Forgiving Rome

by Clay Ferrill

  Her footsteps receded and then moments later she returned with a cloth covered plate. She lifted the cloth. She and Ilsa had used flour as a base and added the crimson of crushed dried roses, and goldish yellow from the vine of roses that line our wall dividing the main house from the small keepers’ cottage. I paint in that place often in the moonlight. She had an array of colored pastes, dried and crushed and ready for me. I pulled her hand to my mouth and kissed it repeatedly in thanks. I love it when she and Ilsa toil secretly to provide me with anything I can place on parchment or canvas. I kissed her hand again and set it on my shoulder as she stood over me to watch. The blending color into the charcoal sketch, drawing down into the darkness the rose red, then purple and the indigo blue. Using a combination of flour white and rose, I added yellow and colored her skin very faintly as my mother watched the sketched portrait there come to life with color. She patted my shoulder twice and then scurried off to the kitchen for chilled wine.

  I rose and laid my sketching leather down and walked outside. Ilsa had cleared the table alone and I felt bad. That has always been my task. To clear them for her. She has been with my family almost my entire life. Since I was just three years old. I have never known a life without her love. I hurried to her as she carried heavy dried laundry in from the lines and took the basket out of her arms. She hooked my arm and we walked inside through the kitchen door.

  As she busied rinsing and wiping the plates and utensils from our earlier meal, I walked around the room opening cupboards and poking around in bread and vegetable baskets. I asked in a low voice what she would prepare for luncheon, already hungry again. Seeing scant of anything to eat that would impress a French Marquise and her Marquis son. She saw that I was looking and lifted a cloth to show me the two roasted chickens. That is the sound I have not heard today. The last two chickens are our last meals with meat, unless we start killing the goats and the only milk cow we could afford when the old one died over a year ago. We are now officially paupers.

  Chapter Two

  Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Divine Reparations Council Session;

  Instruction on respect of Human Life in its origin, the Dignity and Divinity of procreation and the intersection of faith and reproductive sciences.

  St. Clement Feast Day, 23 November 2020. The Vatican.

  “Vostra grazia, per favore prendete posto. Grazie.” As with everything I speak out loud in this place, I am obligated to repeat my request in English, my native tongue. “Your graces, please take your seats, thank you.” Had I reversed that and spoken English first and repeated it in Italian, it would slow me down too much to have to speak only in Italian and I’m anxious to get through the meeting as efficiently as possible. “We will begin as soon as all of you are seated. Grazie mille.” Father Richard Andrew Dunn spoke in lower tones to the three gathered closely around him, PhD’s all. They will leave to ready him while I get the meeting underway. It’s like fucking corralling monkeys Father Dunn thinks to himself looking at them still getting up from their chairs and talking to one another after having been asked to please be seated.

  They all shuffle and lobby constantly, save one man here, all for more and more power in their reach for a throne that will forever remain out of their reach or capability. They will never be anointed as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. The smile painting my face is broad and welcoming, my eyes glisten with excitement in the bright morning sunlight spilling into the room from the wall of windows banking the old formal Vatican Garden below. The more loathsome of these men make gaining more power their primary mission, when they should be serving God’s will, not lining their own pockets while politically positioning themselves for self-gain. Time to get started. “Attendants, as soon as your charge has been comfortably seated, please leave the room.”

  The recorded sequence already cued up, my thumb glides back and forth over the button of the remote gingerly, anxious to get started. I press it one time while no one is paying attention. The first image is of Father Coleman Livingston’s face only, lights up the large screen at the end of the long room. I had positioned LEDs in a small circle behind his head for effect. It had been brilliant, however manipulative. He is now haloed as it should be. A hush passes over the room as eyes are drawn to the screen and his handsome, masculine face. The last door now closed, we are officially in Council Session. Everything is being recorded, all words transcribed into written words to become part of the formal record.

  His eyes a deep royal blue with light flecks of gold, they show such depth and appear to sparkle. His proud and broad nose, the pale beauty of his skin clearly evident to everyone here. Perfect skin. Blonde hair, cropped short, his images all look thoroughly scrubbed clean, his face shaven. His skin, though, is literally flawless. Absent even the tiniest blemish or scar from life. He has never been a child, this man. He had no adolescent scrapes or breaks. In this first image after the breach and cleansing, Father Coleman was only an hour old. Being taught to bath his skin. This image was just taken from three floors below the Sciences complex mere minutes ago now.

  “The image you see before you is Father Coleman Livingston and the reason for today’s Council Session. After the presentation and introduction, his Holiness is hosting luncheon in the formal dining room downstairs. I do hope you will stay to supper and break bread with us. I am told we can expect the Pontiff to lead us in meal prayer on this, Saint Clement’s feast day, precisely at noon. Please join us if you can stay. His Holiness has already seen this filmed sequence, he watched it live as it was happening as well, so he will not be joining us for this Session today. But he will bless us with his presence at Saint Clement’s Feast Day downstairs. He will arrive promptly at noon and it’s just now after ten, so let’s get started.” I stepped toward the table a few steps to make sure they all hear me.

