Artificial Tears

Epilogue: Edith

"Don't you know how much work we put into you? You weigh as much as a human of your size, you are made from priceless materials and made to feel the feelings most humans have. Even your memory should work as one, able even of forgetting.

But you chose to throw it all away, you went and decided to break, you went on and decided to defy us, your very own creators." The red faced professor yells at me as he finally has me back to 'where I belong'. His anger is even putting off Nova a bit, she tries to push him away from me, but it's not really helping.

"If you can't respond like a normal being should, you are broken, if you can't seem to forget, we have to recycle that body of yours again until you do.

Perhaps the next experiment might be a success, or perhaps the one after that.

I will never stop until I have made the perfect artificial human."

After all that he leaves, leaving me alone with Nova.

She looks at me with a bitter expression on her face and then she whispers something to me.

"You might wear her face, but that doesn't make you innocent."

Helplessly I lay on the operating table, unable to move my limbs, because they have restrained me.

On the way to this place, I got scared a couple of times. Loud noises have started scaring me terribly.

My thoughts immediately go to: 'What if he's back? What if he's going after me again?'

Even seeing the color red or the smell of metal can get me in a state in which I want to hide and close myself off from the world.

I don't want to hear.

I don't want to see.

I don't want to feel.

Now it's all starting to really sink in, reminding me that I have never really accepted the truth before.

Was it really educational?! Making someone believe that they have lived a life? Making them believe they had a family who cared for them? That they had friends? I know I'm not human like you, but don't you have any kindness in you?! Am I really only an experiment to you?!

Those thoughts race through my mind.

It feels like my world has been taken from me, everything about me, about my family, friends, work. Even my own body is fake. Fake. Fake. Fake. Fake. Even the tears I cry have always been and will always be artificial.

Finally I fall 'asleep'.

When I open my eyes again, Jonathan is sitting before me on a chair.

He looks down.

"I'm sorry, there is nothing I can do for you anymore. Now that you are like this... well, this might be for the best. It doesn't matter that I don't agree with it. I always have to keep reminding myself of the fact that you aren't really human, no matter how much you look like her or how much you sound like her. Goddammit!" Jonathan starts crying, hiding his tears behind his hands.

I feel bad for him, the rage I had last time I fell asleep is long gone.

I know. I think, because at the moment I am unable to speak.

I'm sorry that I haven't been any better.

I want to speak, I want to cry.

Please Jonathan, do like you always do. Show me how good you are at reading others. I might not be a person, but you used to see you could see how I felt.

Listen to me, listen to my silence, listen to my mind. Please!

It is screaming for help, it is screaming to be understood.

Somebody... anybody.

Please...

But not even my own mouth will shout its despair.

Not even my eyes will cry for help.

And my arms will not look for comfort.

I am a machine and I am broken.

"It's time." The professor enters the room, his face not red with anger anymore.

Jonathan only nods, deaf to my cries, blind to my fear.

"It was a failure, we have to start from scratch again. This thing will never be the thing we wanted it to be."

The two men stand up, the professor stretches out his hand to my heart, my life force.

Before he can turn it and take it, I make a final wish.

I wish I was born human.

And then before I know it everything turns dark for the final time...