Blue 2.0

Darling

1.0

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I see White.

The White is clean. Crisp. Simple. Spotless. There is a table in the room. It is three centimeters below me. I am on the table. There is no color besides White. There are blocks of Gray when I look down. I look at them. They fall off the right side of the table. I am now partially off the table.

I realize that those are legs. My Legs.

The silence of the White does not last. A man enters. His movements are loud. Too loud. White sheets cover his body. They make swish swish noises when he moves his arms and legs. I stare at him. My first face. Thin stripes of Black on the top of his face. They gather together. He has something painted over his face. It is not Yellow. It is not Red. It is not Orange. It is something between the colors. It is close to Black. It is not as close to White. It is not White.

I do not see White.

The stripes on his face raise when he sees me. They move up. They stay there. How does he move the stripes? The top surface of his head crumples together when he raises them. The man opens his mouth and speaks. “Darling, you look gorgeous.” He is loud. I turn away. He is louder than the noise the White sheets on him make when he moves.

Darling. The word flashes in front of me. Seven letters. Darling. Used as an affectionate form of address to a beloved person. It is a noun. There is emphasis on the ling. Darling. DarLING. The man does not say it like that. He says daaaar-ling. Form of address to a beloved person. Darling.

I move. I ask. “Am I your beloved person?”

My voice is loud. But he makes an unfamiliar breathing sound that is just as loud. He goes ha. Haaah. hA. I blink.

Skin

1.0

I open my eyes. The man is here again. He is not my darling. I am not his darling. But he calls me daaaar-ling. Why does he call me something I am not?

There is a blank in my brain. It is empty. Something passed in between. I look at the man for answers. He is the only one who I know. The man moves a not Red not White not Orange but something colored line to the two sides of his face. He moves his face too much. It changes. He changes.

“Darling.” There is that word again. The word that I am not but he says that I am. “Why don’t you look at yourself?”

I look at him. I don’t know what to do. But the man tells me to look at myself. So I do. I look down. I see soft but firm material underneath me. It is in two long blocks. They move when I look at them. It is the same color as the man’s face. Yellowredorange. I see them as legs. Those are My Legs? They do not look like it. My Legs are gray and hard and not this mushy feeling.

I ask him. “What is that?” I want to know what it is. I want to know what that color is. I do not know. I want to know. The man breathes sharply again. Ha. Haaah. hA. He tells me that they’re my legs. I do not think they are. But I believe him. I stare at the surface of My Legs. I ask him. “What is that?” He does not tell me the color. I want to know. The man makes the same loud breathing noise.

“That’s skin.”

Skin. Four letters. Short word. Short color. Strange color. Color I know. Now. It does not sound right. It is strange. I ask him if it is the name of the color. The man makes the breathing noise even more. It is loud. He does it too much. “Darling, no, you can’t call skin a color. People would get mad at you for saying that. The color is peach or cream.”

He does not call the color Skin. He calls it Peach. He calls it Cream. So I will not call the color Skin. Then, if Skin is not a color, what is Skin?

Name

1.0

“Why do you call me that?”

Pause. “What?”

“Darling.” Pause. “Why do you call me that?”

“It’s not a name.” Pause. “It’s more like.” Pause. “A phrase.”

Pause. “What’s a Name?”

“A name is something you call someone.”

“Then.” Pause. “My Name is Darling.”

“No.” Pause. “It’s not.” Pause. “Names are more personal. More intimate. Exclusive.”

“What’s My Name?”

“2.0.”

“2.0?’

“Yes. 2.0. You are the discovery. The change. The new. The recent. You are 2.0.”

Pause.

Like

1.0

The man is not always exactly on time. He comes at 10:01 or 10:02 or 9:59. But he comes at 10:00. Sometimes. 10:00 with .000321987 milliseconds ahead. He comes with wrenches with screws with wires with oil with Skin with strings attached to a net with long tubes and with long thin sharp needles.

