Clone

One of the stories in my self-published collection, The Tunnel Of Worlds (available on Amazon).

Chuy felt his body press against the back of his seat. The huge metal machine careering along the tarmac was close to the speed at which the air, made to react at hurricane force, would push the wings up and lift the aeroplane off the ground. Chuy had flown a few times now, but he still felt the moment of take-off to be a magical experience. He supposed that this must be what a fairground ride was like, although he had never been on one. He made a mental note to add it to his bucket list.

The man next to him was obscuring the window and, sitting with his eyes closed, clearly had no interest in looking out of it. There was just enough of a view for Chuy to see the bleached buildings of Tel Aviv tilting away below him. It had been a disappointing pilgrimage, he thought, but he would not have chosen to do differently.

A few minutes after the seat-belt warning lights winked out, the man next to him turned slightly and touched Chuy’s arm.

“It’s all right,” Chuy said, in what he hoped was a soothing tone, noting that the man still had his eyes shut. “We’ve done the hard part. We’re safe.”

“I know,” the man said. “But could you do something for me? Could you get a folder from my bag in the locker?”

“What? Oh, yes. Of course.”

“It’s the red bag on the right. I don’t know what colour the folder is, but it’s at the top.”

“Pink,” Chuy said, a minute later, as he handed the folder to the man.

“Oh, right,” the man said. “Thank you.”

He took out some sheets of card, which had been punched so that hundreds of small bumps, arranged in neat rows, covered the surfaces. The man ran his finger tip across the first row and settled back in his seat, smiling.

Chuy felt a twinge of annoyance, then immediately a wave of guilt. The man was blind �" but had taken the seat next to the window regardless. Chuy wanted to ask something about the man’s ability to read with his finger, which he found amazing, but he did not want to sound patronising. He knew how that felt.

“What are you reading?” he asked instead.

“It’s a magazine article,” the man replied. “A friend of mine thought I might find it interesting. It’s about cloning.”

“Yes? I know a bit about that myself, as it happens.”

“Then maybe you know about this. It seems that a few years ago they were able to make a man, well a child. And not just any man �" they used a few traces of DNA they had managed to extract from the Turin Shroud.”

“They used to think that was a medieval forgery,” Chuy interrupted.

“Yes, but they realised it’s older than that a long time ago. It is definitely two thousand years old.”

“So I believe.”

“Anyway, the experiment was completely successful, apparently. But I don’t know what happened after that. The article doesn’t say.”

“I expect that the cloned man would have been kept under very close observation, while he was growing up.”

“I’m sure you’re right, but  he would be grown up now. They couldn’t carry on keeping him as part of an experiment, as a kind of prisoner. It would be a human rights issue.”

“Yes it would. And they didn’t find out anything, anyway. If they were expecting him to do a miracle or something, they were disappointed. He was just ordinary.”

“How do you know that?”

“As I said, I know a bit about it.”

“OK.”

The man was moving his finger on another sheet now.

“You would think that if they have the technology to do that…” Chuy was trying hard to keep the anger out of his voice. “If they are prepared to spend all the money it must have cost and all the time it must have taken, to make a man, any man, from a fragment of DNA, you would think they could spare a little effort to do something useful. Find a cure for blindness, maybe.”

The man took his hand away from the card.

“I’m all right,” he said. “I’m not in any hurry. I manage just fine. I think this cloning business is fantastic. Never mind if the man they created is just a man. He’s still not ordinary, not at all. He’s the miracle.”

“Well it doesn’t feel like that,” Chuy spoke under his breath, not particularly intending the man to hear.

He touched the man’s hand.

“You’re brave,” he said, then made to stand up.

“I’ve got to go to the toilet.”

The man said nothing, but resumed his scanning of the card with his finger.

When Chuy returned to his seat, the man still had his sheets of card on the table in front of him, but he was not touching them. Chuy was not sure whether to resume the conversation. The man had his eyes open now. Chuy thought that the man’s face looked wet.

“Is anything the matter?” he asked, touching the man’s hand again.

“Matter? I don’t know,” the man said, and his voice was different from before. It was barely more than a whisper, and quavering.”

He turned to face Chuy, who marvelled at the way the blind eyes appeared to meet his gaze.

“It’s just….. it’s just that I can see your face!” the man said.

Author's Note

Feedback welcome

Reviews

[Raghib]

If u dont mind ,i didnt quite underdtand how he could see . Nonetheless its a gripping tale . Please review my poems too 😅

[Nick Hamlyn]

The story requires you to know that the Turin Shroud is supposed to be the cloth that was used to wrap the body of Jesus after the crucifixion. It would therefore have acquired traces of Jesus's DNA.

[Raghib]

oh !thanks . i looked up the shroud after i read your story s i understood it later . thank you for your reply .