Thenkar
The Medicine Man came to the village of Thenkar on the first Saturday of every month. Each visit was accompanied by a sort of parade: townspeople riding in fancy high speed cars — their horns blaring — and the acrobats with the two-headed elephants. The man himself was peculiar: his skin burnt orange, slicked back dark hair, and a top hat that never seemed to move even when he leaned over to pat the heads of wide-eyed children.
Daisy was five the first time the Medicine Man paid them a visit. Her father’s knee was giving him trouble, so he had requested a new one. Daisy perched behind a plush pink chair in their sitting room and watched as the Medicine Man took careful measurements of his father’s leg. The following week, the Zipcopter came to pick her father up and bring him to the Repair Center where he got his new synthetic knee. At the time, Daisy thought the whole thing seemed a bit anticlimactic. Her friend Penelope’s father had gotten a new hand after an accident, and at a sleepover he showed the girls his ability to crush an old iphone18 with his fist. Still, after the surgery Daisy’s father could run and play with her again, so she was happy. She wrote the Medicine Man a thank you card with thick colorful crayons, and when he came to do his check-up rounds, she handed it to him nervously before scurrying up to her room.
As kids they rarely spoke of the procedures; they were simply a part of life just as picking sunflowers in the fields on Sundays and watching the heat lamps click on in the winter months. It was rare for children to receive visits from the Medicine Man at a young age, except one girl in her class named Abigail who had a synthetic heart. “She was only born with half her heart, how tragic,” Daisy’s mother told her one afternoon as they walked to the market. But Daisy didn’t think it was tragic at all, in fact, she was envious of the pale scar on Abigail’s chest that the other children liked to gaze at with wonder.
Daisy was around seven or eight when she noticed her mother was sick. Mother slept all the time with the blinds drawn and the lines in her face became deeper, her skin a dull grey. Daisy’s father said that was nothing wrong with her, that she was just “sad,” and Daisy wondered if the Medicine Man could fix people’s sadness like he had fixed her father’s knee and Abigail’s heart. One day in April the Medicine Man paid them another visit, his boots wet and dripping from the storm outside. Her father told Daisy to wait in her room, but she crouched behind the sofa, curling her body into a ball to conceal her lengthening frame. From behind the sofa, she could hear the Medicine Man take out his measurement tools.
“Turn this way,” she could hear him say while his Wedger clicked and whirled. “Good, now reach your arms up to the ceiling.”
“I’ve been taking the pills,” Daisy’s mother said with a quiver in her voice.
“Very well, now let me measure your hips next,” the Medicine Man said softly.
This went on for quite some time, and Daisy’s legs began to cramp. When they were done with the various tests the Medicine Man told her mother and father to take a seat, and they sat on the sofa where Daisy took a gulp of air and tried to hold her breath.
“I’m very sorry,” the Medicine Man said. “We got your results back from the lab and it doesn’t look promising.”
“There must be something you can do?” her father said.
“I’m sorry,” the Medicine Man said again. “Your fertility results are aligned with many other women of your age.” He paused and Daisy could hear the crumpling of paper. “But not to fear, that is precisely why GenL has become so popular. I’ll leave this here for you to think about it, not that this program is new for people of your…” he paused again, and Daisy thought she could detect a hint of nervousness, “status,” he concluded, clearing his throat.
After the visit Daisy found the pamphlet in the trash. It had a photo of a smiling blonde-haired, blue-eyed child on the front with a laughing couple in the foreground. GenL: The Way of the Future, the pamphlet said.
In the following weeks, her mother barely left her room at all, not even when father pleaded with her to give the GenL program a chance. One day she finally emerged, her brown hair blow-dried, her cheeks accentuated with blush. She never spoke of the Medicine Man again except to grumble about the racket of the parade.
By the time Daisy was in middle school, visits to the Repair Center had become more commonplace. Johnny Smith’s father got a new set of lungs after a lung cancer diagnosis, Madison Rey’s mother got a synthetic liver, and Amelia Lockhead got a new leg that looked identical to her real one after a car accident. The Medicine Man made his rounds through Thenkar more frequently, and her father talked proudly of Repair Centers opening in other provinces. He was one of the head architects in charge of designing the Repair Centers, his name David Snow engraved prominently on the fountain in the village square. Late at night Daisy could hear her parents arguing about the centers, their voices rising into the high ceilings of the sitting room.