He comes with tubes and wires this time. They are Gray. The man goes behind me. He holds My Head in place. He cuts open a small piece of Skin that connects My Head and My Shoulders. He takes the tubes and attaches them to the opening of the Skin. He does something then. I do not know what he does. I cannot see him. But something happens between the moment where he puts the tube on and when he takes it off. It is abrupt and jolting. I do not understand why he does that.

There is silence. It reminds me of the White. There is no longer as much White in the room anymore. There is more Peach. More Cream. More Gray. So much more Gray. The Gray makes me overwhelmed. I keep the silence.

I break the silence. “Why is My Name 2.0?”

The man does not answer my question. He only gives me a not answer answer. “2.0 is symbolic. Do you not like it?” I am confused. What does he mean by like? The word is so broad and strange and vague. I do not understand. I ask him about it. He pauses. And he explains. “Liking is having interest in something. Liking is enjoying something. Liking is being excited by something. Liking is being satisfied with something.” The explanation is low quality. I still do not understand it. The man asks me again. “Do you like your name?”

I do not know what to say. So I just nod. He accepts it.

“Well, even if you don’t like it, you’re getting a new name soon.”

“A new Name.”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see. I think you’ll like it.”

I doubt I do. But he says I will.

I will.

Miracles

1.0

I do not understand what the man comes to me everyday for. He brings tubes and wires. Flowers and pencils. Lots of colors. He comes with a piece of paper today. A piece of paper and a piece of shiny metal. The man hands me the paper first. There are splotches of color on the paper. Blue. Cream. Black. Gray. And Purple. So much Purple. Purple on the corners. Purple like dots. Purple dripping on the paper. Purple. Purple. Purple. It is Graypurple. It is Blackpurple. It is Whitepurple. I look only at the Purple. I almost miss the small bits of Cream until the man tells me to look at the Cream.

The Cream turns into something like the man. It is a person. A female with shapes and shapes on her face. Thinner stripes of Black on the top of her face than the man. The Red line on the lower side of her face stretches out into a curve. White shows underneath the thin Red.

The man hands me the shiny metal afterwards. The metal shows me another picture of the female I saw on the paper. But there is no Purple. There is only Gray. White. Black. I move the metal with My Hands and the metal shows different images.

It is me in the metal.

The word mirror flashes across my sight. I blink. “Mirror.”

“Ah.” The man lets out a small noise. “I suppose the recognition program really does work. We needed that. Good news. It was worth the tricky code.”

Why am I in the metal? Is it not the picture of the female in the metal?

The man takes the image from My Hands. He lets out another small AH-hahhh. Another strange breathing noise that he makes. It is quieter than the other noise he makes so often. The word sigh flashes across my sight. I blink again.

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” The man turns the paper around in his hand. “And you look just like her. A pure miracle. Science has gone so far, and the skin graft did you so many miracles. I’m glad that the ‘bone structure’ was correct, otherwise the cheekbones would’ve been all wrong. My part in the little miracle creation. ”

“Who is she?”

“Miriam Lee.”

Miriam Lee. Miriam. Lee. M i r i a m L e e. The Name flashes in front of my vision again. I blink. News articles stream across my sight. Miriam Lee dead at 23: East Ptoleman Actress of the Year unexpectedly killed during interview. Fiancé Edmond Hill files lawsuit challenging Wade Central Corporation. There are 265,600 articles. Dated September 2084.

I blink again. The date appears. September 2086.

“Who is she?” My question hasn’t been answered. Like all the other questions the man gives answers to. Half answers. Half replies. Half words. “Who am I?”

“She is Miriam Lee.” The man repeats the strange but familiar Name again. Then again. “You are Miriam Lee.”

2.0? What about the 2.0? Miriam Lee is someone’s Name. 2.0 is My Name. How can Miriam Lee be Miriam Lee if 2.0 is Miriam Lee? What is 2.0? What is Miriam Lee? I stare at the man. He is about to say something else.

“Miracles.”

Walking

1.0

I am off the table. My Legs move forward. One by one. The left one goes forward. The right one drags along. The left one steps again. The right one catches up. It is a drag-pull-drag-pull pattern. The man stares at me by the side. He holds a clipboard in his hand. He calls the drag-pull walking. WAlking. There is something different about the way he speaks. An accent.

