Responsibility

Joseph investigated the mirror before him. Staring, willing the reflection to change.

His image blurred, tears that he no longer had control over ran freely. His age was showing. At seventy, middle aged by society’s standards, he looked good. His skin had a bounce and sheen to it. His five o’clock shadow, untended for nearly a week, was the beginning of a scratchy beard. His eyes “raisin brown” his daughter and first-born child, Linda, called them. “Because they have a little plum color in them, but the dark brown is winning the war in your eye, Father,” she’d said. She was busily tending to an equation before her, sweat at her brow with her effort, yet she made time to look up at him and smiled her sweet smile.

He would sometimes look at her and wondered how he could make something so beautiful and so fragile. The only likeness of him on her was her nose but even her nose was too cute to really be fully his. She didn’t fully mirror his wife, Leadale, either. Leadale was strong with features that matched her persona: cheeks and jaw sharp and even her nose ended with a sharp point. Her eyes the color of algae, and on the edges of her iris she had the surrounding brown of the forest; her eyes pierced through any soul, analytic and unquestionably feminine, with a doe appeal around the edges.

Leadale and Joseph were giants to their newborn babe. Leadale stood a graceful 177.8 CM and Joseph 193.04 CM; so, when Linda was born, a striking 45.72 CM and only 2.5KG, she looked unreal and an unbelievably tiny, breakable even, a wisp of human existence. And when she finally decided to open her eyes, two days after her birth because she wished to sleep, this world but a dream outside of her mother’s womb, it was worth the wait. She squeaked, resistance to not being fed enough, and wrinkled her face deeply; with great effort she shot open angry eyes to reveal a color he had only seen in childhood: true pear. Green and freckled with amber and whiskey brown, edged rustic in nature because of her emotion. Leadale and he laughed at her display, and he knew then what her name would be: Linda; a word from an old language, Portuguese, meaning beautiful.

Joseph shook his head of memories past; he had enough torment, going down memory lane did nothing for his situation. He looked around his bathroom, truly there for the first time all morning and was charged with an energy that wrecked at him. He grabbed up the dark blue stool, littered with stickies from his once little children, and continuously smashed the mirror before him with all his built emotions. Enraged with himself, lashing out, he never felt such lack of power, so he attacked the mirror and the surrounding interior with all those emotions—because what else could he have done?

Dipped into a squat, letting the glass cut into his right foot, the stinging pain a balm to the emotional anguish, he held his head. Then he moved his hands to his ears as the onslaught of thoughts burst upon him, mental noise reminding him of his failures and aching loneliness.

“Leadale, I missed Junior, too,” he breathed out. “WHAT am I supposed to do with no help from Brethren? They, too, are Vultures now.”

He rocked, needing to propel his mind past the emotions and into his next step.

“Logic, Joseph… logic,” he coached himself.

He slowed down enough to look at the wreckage caused by his hands and slowly, as to not to be sent into another episode, he picked up the mess. Letting his mind wander to a time before he was a father, to when he was young and in love.

He lived and worked in Old England, studying the nature of life that was cultivated on Orion’s Belt, particularly Aldebaran. With most of the neighboring planets colonized he and teams of others were responsible for the sustainability of humanity. Taste and quality could not be spared either, though, that was another field altogether. Those counterparts were being merged into the offices of his colleagues and himself, who were assigned there until their station just outside of Earth’s orbit was completed. He was put in charge of appointing the Brethren to their temporary offices.

“Brethren Joseph,” a powerful and feminine voice beckoned him.

He turned, his SKYP (Synchronized Kinetics Youniversally Powered) still activated, beaming from his lens for his personal view, and setup a meter away so that he may fully see the layout. The woman who called him was costumed in the map because of the overlay, making him laugh internally. Her identification was displayed to him; she’s an herbalist.

“Yes, Brethren Leadale”, he answered, suppressing his amusement.

“I’ve been wrongly stationed,” she postured. “Herbalist and Nutraceutical are fundamentally different, and we are stationed here for nearly a complete earth orbit, to have us mixed and not in our practical platoons is a disadvantage we cannot shoulder responsibly.”

Joseph was stuck, usually one to multi-nav, yet for the first time he could remember, he wasn’t able to do so. The sparkle of deep green in her eyes were storming into something spectacular, and he did not want to miss the sight; being tactful and efficient was far from the forefront of his mind. Her eyes flickered from a storm to spring, gentling, her ire replaced with concern.

He absently wondered why and swallowed, his tongue unnaturally dry. “Holy crap, I’ve been gaping… But for how long?” he inwardly seethed. He scrambled to gain his mental footing, not wanting to seem inept and clumsily say something fatuous to the beauty before him; impressing incompetence to the arrivals would be unacceptable. Then something he didn’t expect to happen: she smiled; no mental effort he could’ve mustered would combat her beauty.

