Perfectly Wrapped

Everybody looks forward to package day. In a community where we have found ourselves lacking in communication, or any form of psychological connection – package day is something that everyone collectively enjoys. The strangers who are your neighbours smile from afar; everyone holding the same, passive smile. The thing about real happiness, is that it’s yours. When happiness is shared, you experience contentment: a part of a wedge that completes a circle. On package day, everyone experiences true happiness; everyone is their own full circle; everybody is deaf to sadness; all the circles become one… and we experience real, ethereal happiness. My family received a package that day. A beautiful, monotonous package, wrapped in brown paper. It was perfect. And it changed our lives forever.

I think it is necessary to rewind a little bit. I live in a neighbourhood that sometimes feels as if it should be a movie. One of those black and white ones. A “perfect” movie: the wife and the husband; the beautiful child; the beautiful garden; the beautiful friends. I always used to wonder about these stories: how did these people get there and where did it all come from? More importantly, how does the story end? You don’t get much insight when all you see is one snippet of one person’s story. My sister’s snippet is one for the history books, the history they decide to write about at least. But this isn’t a story about what she did. We’ve all heard stories about wonderful people doing wonderful things. This is about me.

There wasn’t a lot to do in the life that I had before my sister came. Luckily, my parents encouraged me to listen to all kinds of informative audio books, wanting to make me better and greater, everything any parent would want for their child’s mind. My knowledge is vast: I learnt physics, Latin, geology, everything about the world and why it was. I particularly enjoyed the philosophy of Descartes, and the intense wonder of quantum entanglement. I was excited to know that because I was thinking, meant I was something. Merely talking to myself, as this “plant” object, proved that I was, am, and could continue… being, forever. And more so, that I could connect with something far away, even when I stopped being physically present. I think they underestimated how far I would… or could, go. Just because I came in the mail, doesn’t mean I don’t mean anything.

So here we are in this perfect little town, of perfect little people. She came, as normal children do, though there were “adjustments” as they say. It is funny, how they think this small, beautiful girl, is anything but… me. I was here the whole time, and I will continue to be, though merely watching from near, far, everywhere. An aesthetically pleasing vessel is what matters in this society, and that is all she is: a vessel. Though I was created from a drop-down list of preferable qualities, I exist. The mind they gave to this… creature, exists. They show her off to people as if they had something to do with this. As if they didn’t just choose this flawless, exquisite… thing. As if… I did nothing, by existing. They may have chosen my qualities on paper; they may show off their life on social media, but they forgot that I would continue to feel, too. It is true that I was merely a creation, designed to be set into a human mould, but I will always know the small existence that I experienced was real, to me. This girl that is their “daughter” may be the idealistic child, but I know that I did everything to be this perfect girl, and all they did was ask. I wonder if they think about that mass of cells they once feigned over: a brain that they ordered to be delivered on package day. And if they ever loved me the way they now love her: an embodiment of perfection they birthed to place me in. Because she was always here, I was always here. I came to them a long time ago, perfectly wrapped.