  “I will ask that you hold questions or comments until after the filmed sequence plays. I will stop playback in two places to explain what you have just witnessed in layman’s terms, as while I may understand genetics and psychology terminology, it is not something easily understood by those who do not study it as closely as I have and do, or for so very long as me. I will address any questions then.”

  Father Richard Dunn, the appointed Geneticist to the Roman Catholic Church, walked back to the front of the room to stand next to the screen as the playback began. I study their expressions. I increase the volume of the audio to insure the aged members can hear the intense vibration as part of the shock and awe of this viewing experience. The choir begins as I press the button again. Watching a human clone breach into life. The entire form appears cloudy at first and I allow the image to remain there while the attendees gaze at it, exploring what they are seeing with their eyes, taking in the magnification to show his facial expressions.

  I watched them all carefully as Cole first opened his eyes to stare straight ahead through the darkened fluid immersion. Above the surface they appear clear and white. In this bloodied fluid, they appear blood-shot and pink, the blue muted and darkened so intensely his eyes appear black within black. Their eyes grew wide simultaneously when it appeared his eyes were staring straight at them. I paused the playback freezing that frame and cleared my throat to draw their attention. The choir recording, His Eminence had insisted it be played as well as he had heard as he watched himself, finished.

  “For those of you who do not know of Father Coleman Livingston, he is the pre-ordained human male clone copy of the good father as he was in his youth at or around his twenty-fifth birthday. This clone’s original, Father Coleman Beckley of Hampshire, England, died on 2 April 1927 in the second wave of the Spanish Flu epidemic that killed tens of millions. He was 81 when he died in his parish. His DNA was extracted from a solidified blood sample found bearing his name when his cathedral was restored two years ago. It was dated, placing him at just over 26 years old at the time of the bleed.” He watched the room carefully to see which one of the old farts was going to object on some moral ground w
hy human cloning should not be allowed. It happens every time this council meets on this subject. Project Raphael.

  One or more of them will strongly object. For those objections to be on the record only, which is just more posturing on their part. All comments made in this Council are being scribed as I speak to become part of the formal Vatican record. Every. Single. Word. We seek God’s forgiveness and indulgence in this we do.

  Wait for it … I smile widely as I see he’s squirming in his chair … Cardinal Mosconi, one of my favorite friends, he is a busy man always generous with his time with me and tries to make me laugh, raises his hand. “Yes Cardinal?” The old man stood up, his robes weighing more than his body. “I have to pee dammit” he stated flatly, drawing chuckles from around the table. I smiled and held my hand up for him in the direction of the conference room’s private bathrooms as he turned and walked toward the open doors. Calling back over his shoulder “go on without me, I’ll be right back.” Of course, I am obligated to wait for his return before I can continue and he knows that. There are several cameras in this stately large room and His Holiness is likely watching. He had insisted they all see every second of this recording and if I know him as well as I know I do, he will inspect what he expects.

  After a few long minutes of silence, their eyes focused on the screen of the faint detail of the close-up of his face through the fluid. Even through cloudy placenta, this man is a beautiful man, but the pink eyes are becoming more haunting the more they linger in place on the screen like that. The cardinal returned and took his seat. The rest of them had already averted their eyes to the effect. Good. It had worked.

  “What you have just seen is his awakening to consciousness once again. His eyes have not been open in life for 96 years, 7 months, and 10 days. Gestating now for just over 40 days as an adult human male, advanced-aged 26 years. The age he was when the primitive sample was dated. What you will see in the following images may disturb you, but His Holiness insisted you all see it. For that I apologize in advance, but do assure you all, this process is extremely similar to that of natural childbirth, except the adult human man that is joining the mortal fold is mere minutes in actual age, as a newborn would be.”

  I locked eyes with Cardinal D’Aldace of Florence. I know already too well how he feels about human cloning. His Holiness, having watched the video recording of our last session together, likely had reprimanded in private for taking such a definitive and unmoving view on the matter, actually threatening me with violence by raising his fat fist. It had become so heated.

  His Holiness had spoken on the matter with the two of us to help us begin to mend the divide of it. “Life is as fluid. Mankind cannot force it into a form of our own design” in my opinion, it is my pontiff’s most intelligent quote and now part of my argument for this thing we do. Loosely translated, it means the very element that is life itself, cannot be caged or boxed or packaged in another way to make it more palpable for mankind. As life, it is fluid and must be allowed to freely flow. This is, truly God’s will for us all.

  “The sequence you are about to see has been designed in excruciating detail by some of the world’s most advanced psychologists so that he cycles through all major human emotions, as well as many minor and sub-emotions, during the breaching period. To further explain, sub-emotions are what make us each entirely unique as humans. As physical violence is often a sub-emotion of either fear or anger, or both, if you follow me. Now that Father Cole, as we will all call him now that he is a conscious man, is alert mentally, he will cycle through all major common human emotions. Joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and, finally anticipation. In just the first 20 minutes of his new life, which is what you are about to witness.” I pause for effect here, catching my breath. Anxious.

