The Book Keeper (18 page)

X Tim
#ihatesayingafinalgoodbyetopeople

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I felt my energy drain away as I realised that perhaps tomorrow may be the last day that I would see Georgia.  She would finish the bloody book and then our verbal contract, our connection would be done.  I sighed with a heavy heart.  It was probably better this way anyway.  My life was about to get messier with the MR Implant.
  It would be better if we were done.

I shut off
Tim Jennings  and fell into a disturbed sleep, waking well before the sun shined its first rays, giving me time to gather my thoughts before I headed back to the park to meet my Georgia, for the final time.

She wore a dark purple long sleeved shirt.  It hugged her body in all the right places, making my heart accelerate.  And her black pants accentuated her lovely long legs. 
Oh Georgia – you make my engine hum......loudly.

She sat with her eyes closed under the radiant purple wisteria flowers, the green leaves vibrant in this twilight hour before the dawning of a new day. Her face was peaceful, and so beautiful. How I wanted to kiss her, passionately.

Without a sound, I moved in closer to her, and then placed the bouquet of pink roses under her nose. She smiled, her face lighting up.  She was an angel. My angel.

‘Cohen, you are here,’ she said quietly, her eyes still closed, but her smile growing wider.

‘Yes,’ I whispered, ‘I’m your weird mysterious man that you attracted.’

She giggled.  It was the sweetest sound.  Then she opened her eyes and looked into mine.  I drank her in.  If this was our last
rendezvous, I wanted to memorise everything about her.

She took the bouquet of roses from my hand, her fingers brushing against my skin, tingling me all over. 
Ah Georgia......

‘I was hoping that we could have breakfast together later,’
I said nervously, berating myself for my unease around her today.

‘That would be nice Cohen,’ she answered, and placed her hand on the side of my face and kissed my cheek. Her lips were soft and warm, igniting my wick of desire. ‘Thank-you for the beautiful roses, I love them.’  I smiled shyly at her.

Fascinating purple and pink colours of the twilight morning sky changed and disappeared leaving a fresh blue new day skyline as Georgia opened up the bloody book, perhaps for the last time.  I watched her face as she read. I wanted her beauty burnt into my memory to keep with me forever.

“’
Georgia...’ It was his voice.  I kept my eyes on the paperwork in front of me.  If I made eye contact with him, I was likely you use unkind words that I would regret later. Instead I took a calming deep breath.

‘Dr Ethan...’ I replied coolly, not looking up at him.

‘I have come back for my soup for the soul, as you advised,’ he said, his voice smooth.

‘There are very good counsellors around, psychiatrists, psychologists, dogs.....’ I offered, my voice detached, still bruised from his animosity at me a while ago.

‘It is you that I seek to talk to.  It is you who can fill my need as no-one else can.  I have tried to stay away from you since the last time that our paths crossed. But I am finding it impossible.  I will not leave until I talk to you,’ he said assertively.

I looked up at him, narrowing my eyes at him. How could I not help him
?  It was what I did, who I was – a guide for those who seek.

‘Where would you like to talk to me Ethan?’ I asked, my voice softer.

‘At the park, near the bridge, there is a seat under a dead tree. 4pm.  Don’t disappoint me Georgia,’ he directed, bowed his head slightly, turned and then left.

Huh! Arrogance as well – not a pleasant trait to possess.

*~*~*~*~*

He was waiting for me under the dead tree, leaning forward, his elbows on his knee, his hands threaded through his messy brown hair. His face was unreadable.

‘Ethan,’ I said as I sat beside him.  He removed his hands from his hair and turned his heavily bearded face towards me and nodded in acknowledgement.

‘Thank-you for coming
, I am gratified by your presence,’ he responded, the afternoon suns rays accentuating his blue eyes.

‘I wished
for my occupation to remain anonymous to you, but as it turns out, my wish has not been granted,’ he started.

‘Ethan,
you did speak of your high intelligence at our previous meetings.  But I would not have guessed your occupation according to your attire or your state of mind.  You looked more like a druggie, or a homeless man,’ I added.

‘I choose to dress like th
is to fit in with the people that I help.  I need to be seen as one of their own. And it works well.  I am not sorry if it offends you.  I am working with people that desperately need help, and have no money, no energy, and see no way out of their living hell.  This physical life on earth repulses me......’  he explained, looking out over the water that flowed beneath the bridge.

‘You help them,
you help them to forgive others and themselves. Yet you do not use the same playing field for yourself Ethan – how is that?’

‘I have no soul Georgia.  I have no control over my eternal destiny, but they do, and I want them to know it.
’

‘Only because you choose to see it that way Ethan.  I look around and see the beauty, the goodness, the love that
conquers all the things that repulse you. It’s your frame of mind. The way that you choose to think.  But you should know that, you are a doctor.’

He remained silent. Like wisdom without words.

‘I have called you here because I need to tell you about my childhood, as you suggested, to free me of the chains that link me to my past. I want to see the beauty, the goodness and the love that you see.  I want to feel it in here.’  He put his hand over his heart.  His face was pained.  My lost Ethan.  I so so so want to pull you out of the maze and into the light that will fill your life, and make you feel complete.

‘I’m here, and I’m listening Ethan – no judgement.  Nothing can shock me, or scare me,’ I encouraged.  He sat looking at the water for sometime before he started.  I waited.  Good things come to those who wait.

‘I was manufactured, as I have told you.  My earliest memory is of many men surrounding me, talking, questioning, talking, attaching electrodes to my head to measure brain activity, taking blood test after blood test, and listening to educational audios as I went to sleep each night – subliminal learning.  I had no motherly influences.  No mothering, no touching.  I was tended to by male scientists, focused on my intellectual ability and my physical health.  My emotional health was deprived.  I didn’t know it at the time.  How could I?  It was the only world that I knew.

