, but still deep. She smiled at me, tiredly. “You look more beautiful every time I see you, Dylan,” she told me. I blushed. “You’re a good girl. And everyone can see that.”
Mum reached over to take my hand. I grimaced with embarrassment as she looked at me with such pride. “One of the Beautifuls,” mum agreed. Olive beamed.
“You keep that up, Dylan,” Olive told me softly. She gestured at her own face. “You can be better than this.”
I sent her a soft smile, and shook my head. “You’re beautiful. You’re a Beautiful.”
Olive scoffed. “Far from it!” she said, but she chuckled at herself. “You’re a good, clean girl. Memphis is lucky to have you. How long have you been going out for?”
“Uhm, four months now.”
“How lovely. Well, he better keep you on a tight leash!”
We all laughed, though mine was half-hearted. Memphis was a Beautiful himself. He had done bad things, sure – who hadn’t? But he was, to me, the most Beautiful of them all. His face looked as if it was Photoshopped to look that good, but I knew it was real. I had felt it and there was no way any part of that was fake. He had barely done a bad thing in his life, and I had noticed in the time we had been together, he seemed to glow even more than before. Perhaps the same could be said for me.
“And what are you wanting to be, Dylan?” Olive continued, pulling me out of my thoughts. “You’ll be eighteen soon – you better start thinking.”
I glanced over to mum, who nodded at me, which told me to ‘Go ahead.’
“I’d like to be a Paradisiac.” I got a range of responses from this, every time. Some were amazed and awed, and full-heartedly were happy for me. Others smiled, excited, yet I could see in their eyes, they wondered if I’d truly make it. There was less than 1% in the world who were Paradisiac. They were the absolute elite; they were the ones chosen for politics – all presidents, prime ministers, royalty (the few we had), politicians, were practically all Paradisiacs. It was extremely hard; you could practically never stumble. Often once people became Paradisiacs, they didn’t last more than two years in that rank. But I felt with my determination, I could get there.
Olive was in the Dylan-can-definitely-make-it camp, which I found uplifting. “Well, you’ll get there,” she told me. She was about to add something on to that when Maverick started to cry, obviously wanting to be fed. At the sound of the cries, a Beautiful nurse came in, a cheerful smile on her face. “Let’s help you feed him, shall we, sweetheart?” she asked Olive.
Mum nudged me, and we knew that was our cue to leave. We bid Olive goodbye before letting her tend to her baby. “Well, let’s hope he turns out Beautiful,” mum said. “I’m sure he will, with a mother like that.”
I grimaced, and risked it to say, “I am a little scared about his father though…”
Mum looked at me, and I wondered if she was about to lecture me on talking about other people like that, but she sighed and patted my shoulder. “Come on, darling, let’s get home,” she said. “Memphis is coming over for dinner, remember.”
“I could never forget!”
We walked back to the lifts, and when it came, we got in amongst the Inbetweens and Afflicted. No Beautiful ones here except us.
“Second Floor,” said the cool female voice, and the door opened. There was a man in a white lab coat, looking over his clipboard. He looked flawless; definitely a Beautiful. He had flaxen hair, a strong jaw, and when he looked at me, he smiled with a perfect set of teeth. But there was something wrong with him. He had a waxy way to his skin, and his rounded cheeks seemed to have bruising and darkness to them. His face actually seemed to have some unnatural swelling and redness here and there. It also looked like he had a raised temporal line as it looked uncomfortably stretched.
And then I realised. He was a Changed. It was a new surgical procedure that could be done to make people Beautifuls, and over the past ten years, it had improved. His was a reasonably done job, but it was still kind of obvious he wasn’t natural. He was a doctor that performed this controversial operation. People challenged it; it wasn’t right. You couldn’t hide who you were, yet there were people in the world willing to shell out lots of money to make it look like they were flawless. I thought to myself they were a bunch of liars – they were obscuring who they truly were, and the thing was, they didn’t change if they did something bad or good; their face was no longer malleable as it had been. It just stayed, almost too stiff to be true. It wasn’t. The Changed were often classified as the lowest of the low, as they had to lie and cheat to get where they were. They were almost placed lower than the Afflicted. It was unforgivable.
The doctor smiled at me. I smiled back to be polite, before looking away. I noticed everyone in the elevator tried to back up a few paces. No one liked their types.
“Ground Floor,” said the elevator.
The Changed gestured for mum and me to exit first. We thanked him and walked out. “So they’ve finally brought them to the hospitals,” mum said softly, and at first I wondered if she was just speaking to herself. “I guess it’s more accepted now.”
“I don’t truly like it,” I said, “But I guess some people think they don’t have another choice.”
Mum smiled and reached out to squeeze my hand; I squeezed hers back. She nudged my hip with hers; I nudged back. We both laughed. I loved moments like this, where we acted like we were best girlfriends; we were, even though we were mother and daughter. We were the closest pair.
“Don’t worry, Dylan,” mum told me as we got to the car. She unlocked it as she said, “You definitely will never need that.”