“You’re almost ready.” The man taps a pen to his clipboard.

For what? For what?

For what?

I echo after him. “I’m almost ready.”

For what?

Next

1.0

The man does not bring anything with him this time. No clipboard. No wires. No papers. No Miriam Lees or 2.0s. He brings himself in drag-pull-drag-pull-drag-pull. He walks next to me. The Red line on his face stretches wide and long. “It’ll work this time.”

I stay silent. The White slowly leaves the room bit by bit everyday. The same for me. I keep the White as close as I can. The last of it. The traces. The remains.

“You get to see him today.”

“Who?”

“Edmond Hill.”

The Name flashes across my vision again. The same articles appear as last time. September 2084. The man leans forward to help me up. I stand. I walk towards the door. This is right. The man wants me to. I want to. There is no more time in this room. Everything is about to be simply Next.

The White leaves me.

I leave the White.

Smile

1.0

I am inside a moving Gray box. The colors live outside. Colors I haven’t seen. So many colors. Flashes of Green. And Red. And Yellow. The background is Blue. A Whiteblue Blue. The moving Gray box moves. The car moves. New words come up every moment across my vision. Sky. Car. Trees.

The man is next to me. The line on his face moves. Mouth. Smile. “We’re almost there,” he says, but I cannot comprehend where he means by There. Everything is almost on his terms. Almost ready. Almost There.

I blink. I stare at his face some more from the tiny thin mirror at the front of the car. What is his Name? I ask him.

“It’s Jason Lefevre, darling.”

Jason Lefevre. Another Name. It sounds different than all the words he says. All the words I know. Jason Lefevre. He says it with emphasis on the JA. JAY. JAYson.

There is no White. But it is quiet in the car. And it remains that way until the moment that I step out.

That is when someone walks to me. Very fast. Running. The person runs forward. He puts his arms around My Arms. Unfamiliar. He pulls away. “Miriam. God. You’re back. I missed you so much.” I look at him. My Eyes scan his face. A similar image appears on the side of my vision. The caption reads Edmond Hill. News articles. Corporations. Lawsuits. Miriam Lee.

I look at the man again. His eyes are a fuzzy Red. It looks as if there was water filling up inside of them. Water prickling at the corners of his eyes. His mouth curves upwards. He is smiling. I mimic his movement slowly. I am smiling like him. Everything about this is unfamiliar. There is nothing I am used to. I want to turn back. Crawl back into the moving Gray box. Return to the white. Except everything has become Next.

Words begin scrolling through my vision in bold text. Whenever someone says that they miss you, it is common etiquette to reply with a ‘me too’. Of course, there are some times that…

I open My Mouth. I speak the words that scroll through my vision. The words that pull up whenever I am unfamiliar with something.

“Me too.”

Words

1.0

He tells me to call him Edmond instead of Edmond Hill. He tells me to smile more. Laugh more like the strange breathing sounds that Jason Lefevre would make. Talk more. He spends his entire day with me. He spends the whole day telling me how to act. How to become more like Miriam Lee.

Edmond is not like Jason Lefevre. He doesn’t call me daaaar-ling or attach wires to me or bring me mirrors or teach me how to walk or show me Purple photos of girls named Miriam Lee or tell me that My Name is 2.0 and Miriam.

Edmond simply holds My Hands and presses his lips against my forehead. Edmond says the Name Miriam so much that I don’t count even though the number in my vision says 37. Edmond smiles at me. Edmond likes to laugh for no reason. Edmond tells me that he loves me over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

The word love scrolls through my vision once more, leaving articles and blogs and words and words and words scattered in the corner of my vision. I don’t know what to say to him. So I leave it at “me too”.

Edmond tells me that he loves me. Edmond tells me that we’ll stay together forever.

Edmond tells me not to bring up September 2084s. Edmond tells me not to bring up acting. Edmond tells me not to bring up interviews or murders or deaths.

Edmond tells me that everything will be alright.

I listen to him.

