Mind and Flesh Read online

  She answers that she does not want to be locked inside.

  I tell her that she is outside.

  This conversation is frustrating. The beatings of my heart intensify.

  I wake up, sweating. It takes me a minute to adjust to my surroundings and realize that I am still lying down on the couch. I don’t want these nightmares anymore… Yesterday, I have had enough of them for a lifetime.

  I stay here, doing nothing. I have no incentive to get out of bed. My previous life is destroyed. My wife is gone.

  I feel so empty right now.

  Also… am I not a murderer? I actually did erase her mind. Therefore I killed her.

  Well, she betrayed me. She had it coming.

  Still, did she deserve to die?

  She did. She betrayed me and almost got me killed. Serves her right.

  No. That’s not… that was not intentional on her part. She didn’t want any of this to happen, even if she has some responsibility. It’s that other guy’s fault, that government prick. I am starting to feel bad about this. I killed her. I killed her in cold blood. At the moment it seemed like the only logical choice to me. I didn’t want to die. I only sought a path to escape my grim situation. I took a life in the process... My wife’s life. Even if she was instrumental in my demise, and I would have never wanted to see her again, maybe she didn’t deserve to die. At least she didn’t suffer any physical pain. She was just… disconnected. That seems like a clean way to die. Am I trying to find myself excuses to stop feeling bad? I suppose it’s only normal. Now I have a second chance, thanks to her sacrifice. I shouldn’t let it go to waste.

  I get up. I should take a shower and start my new life clean. I take off my top then stretch my arms to my back to take off my bra. I painfully unstrap it after several tries. And then I remember how she was doing it. Shit. I could have just slid the strap front and opened it easily from there. As I look down, I am greeted by a view I had never experienced before. An upside close-up of boobs! Sweet.

  I enter the shower. Warm water quickly soothes my skin and makes me feel better. As I spread soap on my wife’s body, I miss her. Being her is not the same as seeing her.

  After washing the soap off, I take a towel and dry myself. My hair are still drenched, but I don’t care much. I boot up the computer, enter my password, and find the folder with all our pictures.

  Our wedding. Her radiant smile. Some pictures of my parents and my sister. The parents of my wife and her two brothers. Me and my wife kissing. Dancing. I look clumsy, thankfully at that time she was leading me on. I open another folder of pictures, this time of our vacations. She is feeding a fruit bat. Wearing a snake around her neck as if it was a scarf. She looks a bit tense. I am standing atop the wall of a temple as if I had just conquered it. Another folder. Oh, I didn’t even remember this one. We got pretty drunk and made funny faces, trying to impersonate some celebrities and making each other guess who it was. If my memories are right, I kept failing since I don’t keep up to date with TV. She looks so goofy in those pictures! And I don’t like how my eyes are always semi-closed. Thank you alcohol, for inducing the neuronal GABA system and making me sedated. Another folder. Oh, the Zoo. She was really uneasy with all the animals in cages, and kept telling me how monstrous it was to keep them locked instead of letting them free in the wild. I didn’t care as much, thinking that at least thanks to Zoos we could keep samples of various species and keep them from harm and poachers. She definitely would not like that point of view, so I didn’t tell her what I was thinking and just agreed to her rant. Another album, our Halloween disguises when we were at her friend’s party. I snatched white lab coats from work and sprayed red paint here and there, while she did both our make-ups. Two lovely scientist Zombies. And her friends were not even disguised! I was so annoyed to have everyone look at us. One of her drunken colleagues proposed to ‘lick my dripping flesh’ while my wife was in the ladies’. I refused, and told my wife once we were home. Since then she has always been passive aggressive with her colleague at the bakery and never considered her as a friend anymore. I get mixed feelings from looking at her in pictures. I miss her, I am sad about her loss. I feel guilty. And I am pissed at her for betraying me. She has always put her needs above others, and in the end she sacrificed me to her stupid whims.

