A Story of a Mutant by Anand Prakash

People chat noisily like knives and forks over a dinner, toaster mimics the click-clack of female heels, nauseating smell of Apple Cinnamon muffins injects childhood nostalgia in customers, a braided hair barista calls, almost poetically, for the drinks to-be picked up, spices of Chicken soup prime the customers for an early lunch, and wordless music drifts dissonantly in the café. Sitting here, he feels he is a part of some surreal world, like the one he visualized upon reading some New X-men comics here, over winter break. Comics to scientific research. Somebody said change is always painful but he has never been told that change is irritating too.

Bringing the paper cup to his dried lips, he leans on the black desk, staring down at the yellow post-it over the stack of white papers, many versions of his research manuscript. The post-it reads: revise discussion of the manuscript. He notices his handwriting resemble a curse. Even Organic Sumatra coffee, which has helped in past, isn’t helping. He puts the paper cup down, next to his laptop. Then, he peels the post-it off, stares at it and pastes it on the top right side of his laptop, as a constant reminder.

            Moments later, he saves a 2003-2007 Microsoft word document on the desktop with the title, “Discussion of the Manuscript.” He just wants to get done with this revision but his fingers, inert on keypad, seem to not listening. He looks down at the alphabet G and H, which looks back at him, with same disdain.

“For a good discussion, you need good understanding of your results. And for good understanding, you need to question yourself.” He retreats to his mentor words. In search of those questions, he looks up. A toddler appeared in his mother’s arms. The toddler’s mother carefully sits on one of the black chair in front of him. In his mother’s lap, the toddler faces him. He smiles when he spots the toddler’s X-men mutant shirt. His mother acknowledges the smile without knowing the reason but the toddler stares hard at him, as if knows everything.

Are the toddler’s parents fan of superhero comic books or they belongs to general public grown on the diet of movie modified superheroes? He wonders. What these questions have to do with his scientific discussion? He doesn’t have answer to this question but he is still elated: at least he started asking questions. Soon he will get over this comic book sleep-over, he expects. No feeling stayed with him for forever even though he wants some feelings to stay.

*

As he mulls over the abstract of his manuscript, his hyperactive neurons start typing thoughts in his mind with ink of caffeine. The mutant virus was deleted with the first and most important gene. So the virus cannot synthesize early proteins, encoded by this first gene, important for early gene expression, viral replication, and switch to late gene expression, all important processes for the viral life cycle. Hence the mutant virus cannot complete its viral life cycle. Will the mutant virus be able to complete the viral life cycle if the similar gene is supplemented from a mutant from a related virus?

Just when his fingers touch the keypad, the toddler with X-men mutant shirt let out a sudden shriek, breaking the chain of his scientific thoughts. The toddler’s head shakes violently and his blonde hairs irregularly reflect the whitish yellow light of the café. Continuously crying, the toddler points finger at the counter. Passing the crying toddler to his father, her mother reaches for the counter. By this time, the café crowd fixes their eyes on the toddler and his parents. If observe closely, one could observe glistening in those eyes. A faint awww reverberates in the café like a whisper full of longing.

The angry toddler resembles to a violent X-men mutant eager to joins the avengers. He observes. What the toddler wants to avenge? To answer this question, he must know what kind of mutant the toddler is. After much contemplation, he names the crying toddler in the café, KID2.0, a superhero mutant. In terms of superpower, he grants KID2.0 a distinct superpower: superpower of crying. To be a superhero, only superpower is not enough. KID2.0 needs to ascend the insurmountable problems, fight deadly villains, and face his interior demons and for all this, he needs to provide a back story. He finds one of biggest demons for KID2.0 is the lack of the maternal unconditional love. He tries to understand the mutant with back to back questions.

*

Will he come home crying after being bruised in a fight? Will he hide his pain from his parents? Will his idealistic parents only find fault in him? Will he ever be loved in his life?

If answer is no, what will he think about love. Will he laugh at people being madly in love? Will he handle love like a flirt or like a person with split personality disorder?

Will he work hard to attain the missing love? Will he be loved even after working hard? What will become of him if someone doesn’t love him? Will he work even harder? Will he deal the lack of love by crying?

What will happen if someone really loves him?

If answer is yes, then how he will deal with love? Will he like the only people who love him? Will he suffer from questions like why people love him? Will he think they still love him even when they find out what un-loveable person hiding underneath him? Will there be people to help him when he suddenly starts crying?

Will he ask help from others? What kind of people he will ask help from? Will he meet helping people or people with necessary lessons?  Will he start trusting everybody if he meets the former? Will he create more imaginary friends if he meets the latter? Will these fictitious entities help him resolve his problems? Will he resorts back to crying?

Will he complain that the lack of unconditional love is responsible for his defective life? Will he blame his mother for his problems? Will he ever find everybody has their problems? Will he find his current critical thinking is actually the result of his mother’s sacrifices? Will he absorb the lessons from his life only after crying?

When will he be happy with life? When will he think life in terms of symbiotic relationships? When will he find another mutant which complements his defects and allow him to grow? When will he stop living the incomplete life? When will he became aware that every superpower comes with an equally potent curse: the superpower of Crying could be responsible for making him who he is?

*

By the time, he finishes typing unnecessary scientific words on his word document, the toddler has calmed down. Maybe that’s why he stopped, he thinks. Wondering over his creativity yet frustrated with his scientific productivity, he stretches his legs underneath the table, brings his hands behind his head, falls back on the chair and looks up at the blackness of the café ceilings. Gazing at the unending bleak blackness for some time, he thinks of deleting this comic book seep-over. Then with a deep breath, he returns to his typing posture and re-names the word document as “A Story of a Mutant.”

He picks up the paper cup. The couple of cold drops of coffee spread over his tongue. He gets up from his seat. He rounds the chair with mother and the toddler to reach the braided hair barista girl, who is counting tips. He asks for 16 oz of Organic Sumatra and swipes his card. He looks back as he waits for the coffee. Sitting in his mother’s lap, the toddler is playing with ground version of Apple and Cinnamon cupcake on the black table. He observes the toddler closely. The mother patiently, calmly and repeatedly cleans the toddler’s hands, simultaneously conversing with her husband. Whenever the mother tries to keep the toddler away from the ground cupcake, the toddler opens his mouth in what could be a shriek. “Isn’t he really cute?” the barista girl says to him, as she passes the coffee cup. He nods but doesn’t stretch his lips in a full smile. The mother kisses the toddler on cheeks and the father ruffles the toddler’s blonde hairs. Seeing all this, he returns to his seat.

With the burned tongue, he starts to find answer to the question: why he wrote a story instead of discussion? The post-it stuck at the rim of his laptop monitor teases him about his scientific progress. No feeling is constant; only change is. Thinking such, his fingers touch the keypad in hope to type something scientific.

Author Bio:

Anand Prakash is a graduate student working toward a microbiology degree. In free time, he wonders about existential issues. His recent works have appeared or forthcoming in z-composition, Crack the Spine, and Liebamour. His writings can be found at http://gradstudentwriter.blogspot.com/.