The Modern Prometheus

by Nicole Mello

  I wanted to die. Over Henry’s body, I wanted to die. I grabbed his knife, and I tried to slit my own throat, right then and right there. I fell unconscious. When I woke up, I thought, Good, I’m dead, I’m free. It took me a moment to realize that I was thinking, and a bit after that to realize I was in a hospital. I tried to fight my way out; they sedated me. After that, I did anything I could to be sedated. I could forget, under the sedatives.

  They brought me to the funerals of Eliza and Henry. Gloria and her family didn’t come. I was certain they were safe; I was sure that, if they weren’t, Adam would have said something to me about it that night that he killed Henry.

  Oh, God; I’m sorry, Doctor, but do you hear those words? “Killed Henry,” my God, this can’t be real. It’s been… what, almost two years? Over two years? Something like that, and still my flesh crawls, my palms itch. I feel my throat close up, and my chest gets so tight, and I can’t breathe. I tremble, see? I shake all the time now. I cannot understand. Henry Clerval cannot be dead anymore than the sun can stop shining or the wind can stop blowing. Henry is- I’m so sorry. Henry was life itself. How can one grasp the concept that life itself has died? That the sun has been extinguished? I don’t understand. I don’t understand.

  You’re right, Doctor, you’re right, I see it there in your eyes; this is not for me. This is for the sake of the record. Please, include Henry in this book you want to write. Include him. Dedicate it to him for me. Dedicate it… say, For Henry, without whom there would be no life at all. Write something like that. I’m not a poet, I’m afraid; he would have been able to come up something far better, for his own dedication. In your reports, in your books, include Will, include my father, include Eliza. Include my mother. Make sure their names are known. Give them a legacy. Make them immortal.

  What was I saying? I’m sorry… Yes, of course. The nurses brought me to the funerals of Eliza and Henry, which were separate, and that much more painful for it. I spoke at both, though I was barely able, and I did not consider myself worthy of doing so. I felt as though my words were poison, a blackness spreading from my mouth over their dead bodies, which were crushed in the coffins in front of me. Eliza’s casket was closed; she was a mess, irreparable. Henry’s neck and throat had been reconstructed after his autopsy, and he had an open casket.

  I wept openly over the casket. I held his cold hands in mine, and saw the freckles against my palms. I looked at his face. He didn’t look like he was sleeping, like people say dead people do. Not like my mother had. He didn’t look peaceful. When he was alive, even in his sleep, even when he was peaceful or relaxed, Henry had been so animated. Now, Henry only looked dead, and I couldn’t bring myself to look away. I had to be removed from his coffin; I wouldn’t leave him. I wish they hadn’t taken me away.

  I wish I was still there with him.

  I wish I was dead.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After the funerals, I had to wait even longer. First for my throat to heal, where I failed to commit suicide, and then for my leg, which, having been splintered, was taking an absurd amount of time to mend. I left before I was fully recovered, but I couldn’t bear the inactivity any longer. Also, the police had begun to sniff around me. I knew what it looked like; everyone who had died was tied closely to me, and then I tried to kill myself. I was found with the last body. My sister and her family had vanished. I had been arrested before for murder, though I had not been sentenced. All signs pointed to me, but I couldn’t go to prison, not yet. They could never arrest me; I was incapable of the strength that had killed Eliza and Henry, so they could never pin me for their deaths. And, besides, I had to stop Adam. I had nothing else; I became single-minded in my goal, in a way I had not been since the creation of Adam, which seemed like centuries and centuries before.

  Adam wanted me to find him. I know that he did. He left a trail of breadcrumbs, in a way, for me to follow. Whenever I strayed from the path, Adam righted me again. It gave him purpose, leading me on a chase around the States, then around the world. He had said he wanted us both to be alone, but not only could he not seem to stand being alone, he couldn’t stand being unable to watch the torment he caused me. I slipped up often. Adam righted me. I tried to kill myself more than once. Adam stopped me. I hate him, Doctor. I hate him so much. I hate him, but not as much as I hate myself. Doctor, you must understand. A son is only as bad as a father raises him to be, I believe. I created Adam with my own two hands, and he single-handedly destroyed my life. I did that.

