Short Stories

A Real Daughter

I have been called by many names, but never had a name to call my own. Instead I'd always known myself as my father's daughter.

The details have long escaped me, but in a blurry, distant way I can remember being born. Being pushed forward and tumbling out onto a white hospital bed. The feeling of stretching my small limbs and blinking open my bright, shining eyes; bright, white light and hot breath fanning across my tiny face.

Being greeted into the world by a cold, analytical face and a violent, never-ceasing tapping that could've been a pen tapping against his clipboard or the grinding of teeth. Smooth hands sweeping me away after a wad of cash changed hands.

I remember my father sitting against the blank wall of the room, trying to convince himself that I would grow up to be what he had intended, and that this was only temporary. I remember the exact moment when he lost hope.

It was cold, and I could feel the breeze through my barred window. Even though he was across the room, my father could feel it too. He looked over at me and set a bag down on the cold floor. After rummaging through the bag, he gave me a set of ten blocks and told me to stack them in a tower.

Back then, I didn't know my body, the way it fumbled whenever I tried to do anything, so I tried to pick the blocks up with my big, clumsy hands. I placed my hands on either side of the first block, only for it to fall from my hands when I tried to set it on top of a second. I couldn't even stack two of them. It was impossible, at least for me, and big, wet tears started dripping down my face and clinging to my fur.

He looked at his daughter, at me, and told her, "You're a monster. I don't know why I ever thought otherwise."

I remember wishing myself happy birthday after being put back into the room. I didn't know how long it had been; instead I measured by visits. Every forty visits from my father I would claim another year as my own.

It was a warm day for the cold, unfurnished room where I lived, and in the early days before my father locked the door with five separate locks I would open it and escape to the fully furnished house, finding solace in the bright lamps and embroidered throw blankets. In those small moments, there was nothing I dreaded worse than being left alone on the floor again.

When I caught a glimpse of someone outside through the real windows upstairs, even being back in the room wasn't enough to lower my spirits. It was a girl, and although I couldn't tell I pretended she was my age.

I spent hours imagining her as my friend, popular and perfect and kind. I imagined her picking me up from my house and taking me to the mall. I considered her name: Kate, Emily, Jessica?

I couldn't stop thinking about this girl, who looked so much like the girl I longed to be.

That was before my father caught me looking. I think I briefly struggled as he picked me up, but back then I didn't think he would hurt me.

I was tossed down the stairs that day. I had thicker skin than a human, I suppose, because I only had scrapes and a long cut on my knee to show for it. He came down to check on me, and his face was on the fine line between relieved and disappointed.

Looking back, I think that was the first time I realized that I wasn't a real daughter.

It's these sorts of memories I cling to as my body aches from endless trials and my fur grows patchy around the places where it's been shaved down to my skin. Three hundred and two years have gone by in this place, and still there's no sign of me ever getting out of the room again. There's no real reason to think about my hopeless future, so instead I take it upon myself to cling wholeheartedly to the past.

They're not nice memories, they don't make me particularly happy, even after all this time, but it's better than staring at the near-blank walls.

Despite my best efforts there are certain things I've lost to time, and in the gaps of my memories I wonder if he ever found me beautiful. I knew he found me intriguing and I've long known if he ever thought I was beautiful it was unwilling, but sometimes in my brief respites I dream of being a creature who, while still flawed, was in it's own ways incredible.

Regardless of how I wonder what happened in those moments, I'm glad I've forgotten at least a little. It leaves an otherwise filled space in my imaginary timeline to pretend that my father used to feel something other than cold indifference and horror towards me.

I hardly had a frame of reference, but I suppose I must have been younger than most when I learned that my job was to be a tool to guide discovery, to be held at a distance in contempt.

To my father, I'd been lesser than any other animal nearly since I was born, and there were no moral objections to subjecting me to blood draws and tests without the consent I wasn't old enough to give.

If only he had refrained from poking and prodding at my genes and creating something new, I would have been someone else.

Someone he could love like a real daughter.

In his quest for knowledge he had destroyed my life before it started and went on to torture me postmortem.

These days my world is small, contained mostly within four walls. Over the years the room has gotten a little less empty; there's a tattered, blue rug on the floor and a picture of flowers hanging on the wall. They're things he never wanted but couldn't get himself to throw away, and my stomach aches as I feel grateful for him despite how he despises me.

I hear the telltale sound of locks open and involuntarily count under my breath.

1... 2... 3... 4... 5...

The door creaks open and I watch as my father briskly descends the stairs with a pained grimace on his face, muttering nonsense under his breath. When he reaches the bottom, he stares at me like he always does.

Like he can't believe that he created something so monstrous, so depraved.

As he walks towards me, he fiddles with something in his pocket. I feel a sharp needle puncturing my leg, and he waits a few seconds before pulling it out and looking at it. I glance up only to look away when I see sickeningly red blood.

My father slumps against the wall, staring at me again.

I'm so far from the human perfection he wanted, he doesn't care if he shows weakness in front of me.

As my wide eyes shift to meet his, he asks, "Where did you go wrong?"

Once I might have tried to reassure him with my mockery of a language, but now I close my eyes and fall into the depths of my brain where I don't have to wonder if he's talking to me or to himself.