When Daisy was in high school, her mother was one of the few adults in Thenkar who had never gotten work done at the Repair Center, not even for skin injections that the other aging women received that made the lines in their faces disappear. Even some of the other girls at Thenkar High started getting preliminary facial work but Daisy’s mother wouldn’t let her, even when Daisy cried about the shape of her nose and the dozens of freckles that dotted her cheeks. One Sunday in December when father was traveling for a project, she asked Daisy to come along with her on a day trip outside the village. They boarded one of the high-speed air pods, and Daisy watched out the tinted window as the names of familiar nearby villages flashed by. They stopped at Knika, one of the far-out villages that had recently received its first Repair Center.
“Are we going to see the new center?” Daisy asked, tightening the hood on her parka. It was colder in the outskirt villages, the heat lamps and other artificial warmers not as advanced.
“This way,” her mother said, ignoring Daisy’s question and walking briskly through the run-down air pod station and up to a kiosk where an elderly man sat behind a plexiglass window.
“Two tickets to Pizu,” she said.
“Pizu?” Daisy asked.
Amelia had mentioned Pizu while they sat on the ragged cliffs that overlooked Thenkar one Saturday after her leg replacement. It was windy that day and the usual busy trails on top of the cliffs were empty, leaving the two of them to dangle their legs off the edge in peace. Amelia said that her grandfather had recently moved to Pizu against her family’s wishes. “My mother stopped visiting him because they don’t believe in Repair Centers. It’s a totally weird place,” she’d shared while they watched the air pods zip below them.
Daisy’s mother told her that they would be taking the train to Pizu. She clutched the two tickets as she walked briskly through a graffiti coated tunnel to another part of the station, Daisy scrambling after her. The tracks were rusted, and a neon orange sign read Train to Pizu. Daisy could feel her stomach tighten as she watched the train roll into the station. She hadn’t ridden a train since she was young, before the air pods, and she’d forgotten about the terrifying whoosh of air and clacking of metal as the train reached the landing. Only a handful of people got off, mostly men and women in navy jumpsuits, the uniform of repair workers. The seats on the train were hard and cold. An elderly woman sat a few seats away from them, muttering to herself as the train clicked into motion.
“What’s in Pizu?” Daisy asked, looking out the dirty window at the vast expanse of corn fields.
“You’ll see,” her mother replied, the skin by the corners of her eyes crinkling as she smiled.
When they finally reached Pizu, Daisy thought her mother must have lost her mind. There were even fewer heat lamps than in Knika and no street cleaner robots or interactive signs. Not only that, but there was also something odd about the people. The adults seemed older and greyer; their faces wrinkled like her mother’s skin was starting to turn. They also seemed much too jolly, smiling at one another and shouting things like “Hey Fred!” and “Top of the morning to you!”
One man with a long plaid coat and thick glasses waived at them. “Elizabeth, how wonderful to see you here again! And I see you’ve brought your daughter, how splendid!”
In fact, many people in Pizu seemed to know her mother, waiving at them as they walked or saying things like “Great to see you here Elizabeth!” or “Welcome back to Pizu!” or “Your daughter looks so grown up!”
Daisy didn’t want to feel grown up and she touched her hands to her cheeks, imagining for a split second of panic the aging lines appearing on her face, her bones becoming frail, her hair turning dead and grey.
Their job in Pizu was to help hand out food at the Distribution Center. Her mother told her that this is where people who didn’t have enough money for food went to eat, which Daisy found strange because she’d never heard of anyone in Thenkar not having enough money for anything they wanted, least of all, food. The people in Pizu made her stomach turn. There was a woman with only two teeth and a man with a back so arched that his hat kept falling off as he walked through the food line. Another wrinkle-faced woman held a screaming baby to her chest. The cries made Daisy uneasy; the GenL babies barely cried at all, especially not out on the streets. By the end of the day her legs ached from standing and her jaw hurt from straining to smile at the people who said things like “Well you must be Daisy.” One refreshingly more youthful looking man stopped to talk to her mother, and Daisy pretended not to notice as her mother slipped a parcel into his food basket.
“We’ll keep this trip our little secret,” mother said as they hurried back to the train at the end of the day. The streets were more crowded than when they’d arrived in Pizu that morning. A cluster of children played tag outside a line of rundown shops, their cheeks pink, traces of their laughter illuminated in the chilly air. As Daisy and her mother neared the station, they passed a group of about 20 adults holding signs that said things like Say NO to Plastics, Stop the Repair Centers, and Keep Pizu Toxin Free! One woman held a poster with a photo of a Repair Center next to a skull. “Stop killing our babies,” she chanted, her voice drifting with the wind. Daisy felt a chill run up her spine and she walked quicker, scrambling ahead of her mother who had stopped to shake hands with one of the protesters.