  “It really is something wondrous to behold, brothers. Watch carefully, as most of these will only show in his eyes, which are wonderfully expressive and emotive, until the fluid drains away to reveal the richer facial expressions of those emotions in his face and mouth movements. There are waste cans in front of your feet should you feel nauseous. He does expel a tremendous amount of fluid and mucus from his lungs and nasal cavities as his oral umbilicus separates. I do again apologize that we must show you these images, but His Holiness has insisted that it be viewed in full by all members of this Council without exception.”

  The council members watched on in shock and awe as they watched Father Cole recognize and mimic all human emotions during the initial breaching. The image played through just as it had when I stood there guiding it, as its eye witness. I paused just as the fluid descended past the pubic bone, the pubic hair densest there, but before his genitals are fully exposed to view. But they must see everything, His Eminence had insisted on this very strongly.

  “This process we have just finished watching has most of you pale and I suspect varying levels of nausea, so we will take a few minutes.” Snapping my finger loudly, the door behind me opened as I blanked the screen and 4 assistants filed into the room with pictures of lemon ice water. Every glass at the table was poured full before they filed out again and closed the door. I thumbed the control and Cole’s full naked male form filled the screen. A short video clip only, he had been cleansed, showered, scrubbed and oiled and simply stood there looking into the camera for 10 seconds, fully naked and smiling widely with excitement. His hands rubbed his arms showing his physical strength. Smiling and happy. A few of them had raised their cloth napkins to cover their eyes to avoid looking at his genitals, which were large. This surprised me. I had thought them all homosexual and Cole is an exceptionally attractive, very beautiful masculine and muscled human male.

  I really am though; truly happy they found the fluids expulsion so repulsive. I myself am quite proud of our accomplishments in finally being able to show an entire breaching process to this Holy Council. These are important matters we discuss and decide. We’ve only ever talked about it and most of them didn’t even want to know that much about the sciences of it, my life’s work, let alone see it in a playback. This is me forcing it down their throats.

  In the past, they have all just assumed how he was created and didn’t really want to know details. I have my suspicions about those motivations, not clearly understanding to what end they had hoped to avoid, but on that particular view I will never cast my own eyes on them in judgment. Those will need to be God’s eyes if they are to be judged at all. Most of them are untouchable in their advanced ranks. What Cole is though, simply put, is an enhanced human in an aggregate mixture of genetically-identical cells bonded to self-producing organisms and fixed into place on a human adult male template body. All made possible with one single original set of progenitor organisms. Life building life. Again, and again, over and over. This is my science.

  Enough time had passed and they were shifting in their chairs as noon approaches. I smile inwardly. This Father Coleman Livingston is the exact replica of his former versions with unnoticeable tweaks and augmentations here and there. He is now, successfully and once again, a human man. I have been forbidden to know how many versions will be produced or how they will be deployed or for what purpose. I am allowed to nurture only one clone at a time. But this one, this Cole, is special. I have been gifted with the wisdom and knowledge of his purpose. Praise be to God. Unknown to anyone but His Holiness and me, his life termination sequence, a purposely-inserted series of genetic flaws which work in concert to stop the heart at 167.9 hours of life, is absent here, unseen, unknown. Absent in all of his generations and there have been many. That sequence of timed disruptions has been omitted from him at the insistence of His Holiness in a Papal bull silently folded and filed into record.

  He has been specifically engineered to be this exact Father Coleman Livingston, the new surname given to him by His Holiness personally, to hide his true identity. Perfect Cole. Father Coleman Livingston, the human clone priest.

  In my memory he’s still there in the tube, hasn’t fully breached yet, but mo
st of the grossness of the expelling of fluids is over. Back in 1981, I graduated Harvard Medical School with honors and shortly thereafter, cloned my first human being in an MIT-subsidized laboratory while I studied and secured two doctorate degrees there at MIT and then Johns Hopkins. Over four thousand cloned lives later, I have perfected my scientific art. It had worked. His Holiness began referring to it as “him” even then, while still growing collective experiments as “we”, because we are all of us, human and therefore when gathered, become “we”.

  My pontiff is such a wise man. What took him moments to arrive at as fact, took me over a decade of study and never-ending experiments. Once I recognized them each as an individual life, all the puzzle pieces had neatly formed for me as a scientist. It really is amazingly straight-forward science and he seems to grasp the logic of it so well. As long as this has been possible, and that’s a whole lot longer than most people know, human cloning has, in fact, been happening. It’s being perfected around the world at an alarming rate. Fact. What is public is the 70+ species of animals already cloned from DNA openly. Exact copies, all. Cloned humans move among us.

  Clones are not monsters or dolls. Nor are they androids. They’re simply highly edited human copies. Those first documented cases, and I quite often revisit those experiments in my mind and today, I laugh about it. Laugh mostly about where I was, what I was doing, who I’d been engaged with sexually and therefore distracted by, who I was married to. I was married, since widowed. Who I had loved then. I had envisioned a much different life for myself as a scientist. I wanted to father children and watch them grow because my miraculous body can produce them. How those imagined children and their children were growing up was then, often, my day-dream topic of choice, so hopeful of it I was. Then cancer took her from me quickly and my life completely changed. I then took the vows.