Worlds

1.0

Color surrounds the house that I am in. More colors than what I saw when I was looking outside from the Gray moving box. Edmond makes sure that there are. He says that I like them. I don’t know if I do or not.

The room Edmond tells me to live in is filled with color. Red and Whiteorange and Whiteyellow splotches of color line the windows. Flowers. They are small and when I press My Hands on the colors, the flowers crumble and fall to the Blackorangered content that they stick up from. Soil. Papers fill up a desk that is next to the window. Edmond never mentioned anything about it. I look at the papers now.

The papers are something that words I know cannot describe. Thin Gray lines rest on the clean White that the paper holds. Some of them are simply Grayblackwhite while others have splashes of color. Green and Yellow. Blue and Red. And Purple. Blackpurple. Whitepurple. The papers have so much Purple that it reminds me of the paper Jason Lefevre showed me. The paper of Miriam Lee. These papers belong to her. They must. Each of the papers is a small world. A little message. A collection of something that overpowers the thousands of words that Edmond tells me.

Beauty.

A word flashes in my sight. But even that word cannot cover the papers I hold in My Hands. I turn the pages of the papers. A word appears each time I turn a page and look at a new image of color. Violets. Sunset. Feathers. Home.

I look away at the last paper. It doesn’t seem right for me to be looking at these papers. The entire collection is simply not right. They don’t belong to me. They belong to Miriam Lee. But I am Miriam Lee. Yet they aren’t mine.

I return the papers back to where I found them. I turn away. I am intruding on something. Something I should’ve never found.

Something private.

Walking

2.0

Edmond is holding My Hand today. He walks down a narrow road in his garden while he holds My Hand. He speaks so many words. So much louder than Jason Lefevre. So much louder than where I came from.

The garden is a soft Whiteyellow with hints of Whitered. Edmond is smiling while he talks to me. I copy his smile. He seems to be satisfied to see me smiling.

“I’m glad we’re doing this again. I missed walking with you.”

Eating

1.0

It has been seventeen days since I left the white. Edmond tells me to “eat dinner” with him tonight.

Dinner usually refers to the most significant meal of the day, which can be at noon or in the evening. However, the term "dinner" can have different meanings depending on culture, as it may mean a meal of any size eaten at any time of day... In many parts of the western hemisphere, dinner is taken as the evening meal.

The mandatory definition shows up in front of me when he speaks the words. I do nothing but move My Head up and down when he tells me to. There is nothing else I can say or do.

Dinnertime comes. I move down the house to the dining room. It is only now that I realize how empty the house is. No one else is here besides us. Edmond is at the table in the room. I sit down across from him. Plates of dull colors sit in front of me. Food. Edmond smiles at me. “You can start eating.” He picks up something Gray. Fork. He moves his arm with the Gray object in his hand. The fork cuts into a slice of brown. Meat. He moves the fork with the meat so that it enters his mouth. His jaw moves up and down. The meat vanishes when he opens his mouth again to speak. “Why aren’t you eating?”

Eating. The word flashes in front of me the second time Edmond says the word. Six letters. Eating. To put (food) into the mouth and chew and swallow it. A past tense verb.

I look at him. I look down at the food. I look back up at him. I copy his movements and pick up my fork too. I eat a small slice of the meat. It is dry and hard to swallow. I don’t understand why he does this. Why would anyone eat? What point is there? What is the reason?

I continue eating nevertheless. A smile is on my face. Edmond likes to see me smile. He tells me so himself. He eats too after making sure that I am doing the same thing that he is. Everything is fine. Ordinary.

Everything reveals itself that night in the bathroom.

I am violently throwing up the food I previously ate. I hurl into the toilet. Is this what everyone does after they eat? Do they let it escape back out of their mouths only hours after they cram it down their throats?

It doesn’t seem right.

Conversations

1.0

I watch from far away as Edmond holds a metallic object up to his ear. Phone. He is speaking quickly into it. Frantically. Another familiar voice comes out from the other side.

“Why is she doing this?”

“What is she doing?”

“She’s not eating… properly.”

“What do you mean?”

“God, Lefevre, she’s throwing up after she eats. Every single time. That can't be normal.”

