2070

It was all so brain deadening.

The jelly in my eyes had become sweet and sticky from the light of LEDs. I no longer counted time by the second, but by the heartbeats of the sphere. The lab remained dark so we could at least imagine something new were there. Every documentary and film about Elvis Presley had been digested. We spoke to his image I plastered upon the door, which read “Nine and nine make fourteen, four and four make nine, the clock is strikin’ thirteen, I think I lost my mind.” In our isolation and boredom, detail was our only source of novelty. Fennec had 37 seam-like scars running across her. I found Max’s signature mark under her left eyelid. She had not been aware of either factoid until my every sense was imbued with her dissection.

But I wasn’t the only cacoethes plagued rodent in the lab.

Fen had become obsessed with my figure. Every muscle, every hair—even the cadence and tone of my speech. She liked the gravel, she liked the pressure, and she liked the rapids. She was a suicidal Goddess, crashing waves onto a piercing rock until it was sharp enough to make her bleed. Etched into the canvas of my skin were morbid pictures of our life, drawn and inked into permanence by her hand. She enjoyed retracing the depictions of her horror as I devoured her alive and spent her will to live. The closer she got to death, the longer her silence would be as she glowed in afterthought. I was frightened by the practice at first, but I learned how to gauge and tease her threshold of consciousness by the strength of her pulse beating through my teeth. After waking, sometimes she would tell me about a surreal vision she had and would write the experience into her dream journal. Then we would eat and dutifully maintain the lab. Perhaps we would find another subject to watch films about. But always came the modifications, the exploration of ideals, and the pains of shaping marble from flesh.

I did everything she told me to do, and I never went outside because I wanted to endure the claustrophobia with her. I didn’t have a choice but to entertain the demon. I supposed such was the cost of saving her life, and she rewarded me handsomely for it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling we both wanted to die while the going was easy. If it weren’t for the potential of the sphere, I’m sure I would have already offered her a chance to slip away. She understood this as well, proved by the way she treated the sphere as if it were an extension of me. She drew faces upon its surface, huddled near it for heat when she felt cold, and even read books to it when our insomnia flared. We had no idea what to expect when it was born, but we knew it would at least be something new; a new person, a new train of thought, a new being of mysterious capability and character. At least I hoped so.

If there were two of me, I’d certainly go insane.

“Dune?” Fennec sat her fork and knife down on the square, black and white, checkered table. We sat opposite, while the sphere took a side between us. I had ornamented the sphere with red lamps, which were only used when we were eating, and it illuminated our surround to appear like a darkroom for developing film. Fennec’s only piece of attire, an antique heart-shaped locket, hung from her neck and it looked as bloody as its history. She only wore it because she liked the effect it had on me, which was a paradoxical mixture of traumatic terror and tender nostalgia.

“Aye,” I responded absently. I looked up in a sickly way and stared into her two nickel-sized pupils.

Her tongue stretched forth and curled around her snout to scratch an itch, “Want to let off a little steam?”

I tried to dredge up an inkling of arousal, but could summon none, so I said “No.”

“You haven’t eaten, you don’t want to fuck, and you’ve had that nauseating frown all day,” she blinked once slowly, and tilted her head like a lizard. “Are you depressed?”

I took a deep breath and prepared myself to flip the table, or scream at the walls, or maybe run out the door to remind myself there was still a world to conquer, but I smiled grossly instead. “My dear, my beloved, the love of my life—I think we ought to play a game.”

“What do you want to play?” Fennec asked as she resumed eating her meat-wall steak.

“A game of chess. I’d like that a lot,” I nodded to the naked creature, hoping for some reciprocal anticipation, but she only chewed her cud.

“Alright,” she finally nodded in return, but didn’t appear to recognize my time sensitive attitude.

“Go on then, fetch the set,” I ordered kindly.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered softly, and I had to swallow my tongue as she lifelessly obeyed. She tip-toed to the shelf and hauled over a bag of large, metallic pieces. She sat it on the table and unzipped the bag for us. After we set them upon the table, I played b4 and cut at my steak while I thought. She eyed the board and played e5.

“Do you remember when we first met?” I asked her and played b5.

“I think I was 16, living at the Pet Store,” her eyes smiled as she pushed her pawn to d5. “You were a lot different back then.”

I put my fork to my lips and ate. My bishop found its place on b2, and she replied with bishop to d6. “I might have been a little shy,” I shrugged coyly and played g3.

“You weren’t just shy, Dune. You avoided us like the plague at first. I remember you hiding behind Max whenever he brought you, and you wouldn’t speak either. Such an awkward 17-year-old boy,” she shook her head in pity and landed her knight on f6.