  I close the pictures folder and open my music folder, then put on a melancholic tune. I don’t really know what to do with my life yet. I can’t take on my previous job as usual. This is out of the question. ‘Hey guys, I am here to replace my late husband, and I suddenly am a great neuroscientist! Totally not suspicious!’ I give myself an ironic smile.

  Likewise, I can’t take her job, she worked as a baker and I have absolutely no cooking skills. I suppose that I should resign from her job. What next, then? I don’t really know. I suppose I should take a few days or weeks off, and think things through, and then start planning my new life. We both have enough money on the side. Oh that’s right, I gave everything I own to her on my will. Dumb judgment call, but at least it will prove useful now. There is plenty enough money for me to take a break and sort myself out. I still can’t shake off that my wife is gone, and life as I knew it is over. And that I have no purpose left.

  Sadly, I can’t just relax and recover right away. I will soon need to organize the funeral. My own funeral. What a funny thought. At least that’s something to do? To keep me occupied and active for a bit, and stop feeling so bad and so empty.

  Here I go! I rise on my feet, having a purpose. First things first, I will take a piss. And this time, I will be careful not to spill all over myself.

  ***

  I have been so busy, I almost forgot to choose the clothes I need to wear for the ceremony this afternoon. I know that she had clothes suited for a funeral, we have attended the funeral for her mother’s death before. I think I would recognize the stuff if I see it in the dresser. I go through dresses until I find the right one, elegant and black. Alright I need to put it on. And slide the zipper on my back. Never done that before. Ah, I don’t even know how to turn my arm to get it higher! It hurts to twist my wrist so much!

  Ok, I did it. I look at myself in the mirror. This feels so weird to see her reflection instead of mine. It also feels wrong. She looked better. I have no idea how to take good care of her hair. And I suppose I need to add some dark make-up. I will start with the eye-liner, as just drawing doesn’t seem too difficult. I take the eye-liner and crudely follow the shape of my eyelids. This doesn’t look too bad. I guess. Perhaps I do not have the eye to spot if it is well done or not, and I am not very demanding, but I suppose I did an alright job. However, I don’t feel like trying my luck with other make-up products. Let’s work on the hair now. I take the brush, and look at my hair without much of a clue. I will just brush and see how it goes…

  Better but still messy. I don’t really know how to make her hair look better, I was never paying attention to what she did in the bathroom. I should have. I am looking nowhere as elegant as she would, despite being the same person. Good care and skill in details really make a difference. My hair looks bushy and unkempt. I guess that people looking at me would associate this messy look with being depressed about the death of her husband, it could cover up the fact that she is not herself. For real.

  Why do I keep saying her about myself? Is it so difficult for me to accept that this entity is now completely me? Somehow I am under the impression that I just borrowed her body. No, her body is now my body. Perhaps what prevents me from accepting that mindset is that I use my own expectations of her, and what everybody else would expect from her, as the bar to reach. I cannot be her, I am a different person. I should just be whatever I am naturally. Well, not exactly. I still need to keep some appearances up, otherwise I will look suspicious. At least to the people that know her. I need to cut ties with everyone in order to be free from their expectations.

  I didn’t see the time fly. I need to go to the ceremony. As I get the keys, I realize that I have no poc
kets and need to carry a purse. There are multiple ones to choose from, I think that I should get the black one. I pass its strap around my shoulder and reach the entrance. I put my feet in my shoes and… they don’t fit. Old habits die hard, I was about to wear my men shoes. I’ll take one of her pairs, the black one with high heels. As I slide my feet into them, I feel awkward. I am not used to stand on tip toes. I feel strain at the back of my ankle.

  One foot in front of the other. I need to keep balance, as if I was a tightrope walker. One more foot in front. One more.

  Pain!

  A feeling as if the ground had been removed from under my feet. By reflex, I catch the door handle and my shoulder bangs against the door. It hurts. My ankle hurts.

