431 Years of Death: The Origin

by Divya Singh

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  One woman who was stepping out of the hall looked at me startled and almost stopped, but then resumed her rhythm. Still I am sure she must have stared at my back. I was reminded of my awkwardness. A sense of sadness just crept in.

  Still my footsteps kept advancing ahead. A nurse who was pushing a trolley gave me a hard stare, but she quickly turned to her right-hand door. At the end of the hall towards left two women and a man stood discussing some topic which seemed to be of utmost importance. The man looked up as we reached there the woman on left faced the woman in the middle who had turned her face away as she was looking at her machines and equipment.

  Now they all faced towards us, obviously, the man would have alerted them.

  ZA-vi: “Hello Dr. Despondra! This is case DS, a special case OF Dr. Shelly and …..”

  Despondra: “Yeah Yeah, I Know. No need for introduction. Even blind will recognize Shelly & KEAH’s mistake. Look at the ultraviolet skin she has got. Tragic! I don’t even know if this miracle is a he or she. Relentless!”

  ZA-vi to me: “Madam! This is Dr. Despondra, director of our Hospital.”

  I nodded my head in the acknowledgement of her presence, but from inside I was bewildered to notice her harsh nature and outspoken attitude spilling hatred. I said, “Hello! But she did not stop here and continued-

  Despondra: “I do not believe in reanimation one bit. I hate the idea of raising a corpse from death. I mean we can work on achieving in-vitro fertilization and raise real people. I do not understand why life extension procedures like Cryo are available at the first place. It does not go well with me. I mean why we need corpses to walk on earth. I can tolerate cloning as well for the purpose of repopulating the Earth if the real humans are not born anymore. I will accept anything but not reanimation.”

  I said: ”why do you have to hate me so much?”

  Despondra: ”I don’t even understand the validity of a reason to not to hate you. Do you think that what you just asked was a question? Come on! Everybody who will see you like this, do you think they will love you? Or do you, love yourself speaking honestly?

  I said: “I do not remember any of myself. But I certainly do not hate myself being honest and upfront. Repentance is not for me.” The relevance of a statement made earlier by ZA-vi was clear to my eyes now.

  Despondra: “So you do not remember anything right? How pathetic? Is this a life you chose for yourself? Is this what you wanted? Argh!!! Why would you even remember that? It gets sickening to me. Have you noticed that you look different? Strange? Oh no! You look ugly! Saying ironically, you look horrifying. Do people look at you with a welcoming gaze? I feel pity for them, for they have to bear the frightening sight of a corpse with blue veins walking before them. They must be aghast with the sight. May God give them strength to bear the horrible sight!”

  I said: “I know that I don’t look pretty pleasant, but these blue-violet veins will last only till I get red blood from a natural donor and get proper treatment for pigmentation which will cover the uneven complexion. Dr. SHELLY says my bone marrows are not going to be working for some time until I find a donor to transplant it to me.”

  Despondra: “It is an obvious fact that you aren’t going to find any donor either for blood or bone marrow stem cells. If it is, what you have come here for, I must tell you a ‘NO’ already and you don’t even need to put up enquiry at the Bank on the desk. You should just return and learn to find peace with disappointment because it is just the start of your woes.”

  I said: “I can’t believe that you are a doctor! The ones I have met, that is the likes of SHELLY, KEAH, Von etc. they bring back the dead to life and what a contrast you are against them? You wish to see dead, a person who is alive.”

  Despondra: “You certainly have guts Blue Monster! Dr. SHELLY? KEAH? Who the hell are they? They are insane doctors on Earth who unleash the curse on Earth! They create monsters like you, in a world already full of monsters. Like we needed a few more and call them their Miracles? You are a ghost whom I hate, but I also feel pity for you because perhaps you have lost your mind in the reanimation process that makes you think that you are in some way alive. It’s funny, but it’s somehow actually horrible. I was doing some important work here concerned with saving the real human beings already scarce in number in the world. I do not want to waste my one precious minute over you. So please get lost and try not to come over to me again. I don’t want to ruin my mood again.” Then, she turned her back onto my face and carried on with her task again.

  I murmured, “You shouldn’t have gone that far.” My blue blood must have reached its boiling point in anger and hatred by then. I saw ZA-vi looking at me; I turned all the way back to the corridor with him catching up with my strides. I was really very frustrated. No, rather, I was furious! I was furious at myself for having heard that much from this Despondra witch, and it made me feel that if I hadn’t turned back and returned I could have killed her. She really got on my nerves. I told ZA-vi, to stop me from making any attempt to return back to her and inflict injury to her person. I did not want to make a mistake again, not so soon in the spur of the moment. I held him by his arm and said-

  I said: “Take me back to my room right now!”

  And we came back.

  I sat on my bed and said: “That woman called me a monster, do you know how it feels ZA-vi?” I was burning in anger. “I wish you knew.”

  ZA-vi, bringing a glass full of water to me-

  ZA-vi: “Here take this water down and choose peace.”

  I said: “I forgot that robots do not have feelings!” I taunted ZA-vi.

  ZA-vi: “I know that she has humiliated and offended you. I understand that much in words, if not in feelings. But try to stay calm. What she said is not true and we both know this.”

  Inside I wanted to punish her very badly. Did she call me a monster? What does she know about me for having said that? If she was me, would she have hated herself? If she has abused good part of me, I think she deserves my bad as well. But how do I show her the evil?