I fianchettoed my other bishop and remembered the reanimated faces of living stuffed animals. The monstrosities were walking corpses in my younger mind, so I never allowed myself to fully know them because of their expiration date—besides for one. “To be fair, you weren’t very happy either, Fen. You were always biting the Males and crying foul whenever anyone tried to help you,” I chuckled.

She dropped her bishop on e6 and opened her eyes real wide, “They were trying to rape me, and Max thought it was funny! I had to fight for my fucking life in there,” she poked down at the table with her index finger, “every god damned day. If I even saw so much as a bulge,” she sniggered once and then balled her fists tightly, “I’d punch it faster than they could blink. Eventually, they started to call me… Péos Pónos!” she pronounced it like she were announcing a wrestler, and she giggled uncontrollably at herself.

“What did that mean anyway?” I recalled her nickname and played a4.

She pushed c6 and cackled until she had the breath to say, “It’s Greek for ‘Penis Pain!’”

“You know what? You deserved the abuse,” I winked at her and jumped my knight to f3.

“Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you with all that horse cock in your mouth,” she flexed her fox-ears and developed knight b to d7.

“What?” I bit my lower lip and furrowed my brow in faux betrayal. “Say that again to my face. You ain’t got the balls,” I tempted her with a trade: knight for bishop on a3.

“I have bigger balls than you, gay boy,” she flirted and ignored my offer with a short castle to safety.

“Max always said lesbians were the worst of human beings. I think I agree,” I pushed c4 to bait her further.

“Oh, don’t tell me you were jealous,” she puckered her lips and played d4, avoiding me yet again.

“Jealous of what? Basing my entire sexuality on sexually frustrating the opposite sex? Who’s the hypocrite here?” I castled king’s side and put the game in her hands.

She moved her rook to e8 and pointed her steak knife at me as she schemed. “I couldn’t care less about what you boys thought. They were all preoccupied with you once you officially moved in anyway,” she crossed her legs to hide the apex of her polyandry.

I went on the offensive and played knight to g5. “Fen, do you need a towel?” I offered.

“Fuck you,” she spat, and took a peek under the table to check if I was cheating. When she found nothing, I couldn’t help but smile at her as she lost her temper and forced her bishop to murder on a3.

I calmly took her homicidal bishop’s twin on e6 without a care in the world. “Even I managed to find a boyfriend. How many girls agreed to date you again?”

She muttered something unintelligible and moved her queen to e7 just to spite me.

“I think the word you’re looking for is zero,” I whispered and gave her the slap in the face that was knight to g7.

“I hate men,” she grumbled, and her bishop took another life on b2.

“And I hate women. Yet here we are,” I chortled for her reckless play, and my knight decimated another one of her defenders on e8.

“Actually, I hate everybody,” Fennec corrected herself and continued her slaughter by taking my rook on a1.

“Even homosexuals?” I queried and checked her by taking her warhorse with my hung stallion on f6.

“Especially them!” she killed my stallion with her other warhorse, so my queen sentenced her bishop to death.

The blood bath left me with one extra pawn, but the end game had just begun, and we fell into silence to play properly. She took my pawn on b5, which I recaptured with my a pawn. She contested it with a6, but it was an empty threat, so I prepared my rook on c1. Fen marched forward with e4, and I did the same with c5, after which she defended her pawn by sliding her rook noisily across the table to d8. We traded pawns on a6, and I pushed my past pawn to c6. She studied the position in silence for a while as she played with her ears, but decided speaking would be best for mulling over this puzzle.

“Why’d you leave?” Fennec asked, and finally played rook to c8.

“You know why I left,” I retorted, and captured her pawn on a6 with my queen.

She cautiously moved her queen to c7. “You knew he didn’t have much time…” she tried to say.

“Fennec, that was 16 years ago,” I reminded her, and attacked with bishop to h3.

Her rook dodged to b8, but she wouldn’t drop it. “You didn’t even go to his…”

“What answer do you expect from me?” I interrupted her with queen to c4.

She replied with rook to d8. “You were the last thing he loved in life,” was all she said.

“I know, Fennec. I was there when he fucking died!” I shouted at her, and the sphere’s heartrate increased.

“I… I’m sorry,” Fennec stared down and splayed her ears behind her head.

“Listen, Kody was… I didn’t…” my voice cracked as I remembered she had an expiration date too.

Fennec noticed the numb tears rolling down my cheeks and came to straddle me, burying her face into my chest. She hugged me tightly, and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

“You will see the sun again,” was the last thing I said to her before we lost ourselves in life rather than death.