By day, my learning was accelerated
with one on one teachers, scientists, instructors and computers. By night, my mind was filled with knowledge through the use of audiobooks and then the audio of sleep learning.

Then one day, a woman came in to my learning room.  I was fascinated by her.  She had long hair – it was far different to the short and balding heads of the scientists.  Her face was attractive, full of......compassion, her voice soft, sweet.  And she touched me on the head and face.  It was the first time that I remembered being touched without a probe or some other scientific or medical tool.  My world had been so sterile, cold. I felt so confused by the new emotions that I was feeling.  I wanted her to touch me again and again.  I craved her hand on me, like some depraved animal.
She made me smile, and I liked it.  Smiling was unfamiliar to me, as was the emotion of happiness. I wanted to be like her – kind, and helpful.  I am what I am today because of her.  Those qualities of compassion soaked into me like I was a thirsty sponge.

Then.......they took her away.
They took the light of my life away. And my world collapsed in on me.  The darkness invaded and covered me like a suffocating blanket. I now knew that there was more to life than what the scientists had me believe.  They had sheltered me from the reality of life, from the real world, warts and all. I was empty.  And the void was taking over.

I completed my Medical degree by the age of eighteen – they had chosen my life for me.  And then, when I got the chance, I escaped from them.  I hated them Georgia, and what they had done to me. I was purely a cloning experiment that in their eyes was a success.  I was super intelligent, and showed  no
signs of the compromised immune function and higher rates of infection, tumor growth, and other disorders that had been previously seen in cloning of animals, or the early attempts at human cloning.  Physically, intellectually I was a success.  But emotionally I am a complete and utter mess.  I don’t belong here, or anywhere.  I am lost in the darkness.  Lost without hope of anything.  I need you to help me......please...’ his voice was cracking in emotion, tears welling up in his eyes.

I placed my hand onto his shoulder.  My heart was breaking for him.  He placed his hand over mine, and wept.  To be honest, I didn’t know what I could do for him
.  He had led such a deprived and sad life, guided by men of science who should have known better.  They were accountable.  If they had neglected his emotional well-being he was not a success in my eyes.  Emotional health is the most important of the human attributes, above physical health, above intelligence.  One is nothing without emotional health, a sense of knowing who you are and your worth to society.  Giving care to others and receiving it. Compassion.

‘
Ethan, you have spent your entire life with scientific, medical methods.  You know no other way.  And now you choose to spend your time with others in a poor state of mind, health and wealth.  I cannot see how you can see the world in a different light when you are so immersed in depressing situations of others around you.’ I said, trying to put what I saw in perspective.

‘But Georgia, I help people.  That is what I do, like you,’ he responded.
‘I don’t want to walk around in a world where there is happiness.  It reminds me of what I do not have, and what I never will have.  I feel nothing in here.’  He once again put his hand over his heart, and twisted his face in pain.

‘Balance Ethan.  You need to balance your working world with a world of opposites to this world where you are helping people continuously
. You are presently helping people, yet denying yourself. You are allowed to be happy. When did you last go to the beach?’ I asked him.

There was silence, as he looked out over the flowing water. ‘Never,’ he replied, swallowing.

‘Never ever?’ I said, going for clarification of never.  He shook his head.

‘I have seen the beach in books, on television, in the virtual world that I was raised on.  I don’t need to go to the beach,’ he explained as an excuse for his lack of experiences.

‘Oh my goodness Ethan!  Do you truly believe that a virtual beach is like experiencing a real beach? Your unintelligent intelligence beguiles me’  I questioned him in shock.

‘It is w
hat I have felt – all of my life,’ he answered, ashamed of his admission, hanging his head.

‘You feel an emptiness Ethan. 
It does not have to stay this way. You keep shutting people out.  Let some into your life.  Let them give to you, instead of always giving to them.  You must learn to like yourself, love yourself.  You need to let yourself do that.  You are worthy.  Just by being alive you are worthy.  Life is a gift.  Open it up and feel the freedom, your wholeness.  Give yourself permission to do that.  You are the one who is in your way. I also feel that you need to belong.  You feel very alone don’t you?’

He nodded, concentrating on his knotted hands.

‘You know, many people, conceived naturally feel that way.  The feeling is not isolated to your manufactured beginnings.’

He turned his head and looked at me, his expression unreadable.

‘I know the statistics Georgia.  You are not telling me anything new here.  I want a soul. I want to feel whole.  I want to feel complete, satisfied.   I want eternal life,’ he spoke in hushed tones.

‘Ethan, you are talking about your spirituality.  Seek and you will find
,’ I answered him in a whisper, looking deeply into his eyes.  He did not look away from me.  Se was still searching,  searching my eyes, searching my face.  If he could reach in and search my heart I am sure he would have done that too. 

I leaned forward and kissed his forehead.

‘Knock, and the door will be opened to you,’ I added softly before I stood, my hand lightly on his shoulder.  And then I left him as the darkness of the evening crept in on the land.  I turned back to see his silhouette on the park bench under the dead tree, but he was gone – vanished. The breeze blew my hair as a warmth hugged my body.  I closed my eyes, then turned to walk home. 

Would I see Ethan again?  I felt the answer was no.  My heart was telling me so.  He had taken from me what he was looking for, and I prayed that the piece completed his jigsaw puzzle perfectly, with perfect love.
”’

Georgia stared at the ground to her left
.  Her face was impassive. The time had come.  The story had ended. 
No......no......not yet.