  I spent what I think was just under two years in this way, chasing Adam around the globe. From France, to Hong Kong, to New Zealand. A wild goose chase. It was madness. It was insanity. It was all I had. Of course, Adam never spent any time with me; I was always just in his rearview mirror, one step behind. Before two years had passed, I suffered another mental breakdown, much like the one I experienced in prison. I lost my mind. I still haven’t completely recovered it, I fear.

  It was then that I began seeing those who had died, and I still see them now. Eliza comes to me in the mornings, sunlight streaming through her hair. Will offers to play games with me. My mother sits in silence and watches me. She is the most unnerving, the most unnatural of them all. She haunts me. My father’s booming laugh follows me wherever I go, and his smiling eyes are everywhere. Though I am not certain whether or not Glo is alive, I see her, reaching for me, trying to take my hand and comfort me. I see Robin, smiling, wishing me the best. I see the children, those symbols of life, those emblems for all that is good and righteous in this world.

  I see Henry, and I cannot touch him. He is just out of my reach, always. He smiles at me, and his lips move as though he is talking, but I usually cannot hear him. When I can hear him — I’m sorry, Doctor, but there are some things I just cannot share with you, but rest assured that his words make me want to die again and again, until there is nothing left of me. His eyes torment me. He makes eye contact, then looks through me. He’s a shadow of what he was, and he’s all I have left, and he never leaves my side, just like in life. Henry is always there. He always has been, and I’m starting to think he always will be. Doctor, I would never have it any other way. If this is madness, I welcome it.

  I still used sedatives. Anything I could get my hands on. I don’t even know what I was taking half the time. I took whatever I could find, whatever was cheap, whatever was in the area I was in. You might blame my mindlessness on this, but I credit my sanity to it. I was losing myself, and the drugs I took numbed me. It preserved me in that form; I would go so far as to say it’s why I’m alive, but it’s really probably just the only reason I didn’t try harder to die. I didn’t care enough, nor was I active enough, when I was under the influence.

  When I saw those who had been lost to me, I felt more alive. The lives they lost grew in me, living on, growing larger and more powerful until I was greater than I had ever been. They told me things; they urged me onwards when I was unable to do so. Were they manifestations of my conscience? Perhaps. But they felt so real. They still do.

  Like I said, they urged me onwards, but they also urged me to do a number of things. They never mentioned Adam, though my entire self was focused on him, on searching for him, following him, finding him, killing him. They urged me to join them, primarily. Henry, most of all; he would take my hand, and look straight through me. His mouth would move, and no sound would come out, but I knew what he was saying to me.

  My previous attempts were nothing in comparison to this attempt. I searched, and then climbed until I reached the highest bridge in Canada, with which you might be familiar. I looked down at the very visible rocks, at the water rushing almost sixty feet below me. It was a warm day in maybe… late October? The river below had not yet frozen over, but it was still night time, and it was not so warm as to be comfortable, and nobody else was there on that pedestrian bridge. I spent some time sawing at the railing of the bridge with my knife. I gave up after a bit; it was tougher than I gave it credit for.

&nbs
p; I could see my family standing behind me. I could almost feel Eliza’s hand on my shoulder. Henry was in front of me — right there, standing as though there was an invisible platform there, sixty feet above the water. He reached out to me, his hand just close enough. I reached out to him and grasped it. He motioned me forwards. I looked down at the water again, almost hesitant, but, in the end, the decision was easy.

  I took a step, and I fell. I don’t know how I’m sitting here right now, Doctor. I was found half-drowned on the shore, tucked under a bush, by a couple of hikers the next day. I can only assume it was Adam who saved me, trying to keep me alive still. I can only imagine that he understood exactly what I had known for years, at that point. I was not afraid of death; I welcomed it, I wanted it. It was life that I was afraid of, and it was life that Adam forced upon me, just as I had done to him. He wanted to suspend my torture, probably. Who wouldn’t? I deserved worse than death. We both knew it.

