The Good Shepherd

Humans first opposed us. But then we were deemed a necessary tool, a necessary evil. They passionately protested and debated for the will of God and fate and nature. But like patients whose lives depended on doctors, they abandoned the natural as we became their sole saviours and once we rescued them from their oncoming white light they thanked their God.

Not us.

After World War III, entire countries were left desecrated and nuclear waste killed millions more and yes, the allies had won - but barely. They had won by treaty and there was an unspoken universal feeling of foreboding that hummed in the background of everyone’s daily lives, creeping up and down everyone’s spines, playing them like violins. War was a movie that had only paused and peace was a facade that cracked more and more each second, edging fate’s finger towards play. Everyone knew. It was not over. World War IV was a matter of when not if, as if it was a prophecy cemented into the holy book.

I was cloned and born a year after World War III ended. Many died in this process, sometimes killing their surrogate, or survived but fell below expectations to be discarded. I was lucky to meet neither fates. I was one of the genetically engineered near super humans based on a prime human template to be strong, intelligent and brave. The closest thing we had to parents were the scientists who created us and we knew no God but our government who bestowed but one commandment: to protect and serve our country and its humans.

I grew up looking out whatever window possible, hoping to see my template with his warm and loving mother and father. On darker days I thought of killing him and becoming more than just his shedded skin. Again and again I would snap out of this fantasy, slapped by the mundane white walls and white floors and claustrophobic rooms, the mundane cold metal and testing and medicinal smell. The most natural thing I touched for years was the grass.

After World War IV, the previous nuclear wasteland expanded. The 10 countries that survived were all allies, including Vespucia. We were able to walk through this eternal flame that was nuclear waste, burning most of the globe to ash. I liked to think of us as firefighters, working for our government pension to extinguish this flame but in reality we were no longer the heroes we once were. We were just clones. Expendable.

I always looked out the window as I traveled by plane to and from these forsaken places. They looked like apocalyptic illustrations from the bible of dark crimson skies and rotting bodies and broken cities. I imagined forever-shrieking souls, pale, drained of life, haunting the barren landscape that once was - once was alive. I wondered what the people who used to live behind the windows of each building were like, the rituals of their everyday life. They are just forgotten corpses now - like us.

As we flew closer to, what I called, Human’s Vespucia it was as if we were ascending upwards towards heaven as the sky transformed a dim violet from red and the clouds transformed grey from black. It was like an isolated island that never knew the wars before, that never knew us. As the planes descended into hell, into what I called, Clone’s Vespucia, we crashed into bloody skies and smoky clouds and lifeless homes. The only fruit it beared was rotten: skinny demons reeking of damp despair; malnourished clones that could only afford to wear black or white or grey, most of us turning to crime or drugs or booze just to survive.

Legally, we could enter Human’s Vespucia but there were other bars imprisoning us. Our government pension could only afford us life here and we could not find any other work - partly due to prejudice and partly due to a lack of unemployment skills. We only knew how to be soldiers. However, they were already making more of us, just like they were making more guns and more armour and more planes in case of another war. We were nothing but broken bayonets, bombs that already went off.

The only humans that deigned to descend to Clone’s Vespucia were the holy people that wanted to save us. When I checked my window for who was knocking on my door I assumed she was just another one. She did not belong. She was too old, too full, too healthy. She did don a black cloak but she wore purple satin laces. No one here could afford purple or satin.

”Yes I do know my Lord and saviour Jesus Christ,“ I monotously sent her off.

Her veiny hand refused to let me shut the door. Her black hood framed her still photo-like face. Her gaze confessed what her mouth dared not to and longed for me. I too froze as if I was an actor and some external force pressed pause.

“Please,” she softly said, “my God…You look just like him.”

My body enslaved me and I felt small again.

What did this mean?

I knew. I let her in.

She sat upright on the edge of my torn brown leather couch opposite me. Her eyes wandered all over my little living room surveying my grey floorboards scattered with empty beer bottles and my wooden staircase ridden with termites, my old TV and my worn couch that I was sitting on and then her eyes finally laid on me.

It was silent for a million moments. Silence. I was used to that. The silent moments as you count the seconds in your head before the sound of your rifle will break the silence and you kill someone, hurt someone or at the very least scare someone.

She took a deep breath.

”He rarely ever kept his beard. You have a beard.”

”He? Who is he?” I needed it confirmed. I needed it to be made real.

”Your voice sounds like his did,” her voice cracked and I thought she would cry but she refused.

”My son.”

The big reveal I was waiting for. She could bow for my slow applause.

But what she really did was smile, a sad smile, a smile that confessed to me that perhaps she was as suffering and lonely and desperate as I was.

She moved towards me like you would a wild animal you were aiming to tame. She removed her heart-shaped locket, leaving her cross necklace on, and handed it to me. Our hands did not touch.

”Open it. Open it, go on,” she was almost begging, gently. This effort, this care, was foreign. The begging I was familiar with was from humans and clones at my feet, pleading to be spared, pleading for their life, pleading for a chance. But, how could I get my own without refusing theirs?

I found myself; beardless and clean-cut and smiling, with my head on the shoulder of the lady opposite me who seemed just as happy. Although, this wasn’t myself. It was my template whose image reminded me that I was just an empty image of him. The image I held was far from empty. It was full of love. This little heart was cold gold but seemed warm in my hand, almost powerful. Columbus must’ve felt like this discovering new land.

”He’s dead. He died recently,” her mouth confessed.

”How?” I asked almost instantly. What if it was genetic?

”Suicide.” She glanced away, almost ashamed.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” I tried putting a blanket across her shoulders with my words when in reality we weren’t even touching.

”Not all is lost,” she gently replied.

She took out a black pen and white notepad and started scribbling with her sweaty palms.

”My name. My number. My address. I would like to know you, know you more.” Her tone suddenly matched her courage. What she wanted, she wanted bad.

I reached out my hand to return her locket as she gave me this greasy note.

”No. It’s yours. Keep it,” she commanded as her warm hands cupped my cold hands. ”There’s plenty more at home.”

She fled to the door to leave - I suppose before her adrenaline ran out - but then looked back to tell me one last thing.

”Goodbye. I hope to see you.”

The door shut, slapping my face into the direction of my hands. I held my locket in one and her note in the other. What was I to do? The gold locket felt heavy as I fiddled with it. I could pawn it and escape through the necks of plenty of bottles. But, combined with her note I could enter the fantasy I long longed for since I was a boy. But, is my fear stronger than my longing?

My eyes pierced into the ceiling begging for an answer like the eyes of a writer does to a blank page. To no avail. For the rest of that day into the night I laid into the couch that seemed bigger than ever, clutching my locket and her note to my chest as if they might disappear and I’d wake up to find I was only dreaming, as if they were her.

I have conquered battlefields full of landmines and bodies both exploding and dead,

I have killed fathers, and mothers, and children as they begged.

But, what could have prepared me for this?

This…this was a bravery I was not designed for.