The Replacement by George Kachergis

Mom came inside from gardening, rolling her eyes. “The mad inventor is still working,” she said. She pulled sandwich stuff out of the fridge and set to slathering slabs of bread with mustard on the counter. I turned around at the table and watched her over the back of the chair. “Jason, honey, would you go tell your father lunch will be ready in a few minutes?” she asked. “Be careful,” she added as I stiffly climbed out of my chair.

Nodding, I walked out the door and across our yard to my dad's workshop. I pushed the door open slowly, trying not to disturb him. Suddenly the doorknob was wrenched from my hand and I staggered forward a step, almost falling. In the doorway loomed a giant figure draped in a lab coat. I stood there, wide-eyed and speechless. Its mirrored eyes flashed, and from the ventilator rasped an unintelligible voice. The figure reached up a gloved hand and pulled the mask off to reveal my dad’s smiling mouth. “Jason, what do you need?” he asked as he ushered me out the door, closing it behind us. He reached up to tousle my hair like he always does, and it made me feel safe and warm, but he soon stopped and looked away.

“Mom says it's time for lunch,” I said. I reached out to grab his gloved hand, but he pulled it away, removing his gloves and locking the workshop.

“Jason, you go on in,” he said, “I'll be there in a moment.”

I walked slowly back to the house. My mom had set the table with their sandwiches and my shake, and was reading at the table while she waited. She smiled at me as I clumsily sat down in my chair.

We waited in silence until a moment later my dad came in and collapsed in his chair. He glanced at me and his eyes were dark, but when he saw me looking, he broke off his gaze. He seemed preoccupied and somber. “What’s the matter, Dad?” I asked.

He gave a little smile and shook his head.

“Jason, your father is hard at work finishing a big project,” my mother said earnestly. “And he’s probably very tired, and working too hard,” she added, glancing at him with raised eyebrows as he chewed on his sandwich.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Well, Jason” he started, wiping his mouth with his napkin and leaning back, “it’s kind of hard to explain. It’s a surprise for your mom…and you…that will make life easier for all of us.” He nodded to himself, his eyes fixed on something that I couldn’t see.

Unsatisfied, I started to inhale the oily, heavy shake through my straw. My parents say my health problems make it impossible for me to eat anything else. I’ve never liked the shakes, but I guess they aren’t that bad. Maybe someday I’ll eat food like theirs.

That night my dad worked late. I could see his machine shop through my window. I sat on my bed, reading about faraway places and exotic foods and people. The rich descriptions often seem so magical that I can’t imagine any of it is true.

I looked up once in a while, always to find weak light still streaming from the workshop’s window, illuminating a small patch of the grass that lay between the shop and our home. I wondered what the surprise was, and worried that he was working too hard, so I decided to visit.

Crawling off my bed, I pulled on my shoes and cautiously went out the back door into the darkness. Dew dampened my ankles as I crossed the lawn to the door of the workshop. I slowly opened the door and slipped through.

The workshop was quiet and gloomy. I stood stationary and allowed my eyes to explore the alien environment, and was surprised by the nagging feeling that I’d seen the poster on the wall in front of me before. It was a very old-looking poster that said METROPOLIS in jagged letters and had a scary metal head on the front that stared out blankly. Across the bottom, in red letters that my eyes had trouble focusing on, it read “There can be no understanding between the hand and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator.”

Below the poster, tables were spread out along the whole wall. Green boards with multicolored lumps and wires littered the tables. Spools of wire spilled out of half-closed drawers, and the walls were lined with shelves, which sagged with manuals, tools and instruments. Several islands of cardboard boxes and large equipment were scattered around the room, reaching the ceiling. The shadows they cast were dark, and the contrast gave my eyes trouble.

To the right, I could see my dad slumped over in his chair at his desk, softly and evenly illuminated by an array of glowing computer screens. I thought of going to him then—I desperately wanted to—but a sudden curiosity overtook me, and I turned toward the unexplored left side of the shop whose darkness my eyes could not penetrate.

As I grew closer, I was able to discern a white board adorning the far wall, beyond a stack of boxes, where the silhouette of a human body was distinguishable amidst a sea of numbers and diagrams. Taped to the board, in the head of the silhouette, was a photograph of a person.

I moved jerkily down the length of the workshop, trying to see the person in the photo. I finally reached the board and saw that the yellowing photograph was of me giving the camera a grin. It must have been years ago, but I can’t remember it. I’ve been forgetting a lot of things, and Dad doesn’t know why.

Looking at the photo made my eyes hurt. Now that my movements had ceased, the silence of the workshop was absolute. I had a sudden overwhelming sense of someone watching me. I unbalanced myself as I spun to my left and saw a naked boy staring at me from the table next to the stack of boxes that had previously hidden me from him.

Regaining my balance, I stood in mute terror. For a few seconds, I wanted to run or scream – do anything! – but I couldn’t. Then I realized that he wasn’t moving, either. He was lit by a bank of green and red LEDs on a piece of equipment next to him. My eyes following some cables, I saw that he didn’t have any legs; he wasn’t sitting, but was suspended by several cables from the ceiling. My heart must have been beating very hard, and perhaps my palms were sweaty.

But I still stood, staring into the eyes. His eyes were so real…green like my mother’s. Like mine. The thought reverberated.

Startled, I took a step forward and looked closer at the face. His skin was flushed like he had just been outside in the heat, and his nose…his nose was slightly freckled and a bit pointed; just like mine. He had no hair, but his eyebrows were the same light brown that I share with my dad. Suddenly I remembered the photo in the outline, and a sickening feeling spread throughout my body.

My dad was going to replace me. The poisonous thought echoed furiously, louder and louder in my head. A bitter taste filled my mouth and my face twisted in pain and rage. I seized a wrench on the table as my vision faded at the edges, and letting out a raw cry I smashed his staring, vacant eyes.

I stumbled into the table and collapsed onto it, dropping the wrench and spilling dark, thick tears. I looked anywhere but at those ruined eyes. As I wept, I heard footsteps approaching urgently from across the workshop. My dad came to me and let out a soft moan, putting one hand over my forehead and eyes, but between his fingers I saw his other hand caress the gaping hole in the other’s head.

“My son,” he said, wistfully. Then he enclosed me in his arms and wept. His tears fell and formed a pool below us that my tears speckled with dark globules.

Long after I had stopped crying, he held me and kept repeating into my hair, “I’m so sorry, Jason. I’m so sorry.” The tears did not stop. I stared straight ahead and could not think.