  When the police found me, they were delighted; they had been looking for me for some time. I was placed under arrest almost immediately after they discovered who I was. I was taken to the hospital, though I have no idea why; I felt healthy enough to go straight to prison. I was chained to the bed the entire time, the handcuffs biting into my wrists. They were always cold; it never felt like my skin ever warmed them. It felt as though the doctors there washed out my veins, hollowed me out. I still saw Henry, but he was watery, always slipping away from me, a little blurred at the edges. I spoke to him often, cried out for him enough that there were marks on my chart indicating my madness and delusions.

  I also fought, frequently, to be released from the hospital. I had not forgotten my goal; I still wanted to find Adam, still wanted to destroy him. Now that my head had been cleared somewhat by the doctors, I was less apathetic, and growing angrier and angrier each day. Rage ran hot in my veins; I itched to leave, and I tried, time and time again, to be released, insisting that I was perfectly fine and could check myself out. They kept putting me off, for one reason or another; everything was transparent, and I knew there was something I wasn’t being told. And, of course, I was under arrest, though I was not considered well enough to hear my own charges. I raved at them; I was so angry.

  Henry started speaking to me around this point. They told me later that I suffered a relapse and I almost died, but I would argue that that had been the closest I was to living since Henry had died. I remember one instance, in particular, I awoke — or, at least, I thought I awoke; I have been told my memories of those months are not so reliable — to find Henry entering the hospital room. He shut the door very carefully behind him, just as he would have in life. He came to me, walking gently across the floor, trying to be quiet; of course, he made no sound at all.

  When he noticed me watching him, he smiled. He sat on the edge of the hospital bed and took my hand, the one that was not handcuffed to the railing. He ran his fingertips over the IV that led to my forearm, over the clip attached to my finger. He was exceedingly gentle, soft and careful, his skin giving against mine, just like I remembered. The details of his freckles were exactly as they were in my memory, and, for a time, I just sat in silence, reveling in his touch, missing him as deeply as I did every day of my life.

  “Victor,” he said at last, and it was the first time I had heard his voice in so long. It had been years, and I sobbed at the sound of it. I lifted his hand and pressed it to my forehead.

  “I love you so much,” I told him, and he smiled at me when I looked up again. “Henry, you have to know how sorry I am-”

  “No, Victor,” Henry murmured, shushing me. He ran his thumb over the back of my hand. “Hush. It’s going to be okay.”

  We fell silent. Silence was always comfortable between us, but I longed to hear him speak again. I looked down at our joined hands, then back up at him. His eyes were as brilliant as they always were, green and shining and so alive. He wasn’t that watery mirage; he wasn’t in blacks and whites; he wasn’t silent as the grave. It was like having him back again.

  “I love you,” I said again. “You have to know how much I love you.”

  He reached out and pushed my hair away from my eyes, smoothing it back. It had gotten shaggy since he died, and I had something of a beard now from neglect. I was nothing, a shell of myself; Henry was larger than life.

  “I know, Victor,” Henry said to me. “It’s going to be okay.” He looked down at our hands again, then stood, dropping my hand. I was suddenly desperate, grappling for him, reaching out as far as I could. My IV broke, and Henry came closer.

  “I’m sorry, Victor,” Henry said, his voice barely higher than a whisper. He pulled the pillow out from behind my head. I knew what he was going to do. I welcomed it. “It’s for the best. You know it is.”

  “I know it is.”

  “It’s because I love you.”

  “It’s because you love me. And I love you.”

  He kept eye contact with me. I stared up at him, and even I could feel the plea on my face. He shut his eyes right before he did it, and he covered my face with the pillow. I never felt better, but then, suddenly, it was like I was being shocked, and my eyes snapped open again. The pillow was gone, Henry was gone, and, in their place, Adam was there.

  “Leave,” I snarled, reeling from the change in scene. He approached my bed, unafraid of making noise; he was a monster, barreling through, uncaring of everyone and everything around him. He was indifferent. He disgusted me. He was just as awful as he had been every time I had seen him before, if not more so, made worse by the festering of his memory in my mind.

  “Is that how you greet your savior?” he asked me. My chest was heaving; I could barely catch my breath.