  Enough! I grab another pair of her shoes, with a sturdy looking sole and minimal elevation. Not as classy, but less dangerous. Angered and having a prickling sensation everywhere I was hurt, I reach for the door, lock carefully behind me and set out to the ceremony.

  ***

  My parents are offering me their condolences. My mother is crying. My father is holding her. There are no tears but I can see in his eyes that he is deeply saddened. She keeps glancing at my corpse in the coffin. My father addresses me “How are you holding up?”

  “Not well,” I reply.

  He nods. Never has been a man of many words.

  My mother breaks into more tears “We… we can help you whenever you need to talk or anything.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I would have never thought that any of my children would die before me,” she continues. “I pictured being a grandma, having a lot of grandkids flooding all over the house.”

  She breaks in sobs, then goes on “He was so brilliant. A scientific prodigy. Married a fine lady such as you. He had everything going for him. Promised to an amazing career. And now… it is all gone. Hope, dreams. Why him? Why not the driver of the car? Why did my son have to die?”

  Tears rain down her cheeks. She hides her head in my father’s shoulders as he pats her on the back, looking down. Me, brilliant? A prodigy? It always felt like I was never good enough for her. She was always putting me down, and suddenly she is praising me when I am dead? At least it warms my heart a little, if that is what she was genuinely thinking all along despite the harsh things she always said.

  “He was a great husband and man,” I tentatively say. “I don’t know what I will do without him.”

  I hear more sobs from my mother. My father looks up at me, draws a reassuring smile. “Thank you for having been there for him. At least I am sure he died happy.”

  I really do feel bad for them. Little do they know that their son is alive and well. Perhaps not in the form that they would have expected, but it makes me uncomfortable that they are grieving me right when I am standing in front of them.

  Should I tell them about myself? I don’t even think that they would believe me. They would just assume that the wife has gone crazy or something. What if I provide intimate details to prove that it is me? As a wife she was close enough to learn them. No. My family is not too versed in new technologies, they would not believe that what happened is even possible.

  However something else prevents me from reaching out to them. My desire to put my failed life behind and start anew? My hurt pride from losing so much? Shame to have changed body? Guilt over admitting that I killed my wife? Fear from being exposed, and that the government would choose to silence all of us? Perhaps a mix of those reasons. I just don’t feel like I should tell them. Even if it touches me to see them hurt. In a way, I am glad that my mother is forced to admit my worth in the face of losing me. Does she regret not having been nicer to me in the past? I doubt it would even cross her mind. She always thought she was telling the right things.

  Am I even their son now? I do not share their genetic material anymore. A simple test would tell that they are not my biological parents anymore. My existence in itself is confusing.

  I clear my thoughts and look at my parents. They are both looking at my old body. I also contemplate it, fascinated to see myself lying down in that coffin while I am alive in the same room. Except that… now that I think about it, this is not exactly and rightfully my body. When I duplicated my mind, I cloned myself. So the original, rightful owner of the body, is dead with it.

  I definitively am a separate entity, a clone. The dead body does not belong to me. I am not born from these parents, only the original was. So it is settled. I am not my wife, nor am I the man that is lying in that coffin. There is no reason for me to tell these people that their son is alive, since I am not their son. And their son is, indeed, dead.

  Somehow I feel happier than I have been lately. As if I just freed myself from invisible shackles. I look around the room, seeing who else is here. Other family relatives came to the funeral ceremony. I never had close ties with any of them. Maybe only my uncle, whom brought me and my sister fishing at times to times. I didn’t invite any of my previous coworkers, as I am very bitter about the betrayal of my colleague. However I invited a few of my close friends. I am resisting the temptation to go meet them, afraid that I would act casually in their midst and that my speech and manners would give away who I really am. Although, I am quite curious as to what they think about me being dead. I will take a closer look.

  As I get closer to them, someone else enters the room. Her sight makes my heart pump faster and blood rushes to my cheeks. My sister. I have not seen her in a while. I smile and start to turn in her direction when she rushes past me without even looking at me. She throws herself on my mother and starts crying.