When they got home, father was waiting for them in the sitting room, his arms crossed, face stern. He said nothing as mother carefully removed her scarf and coat, hanging them gently in the doorway. His eyes followed her as she took off her shoes and cleared her throat.
“You took her, didn’t you,” he said softly, and Daisy could hear rage in the undertones of his voice.
“She’s old enough to know now,” her mother said.
“Old enough to know what, Elizabeth,” father said, his voice stern. “Are the Repair Centers a joke to you?” He began pacing around the sitting room, hands on his hips. “Those centers are the future!”
“The future?!” mother said, her voice rising. She chuckled, turning her head to the side.
Daisy crouched behind the plush pink chair like she once did as a little girl. She felt small and unimportant, tears welling in her eyes and rolling down her imperfect cheeks.
“What they’re doing isn’t right,” mother said, her voice trembling slightly. “At the beginning…at the beginning it was different. But it’s not the same anymore. It’s not natural.”
“Not natural, is that right?” father said, his voice steady. “And what happens if something happens to Daisy. What if she gets sick? You’d do anything for her, wouldn’t you?”
Her mother didn’t respond to that and Daisy could hear her let out a heavy sigh, her heels clicking on the hardwood floors as she rushed upstairs.
“Wouldn’t you!?” father said again, his voice rising. “It’s a new world Elizabeth!” he yelled.
Fingers gripping the side of the chair, Daisy emerged slowly, watching as her father paced around the sitting room, sweat pooling under his armpits. When he turned to look at her his face was red and at first Daisy thought he was filled with rage until his eyes brimmed with tears.
“You don’t know what it was like,” he said, pausing for a moment before continuing, “Before the Repair Centers I mean.”
Daisy nodded. They’d learned about the history of the Repair Centers in school but the “before times” were always boiled down to a sentence or two about how “tough” things were before medicine became more advanced, which was almost always followed by glamorous photos of the construction of the Repair Centers in the early days. When Daisy was a child, she learned that both her father’s parents died from cancer when he was just a kid. Her mother told her one morning in a bout of frustration while getting Daisy ready for school. That morning Daisy had thrown a fit about not wanting to go to second grade, and when mother insisted on her attendance, she’d screamed that she wished she didn’t have parents at all. Later that day, mother held her close and whispered not to bring up the deaths with father, that talking about it would only upset him. “They passed away just a year apart,” she’d told her while untangling the back of Daisy’s unruly auburn curls.
Daisy could see the pain in her father’s eyes as he stared her down in the sitting room and she felt the blood rush to her face.
“I won’t go back there,” she said, her voice trembling. “I won’t go back to Pizu.”
That night Daisy woke to a someone shaking her gently. When she opened her eyes mother’s face was only inches from hers. It was 4am, the sky a dull grey.
“I’m leaving tonight,” she whispered, her eyes darting across Daisy’s face. “They’re going to build a Repair Center in Pizu soon and I need to help stop them. Please, come with me.”
Daisy sat up, turning on the light next to her bed. Her mother’s brown hair was sprouting wisps of grey and the skin in between her eyebrows furrowed. She grabbed Daisy’s arm and Daisy stared at the veins that protruded on her mother’s hand.
“You’ve got to listen to me, there’s something wrong with these centers. These treatments have gone too far.” Her mother’s voice was shaking. “I packed you a bag, but we’ve got to go now.”
Daisy started to open her mouth and then closed it. A month earlier, unable to sleep, she had tiptoed downstairs for a glass of warm milk. The house dark, her father had sat hunched in his study, a bright office light illuminating his work. Most of the newer architects used computerized tools but he preferred to do his drawings old school and Daisy remembered running her finger along the pencil lines and chicken scratch notations in awe. “These buildings will save lives,” he’d murmured, pushing his thin framed glasses up to the top of his nose.
Daisy felt the heat rising to her cheeks. “Everyone loves the Repair Centers,” she said. “Sometimes the teachers will even mention dad’s work in morning update. I wish you would just let me be like everyone else!”
Her mother looked like she had been struck, her lips tightening. She paused before speaking as if waiting to see if Daisy would change her mind, her forehead scrunched up. “I need to do this,” she murmured. “You’ll understand one day. I’m doing this for you.” She squeezed Daisy’s hand one more time, and before Daisy could force words out of the lump forming in the back of her throat her mother was gone, rushing out of the room without looking back.