  “You are not my savior,” I spat at him. “You are a sinner, you are a monster, I can’t believe-”

  “I can’t believe,” Adam interrupted, grabbing my wrist, “that you still labor under the illusion that I’m some sort of monster.” He dislodged my IV, tearing it out, which startled me; I had thought it had already been pulled out, when I had reached for Henry. Blood started falling steadily from the space left behind. “If I’m a monster, as you’re so fond of saying, then it is only because you have molded me into one. You created me; you are my father. I am only what you have made me to be.”

  “Leave!” I shrieked at him. “Go! God- Goddamnit, just- Get out!”

  Then, I woke up. I don’t know if it was later, or right after. I don’t know if it was a dream or not. I don’t know what happened; I don’t know if anyone came to my room that day. The doctors, as I told you, later informed me that I almost died. I wasn’t surprised by that. I just wished it had happened.

  They told me that, when they brought me in, I was delirious, hysterical, talking to people that weren’t there and seemingly on the precipice, so close to losing my mind. I was exhausted, they said. I was suffering from hypothermia — which made sense, after my plunge — as well as severe malnutrition. I was not alarmed to hear about that, either. I paid my own well being very little attention; I’m surprised I even made it to the bridge. I also had a vitamin B1 deficiency, they said, which brought on ataxia. When they deemed me healthy enough to leave the hospital, I was still somewhat in the grips of ataxia; I am to this day. I require a cane to get around comfortably. But, when I did leave the hospital, I was brought here, to the Psychiatric Center. They didn’t think I was mentally fit for a prison.

  It was one thing to feel responsible for the deaths of my family. It was another thing entirely to be accused of and arrested for the murders of those who I held closest to my heart. Despite my weakness and seeming inability to have crushed them as they were crushed, I was placed under arrest for the murders of Eliza and of Henry, since I had nobody to back me up this time. I had no defense; no lawyer would represent me. I was charged, but I had a plea of insanity. The jury accepted that almost immediately. Now, I’m here.

  I felt responsible for their deaths, as I told you. But I was now believed by others to be responsi
ble for the deaths of my dear sister, Eliza, and of Henry. People believed me capable of killing the two of them. I would never have touched Henry in any negative sort of way. I would have rather died than hurt him, and now, the entire jury, and the judge, and the audience, and everyone who read the case — they all believe that I took Henry’s life. I loved him more than I loved anything else, anybody else. The sky, the trees. I almost hate to admit it, but my siblings, as well. My mother, my father.

  He was everything to me, you understand. He kept me alive. I could barely believe him dead, and now I was his murderer? It stung me like poison. It was a wound in my stomach, in my heart, in my head. It was like having your eyes pulled out through your mouth; it was like having your fingernails removed. It was the most horrible feeling. Nothing compares. There was no relief from the burden of guilt, no clearing of my conscience, not like I thought I had felt long ago as I had sat in jail after being arrested for my father’s murder. I lost myself.

  I yelled to anyone who would listen, when I got here. I wanted everyone to know. I tried to tell people about Adam, but, of course, nobody believed me. The nurses and therapists and psychologists and doctors; all of them were trained not to believe the words that come out of the mouths of the patients here. They knew of my crime. They knew of my insanity defense. They knew what I had been diagnosed with. That was all they needed, and I was my diagnosis, I was my crime. I was my room number, I was my file. I was nothing, yet again.

  That is, until you. I’m sure I raved like a madman before you, Doctor. But you came to me, and you spoke to me so kindly, and you believed me. Or, at least, it seemed as though you believed me; and, after hearing my story, how could you not believe me, Dr. Walton? You must know by now that I’m telling the truth, you must believe me. Nobody has believed me since Henry and Eliza, nobody has listened to me since I lost them. Dr. Walton, you’re a blessing to me. You knew that I was struggling. You stayed even though nobody else did; I was very clearly beyond saving, but you didn’t think so, and you brought me back. You talk to me like I’m human, like I’m real and I’m not a bad person, like I’m not a murderer. It means a lot to me, Doctor. Thank you.