Sheepishly grinning, he told her, “Though I was not assigned to create the model, I could make some arrangements to not hinder progress and to make our brethren are comfortable.” He was then awarded a brighter smile and eyes that housed a light he wanted to call home. “So, this is the love at first sight my parents were talking about,” he marveled.

After they were able to coordinate adjustments, he learned that Leadale was assigned to lead the move, as was he, both their first time. That link was how their conversation surpassed work, and they talked well into the night about how their personal vision of expansion compared to that of the collective and what it might mean in a historical means. They were healthy, middle-aged, and as the life span of humans continued to be lengthened, they wondered about their larger roles in life, aside from their contribution to their brethren and the collective.

“Even at fifty-one this can be awkward,” Joseph modestly conveyed. “Tomorrow is Feliz day… Uhm, it may be social day on your side of the continent, but anyways, let’s spend it together.”

Mirth danced in Leadale’s eyes; she put down her coffee and nodded mightily, her grin unyielding throughout that night. When they met on Feliz day, venturing the town, Joseph felt the need to take her to his secret place that he dared to not share with anyone. On the outskirts of the ‘Curious Brethren’ compound on the top of hills were pear trees, fragrant and secluded from his fellow brethren. They were unlike the real ones of his childhood but with the genetic mods they were a close clone. That location was where he felt the need to take her, so he listened to that instinct; she was something he wanted to get used to, just like how he got used to his selected seclusion atop the hill. His efforts were rewarded because Leadale never left for the station outside of Earth’s orbit. They married after two years and traveled to the American continent, close to Leadale’s parents.

He planned a full life, providing for his brethren and for the niche he called home. Then, unexpectant extremists bombed the capitols with time-space warps, assaulting the safety net that was as ever-present as the air he breathed. War and unrest hadn’t been in the social conscious in centuries, so he strode with the plan he’d conjured. Things would correct themselves, he’d thought.

Joseph sneered at his past self, decidedly waxing the bathroom floor by hand and needing to busy himself from the reality when his own ego had dared to snicker in the face of danger. Conceiving in the beginning of chaos and confusion was risky in and of itself, and to do so twice was foolish in hindsight, grateful for his children or not.

His over confidence in the standing of mankind’s ability was well overshot, thinking they had advanced from physical violence to get a point across was the undoing of a neat and sensible execution of his life. Change was inevitable and looking at the apartment around him, he wished he would have moved with the times and not stood so stiffly in the face of a tsunami-sized wave of change.

He lost his wife and youngest child to the Timed-Zones; he’d be damned if he let Linda join the hysteria of their times, to stand in front of the void of the unknown by herself. When she bolstered about meeting one of the Arcturians, he first felt a sense of panic, followed by nausea, then the rage came. That unchecked rage was what led him to yelling his disappointments to his offspring, discouraged and belittled her intelligence because of his fear. It’s what led her leaving him.

“As soon as I see you, I will give you the apology I owe you,” he said in a recovering tortured whisper, a promise to his first born. “Since she spoke to an Arcturian, she went to the East,” he mused. “I can bring SKYP, that’d lower my load.” He listed and planned aloud.

He then did something not entirely foreign but long enough to have felt guilty as he brought himself down on aching knees. “I’ve been leaning on my Brethren too heavily and now need a shoulder that can withstand the weight of my invocation,” he admitted. “Most High and Almighty force within the cosmic multi-verse, I plead to have thy eye upon me; my request is urgent—I need you now. May I walk by faith alone, I have ample faith.” He spoke with amusement. “May I not see with my eye but perceive from thine Omnipotent point of view, and let your strength become my own. May You guide my heart and keep my mind sound.” He almost sang his prayer, head swaying, eyes closed, hands clasped over his chest. “May You take the prayer of this fool; forgive me for my transgressions, for they have made my family but a memory.”

He shuddered at the thought, “Let Linda be safe, I know she’s braver than what I actually gave her credit for, but I also know she’s come to You for Your safety and guidance. Well, now there’s two of us praying for the same thing; may she be safe and sound when I reach her.”

He stood then, taking his hands upward, his body open, face to the ceiling, eyes closed as he continued, “I will take matters into my own hands, so may they be divinely guided as I search for my offspring, my responsibility. Be my guide, as You have guided me before. I lay all my trust in You, as I should have.” The last sentence was filled with regret but charged with determination.

He packed little; he didn’t want to be overcome by a Vulture, and there was too much time between him and Linda.

“I’m on my way, sweetie,” was his parting words as he left the apartment and headed for the destination. He hoped to find his daughter.