Daisy couldn’t fall back asleep. She thought of the other girls in her class whose mothers allowed them to get work done at the Repair Center: smaller waists, bigger lips, perfectly constructed noses, symmetrical faces. She watched the sun begin to rise and could hear father getting up; the buzzing of his toothbrush and the opening and closing of doors. Did he know she was gone? Did he care? She almost got up to talk to him, to plead with him to bring mother back — to show them both his sketches and speak of the magic of Thenkar. Instead, she felt numb and helpless in her bed, waiting until she heard the thump and click of the front door as father left for work. Then, ignoring her alarm for school, she dug out a drawstring backpack from under her bed and stuffing a half-filled water bottle inside, ran for the cliffs.
She thought about calling Amelia, but Amelia was too much of a model student to skip class. Besides, she didn’t want to tell her about the trip she’d gone on with her mother, grimacing at what Amelia would think. The sky was overcast and by the time she reached the base of the cliffs a slight drizzle had started, drops of water spotting the dirt beneath her feet. She checked her watch; morning meeting would have just begun and soon her mother would be called with the news that she was missing. She wondered if her mother made it to Pizu without her. As she began ascending the rocks, she felt her cheeks flush with a mix of sweat and fresh anger. The trail to the top was empty and she could hear sticks cracking under her shoes as she walked. The second part of the climb was always the hardest — the trail narrowed, and the incline increased. As a kid she’d loved scrambling up the rocks as fast as possible, ignoring her mother’s anxious voice below to slow down. The rain was picking up, the rocks slippery beneath her feet, water droplets mixing with the tears that obstructed her view. She felt her left foot slip first, then her right, and her stomach dropped as she caught herself on two boulders just in time. Wiping her muddy hands on her legs she continued the climb, stopping to catch her breath as she felt the wind gust and watched stray pebbles tumble down the mountain.
By the time Daisy reached the top a thick fog was beginning to engulf the village. She found it calming, a blanket over her brain. Daisy felt the urge to scream. She wondered if her scream could travel all the way to Pizu to be heard by the saggy people who had captured mother and convinced her to become old and grey. The dirty rain mixed with the tears that flowed down her acne-dotted cheeks and into her mouth. Daisy had a favorite spot, a moss-covered rock that jutted out the farthest on the cliffs. From up there the world felt infinite, her problems dissipating into the horizon. Sitting at the edge felt like resting on top of a cloud and she could barely make out the air pods zipping along below. On a clear day she could make out all of Thenkar from up on the cliffs, the houses and roads with miniature people like drawings from her father’s sketches. The soil beneath her was soft and moist. She didn’t hear the rock below her cracking and breaking away from the rest of the cliff until she was already falling. She thought of her mother. She pictured herself as a little girl, mother wrapping her in a thick white towel as the fog engulfed her and the world disappeared.
If she was dead, the afterlife was nosier than expected. It was also very bright, and her closed eyes felt heavy and cold, like her eyelids were covered with little piles of snow.
“Heartbeat is strong, and I am seeing brain activity initiate,” Daisy could hear a voice say.
“Remarkable.”
“If she comes through, she’ll be the first successful transfer treatment in history.”
“There’s about 50 reporters outside, how exciting,” Daisy could hear a high-pitched female voice say. “David you must be so proud, to think your work could contribute to your daughter’s recovery.”
Dad? Daisy could feel her fingers now, her hand outstretched. Clenching her fist felt mechanical and foreign.
She could feel someone squeeze her hand. “Daisy can you hear me? Daisy it’s dad.” His thumb was calloused from the hours spent gripping his pencil and Daisy remembered the first time he held her hand and took her to see the Thenkar Repair Center in person. He’d brought one of his sketches and Daisy remembered him holding it up to the light outside the building, the corners of his eyes crinkling with pride.
Opening her eyes felt like waking from the deepest sleep, as if her eyes had been coated shut with soft glue. Father’s face was the first she noticed, his brow furrowed, his jaw tense. She watched his face relax as they made eye contact.
“You’re awake,” he said softly, in disbelief. “She’s awake,” he proclaimed louder, a grin stretching across his bearded cheeks.
Daisy’s eyes darted around frantically as two men and three women in white lab coats rushed around her bed. As she looked more closely, she realized that she may as well have been plopped directly into one of her father’s sketches. The room was a hybrid between a hospital room and a cozy cottage bedroom. The wooden walls were painted royal blue and an inviting pale pink sofa sat in the corner, next to an electric fireplace.
“The Repair Center?” she whispered, shivering under a thick wool blanket.