  Oh.

  My smile vanishes as I remember that I am not her brother anymore. I am still so confused. I want to go with them, tell them that it is alright. But I can’t. I can’t afford to seem so much out of character. I can’t tell them that their son and brother is alive. He is not. He is dead in that coffin, and I am a stranger to them.

  I remain frozen in the middle of the room, alone.

  “Hey, are you alright?”

  My friends have noticed me.

  “Yes. No, not really. It’s still hard for me to realize that he is… gone.”

  I try to look depressed.

  “We will all miss him, but don’t let his accident eat you inside. He wouldn’t want for you to act as if you were dead too.”

  I nod.

  “Thank you.”

  I try to come up with a faint smile, but I am angry at my friend. Why does he pretend that he knows what I would want? I shouldn’t have invited my friends anyway, since I am married I have been seeing them less and less. Watching football while drinking beers became a loss of time, and none of their lives evolved enough to be interesting to hear about. The only enjoyable part was when the bank clerk and the community manager were describing how stupid and irritating some people are.

  I quickly leave the group and get back to the grieving family. My sister sees me approaching and gives me a look of pity. She grabs my arm while gently patting me on the back. I feel hot in my body when she touches me. I hope no one is noticing blushing cheeks. She breaks apart, also blushing. She looks away.

  I don’t feel at place here. I want to be alone. I feel like they are all grieving for the wrong person. For someone that isn’t really dead, instead of grieving for the person that the supposedly dead person killed.

  An employee from the service signs at me. Time is up, what a relief. I go back to the group of my friends

  “The funeral ceremony is reaching an end,” I tell them, “and the cremation is about to start. I am very grateful that you all came to send him off, it means a lot. Thank you.”

  They all nod at me.

  “Be strong.”

  ***

  I contemplate the urn that I just put on the dining table. What do I do with it? The ashes inside are what remain of my previous body. They could represent my older self and serve as a reminder of my previous existence. A memory of who I used to be. No, I am not a sentimentalist. They are
just ashes, I don’t care about them. I will just get rid of them in the garbage bin. It’s not like the deceased will mind.

  I get out of the house and open the garbage bin. Before putting the urn in, I look around to see if anyone is witnessing me. Doing so triggers a memory in me. “We will be watching”, he said. What if government agents are looking at me right now? Will they report that I threw the urn in the bin, that this is not a normal act, an irregular behavior? Will they get suspicious of me if I don’t show more respect to my deceased husband?

  I contemplate the bottom of the bin, where I previously dropped the broken flower pot. I picture the urn next to the pot, also cracked and the leaked ashes mixing with the soil. So tempting. However I can’t afford to be seen dropping such a supposedly precious item there. I shut the lid of the bin and get back inside, clutching the urn against my stomach as if to protect it from prying eyes. Disgruntled, I place it at the back of the cupboard to leave it out of my sight. I will flush it down the toilets later on.

  I am hungry. I open the fridge and scan its contents. I have been quite negligent since I have been back. I never went out to restock. I have been lost in my thoughts, trying to cope with my situation, shutting myself from the outside world except when I needed to prepare the ceremony.

  “Let’s call to check on each other sometimes, and maybe grab a cup of coffee together. We should support one another.” The words my sister whispered me before parting ways after the ceremony are ringing in my head. I feel torn between wanting to contact her, and leaving my family and past life behind so I can move on better.

  I draw a pizza out of the freezer. My wife would be so upset if she knew I was feeding her body with so much junk food. In any case I need to start getting out, and buy food tomorrow. I still don’t know what to do with my life. I get the pizza out of the microwave and put it on a plate. I sit and start eating in silence. I feel so empty. I have no ambition left. No purpose left. No taste for anything. There is a void between my previous life and the new one that has not formed in my mind yet. That pizza is awful. There is nothing left to eat as dessert. I brush my teeth, take off my clothes. I slide in new panties, put on a loose t-shirt and go to bed.