  Then I thought, I am monstrous because I don’t have blood and functioning marrow, then why not transfuse her blood in my body and gain some Red Blood Cells? If she had called me a blue monster she is the one who should pay back for it. I thought good or bad, but she bore the seeds of hatred in her heart for me. My existence was now undignified. Despondra had expelled puke saying enough evil against me. It was pure humiliation which I was not intending to assimilate.

  After all, if it was her view about not bringing the dead to life. What could have made me an object of her hatred and distaste? But then who the hell is she to decide that who should live and who should not? How could she get judgmental over my life?

  I have been given a right to live and it doesn’t become worthless just because she hates me. If she hates me, I have the right to make her pay for having said that humiliating crap and devaluing my life in front of 2 people and ZA-vi, my android.

  If she says that nobody will volunteer to donate blood and bone marrow to me then why not start with borrowing some blood from her? Her, this, hard abhorrence towards human life actually undervalues her own existence rendering her thereby, a fit candidate for blood transfusion to me.

  I thought that I will suction out as much blood as possible from her body and transfuse it into my veins, where else and how would I find a donor who deserves a little pain; who deserves being forced into such a service to the monster for whom she bore irreverence. Most significantly she must pay the price for hatred towards humanity; towards people like me who were awarded second chances in their lives and beyond.

  People have a right to live. They must live enough to die a natural death; but if the death is caused before the time that the death should come naturally, their right to live further comes into being. I died of something I cannot evoke, but life was sucked away from me by an early death maybe; by something incurabl
e, then. But the cause of death could be undone today, giving rise thereby to my renewed right to live.

  I may not be very appreciative of my life today but I have the obligation to value its preciousness. If I cannot protect my life, I will put to stake the feelings, patience, hard work, sleepless nights, sweat and hopes of people who have toiled hard, to gift me this new life.

  No life is without a reason, like it or not, there is vested in it, a will, of an undefined supreme power, sitting above all this world in the skies, somewhere who directs life into being. I will not allow Despondra to contaminate my mind with her abhorrent outlook about me. Now, it is not about the right to live, but it is regarding the duty to respect this life bestowed upon me by some power and hard work of others who have wasted an enormous portion ….

  ZA-vi: “I think, you said that I should have stopped you from slitting my throat apart the previous time? Do you still mean the same, as I can sense your plan on doing something of similar gravity?“ ZA-vi obviously had my thoughts read and was supposed to oppose as asked of him by me.

  I said: “Yes! You are right! I asked you to stop me that last time; one time. That was because it was about harming you ZA-vi! Look at you! You are just a machine who cannot do beyond what you are programmed to do. You do not, actually cannot have indignation towards any human being. You are not expected to perform a task favoring some human.”

  I continued: “In the same way, you cannot inflict injury to any person. You cannot harm anyone except if you are so programmed to do. But if you are so programmed to injure any person, it is not your fault again but it’s that of your programmer. You must be destructed if you turn out to being a killing machine. But it still would not be your fault. People, like Despondra, have the ill feelings. They hate people, irrespective of the fact that those innocent people, like me, are not responsible for flaws in them. On the contrary, you are just a machine who does not have the ability to hate any person.”

  I sighed a little and inhaled a little reassurance into me. Then I continued again-

  I said: “Hatred sprouts in the hearts of such people. I am still not sure as to what is to be done with her. I was not born again just to be a killer and hatred certainly isn’t what I prefer to return. But the way she called me a monster wasn’t likeable exactly. The blue skin I have is due to the blood substitute which manifests itself more when put against partial albinism I have resulting from the process. If I had a blood stem cell donor, this blue complexion can partially be corrected. VON mentioned commencing upon pigmentation treatment as well. But let the truth be said; we don’t have a bone marrow and blood donor. Her repeatedly calling me a Blue Monster has irritated me to the core. Let us choose her to change that. Let me be a Monster to not be Blue for a while now here. I will knock her down tonight and you suck her blood out from her, just to leave enough in her so as to not let her die. This is the only way of confirming the fact about my bluish tint being corrected by transfusion of natural blood. Yes, I will be a little selfish this time. Also, it is about time for the next transfusion, I would prefer to choose transfusion of real blood this time, as we have selected a donor. Essentially the donor has come to me. I have known that she is atrocious, but I won’t be killing her. I am undertaking this risk upon her life, just so as to make her realize how wrong she is. Instead, I will make her feel how it feels when you are helpless just like me, craving for each drop of valuable blood that her body readily makes. I will try to make her understand what that pain really is like so that she will find a reason to respect what she has got but doesn’t realize its significance. I want to make her slightly deficient in blood as me, a suffering donor. It will be recuperated in days’ time, but it might instill an insight into suffering.”

  ZA-vi: “Okay, I think you have some reason to do that which I think is ‘Humanly’ sufficient. But how will you take her blood out to transfuse into yourself? I am not a medic exactly.”

  I said, imparting a stern look at him: “Just suck her blood out using machines they have these days! Anything; like a suction pump or whatever.”

  ZA-vi: “Okay! I will show you which device I am planning to use. Now tell me, do you think that you are confident and sure about having decided to do this act? Because I don’t want you saying that I must have tried harder in stopping you, should you regret having committed it later.”

  I replied: “Yes, because I will not be harming her at all. I don’t even hate Doctor Despondra, but I hate the way she hates people like me. If the Earth suffers from being on the verge of extinction of our kind, then I think that repopulating it with any kind of human beings is a good opportunity. Again, it was not my wish to be reborn, but somewhere inside, I am debating with myself against my own will. Why should people like me ever be denied their second chances?

  Chapter 16: I took to violence again