“Move aside, move aside.” A petite woman with chestnut hair and a long maroon robe entered the room. They’d learned about the robe hierarchy in school and maroon was given to the doctors of the highest rank.
The other doctors moved aside, bowing their heads slightly as the head doctor approached Daisy’s bed slowly.
“Hello,” Daisy said nervously.
The doctor looked at her closely, reaching a hand up to Daisy’s face and holding Daisy’s chin gently. “I am doctor Ullani,” she said calmly. Her eyes were the prettiest green color and her dark red lipstick stuck out in contrast with her pale, spotless face. Dr. Ullani nodded to one of the male doctors who passed her a white headset. It looked like the VR headsets the teachers used to let them play with at school only more sophisticated; there was a thin blinking screen across the front and when Dr. Ullani brought the headset closer to Daisy the entire unit pulsed green. “This will take just a moment,” the doctor said, her voice cool and monotone.
Daisy could feel Dr. Ullani slip the headset over her eyes and ears. She expected it to feel heavy, but it was surprisingly light on her face and she squeezed her eyes shut as her heart beat faster.
“You need to relax now dear,” Dr. Ullani said.
Daisy opened her eyes. She was looking at the night sky, the stars winking and stretching out for infinity. Then the scene changed. She watched a little girl run through the sunflower fields. The girl’s orange dress was muddy at the bottom and Daisy could hear her laughing, the giggles floating like bubbles stretching up to the sky. The girl turned to look at something over her shoulder. Her face was dotted with freckles and her nose crinkled as she smiled. Daisy realized with an uncanny calmness that she was looking at herself as a child, and the girl waved her on as if welcoming her back to the past. Her younger self started running faster and just when Daisy thought she was in reach the scene changed. Father was running with her in the fields, his knee new and agile after its repair. The sky was turning grey. “You can’t catch me!” young Daisy called out, but she was swallowed suddenly by the clouds. Young Daisy was older now, standing in her bedroom and twirling in a silver, form fitting dress. She looked angry, and Daisy noticed with a pang of remorse that her mother stood in the corner of the room. “But mom, all the other girls at school are getting the procedure,” teenage Daisy said, her lips pursed as she angled her body in the mirror. “I told you Daisy, you’re fine just as you are. All that synthetic junk is bad for you anyways. Come and I’ll let you wear my gold earrings.” The image flashed to a teenage Daisy sitting on the cliffs with Amelia, their legs dangling over the edge while they nibbled on GoEnergy bars. The picture shifted again; she was still on top of the cliff except Amelia was gone. It was raining and this version of herself looked angry, scooting to the farthest mossy point of the cliff. Daisy tried to scream, to stop what she realized was about to happen, but it was too late. She watched as the cliff cracked, another version of herself fragmented and suspended in the air for a moment in time before disappearing over the edge. The scene changed one more time. Daisy was smaller, her hair just reaching her shoulders, face plump. She could hear the honking of cars for the Medicine Man’s parade in the distance. Young Daisy was in the sitting room, nibbling on a sugar cookie while father played the piano and mother sang, mother’s voice drifting in the wind of the open window and catching on the droplets of misty air that filled the empty spaces in Daisy’s nose and mouth and eventually swallowed her whole.
“Incredible.”
Dr. Ullani pulled the headset off Daisy’s head, staring at her intently.
“Where’s my mother?” Daisy asked, the words slipping out of her mouth before she thought twice.
“We sent word to Pizu,” father said, his mouth drooping at the corners.
“What happened to me? I want to see her!” Daisy said, her hands trembling as her chest tightened.
“You fell over 1,000 feet,” Dr. Ullani said slowly, pausing for a moment before continuing. “We were able to try an experimental treatment on you called Transfer. We preserved your memories you see. It’s a miracle, you’re a model patient for what is possible at the Repair Center.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
“Yes, well there’s a lot to review but you should be discharged as early as tomorrow — ”
Daisy had stopped listening. One of the other doctors had moved aside, revealing a mirror on the wall to her right. The girl in the mirror was beautiful; she had long wavy blonde hair and deep blue eyes. Daisy raised a hand to her cheek, watching as the girl in the mirror copied. Her cheek felt warm and smooth like fresh wax. The face in the mirror had a petite nose and perfectly arched eyebrows with skin free of blemishes or freckles. She watched as a tear escaped from the corner of the girl’s eye. Her nose burned and she could feel more tears pooling in her eyes and racing down her spotless cheeks, memories breaking free. She gazed at herself in the mirror, watching as a stranger stared back.