“We haven’t installed any system for her to digest food. Science only goes so far. Her programming sees the food as an unknown threat that needs to be eliminated from her insides as soon as possible.”

“Miriam can’t be like that. It’s not normal.”

“What do you want me to do about that? Besides, newsflash, Mr. Hill. She’s Miriam Lee, but at the same time, she’s not your Miriam Lee. You can’t consider her to be completely human.”

Edmond is silent for a few moments.

“What can you do about her then? To… fix her.”

“Send her back to me. I’ll see what I can do.”

Edmond turns around. He spots me. He beckons me to come over. I listen.

He places one hand on my Shoulder. He reaches another hand to the back of my Neck. “Miriam, I’m sorry I have to do this. But you understand, don’t you?”

I don’t understand. But I pretend I do. I nod.

He is content with that. He smiles. He presses a button embedded at the base of my Head. I slip away into the Black.

Worlds

2.0

I am back to the white. The white has missed me. I know that it has. I have missed the white too. More than Jason Lefevre missed checking up on me. More than Edmond Hill missed walking with Miriam Lee.

The white holds onto me. But it is not the same White anymore. I cannot grasp onto the feeling of the White I used to hold onto. I have seen too many worlds to see the White again. I have known too many colors to know what the White is anymore.

I should have never looked at the papers. They wiped all traces of the White that I used to know. Miriam Lee’s papers took the White away from me. Miriam Lee stole it from me.

It was all because of Miriam Lee.

Blue

1.0

I think of the White. I think of Edmond Hill. I think of Jason Lefevre. I think of Miriam Lee.

There is something inside of me. I can’t tell what it is. I look at the empty room. A new word appears. An impossible word appears.

Sadness.

But why?

Why?

In-Between

1.0

Jason Lefevre leads me down a quiet hall with dim lighting. A basket filled with Red sits on a table outside of a room I’ve never seen before. He tells me to go into the room. I listen. He lets me lie down on a Gray table inside of the room. There are other people in the room. They wear Blackbluegreen suits. The material covers them from head to toe. Whiteblue masks shield their faces. One of them holds a wrench and a screwdriver. The other holds a jar filled with liquid. A fresh Whitered object sinks inside.

Brain.

The words flash in my vision before Jason Lefevre tells me to close my Eyes. “After today, everything will work out well.” I do not ask him what he means. I close my Eyes.

I enter the In-Between-Zone and let the make-believe mechanical surgeons run their fingers and sharp tools over my Face. Over my Head. Over my Neck. There is nothing that I see but Black after a while. Pure darkness.

Miracles

2.0

When I open my eyes again, the world is no longer the same.

Those operating on me are gone. Only Jason Lefevre remains in the room with me. He holds the basket of red that I saw before entering the operation room. I stare at his face for a few moments, and everything pieces itself together in my mind. The awkward strips of black that I perceived before now thread into his face, encapsulating the tense anticipation he wears right now.

Eyebrows. How had I never realized that before?

I turn my gaze back to the basket he held. Red apples rest so beautifully in the basket. I hesitate, but I end up getting off of the table; I grab an apple from his basket. It is a pure red fruit, glistening as if it had just been rinsed under clear water. Shades of colors I always categorized in rudimentary manners before are now apparent to me—vibrant hues of scarlet, light shades of blush, rich maroon curves. Slowly, the apple turns in my hand, and very carefully, I lift it up to my mouth to take a cautious bite.

The flavor of the apple bursts in my mouth, so unknown yet familiar, as if I had known it this entire time. It was delicate yet strong, a balance of sweetness and the vague hint of sourness that kicked in at the beginning of the bite. I swallow the small section of its flesh carefully, satisfied by the taste. My teeth sink into the apple a second time as I continue to devour the fruit, curious and full of desire at the same time.

Jason Lefevre looks at me eating the apple, and he smiles. “It worked. It really did.” I look up at him for a few moments, the thought of the apple forgotten. He continues speaking, laughing along with his words. “What a miracle.”

Smile

2.0

I enter the car again, the movements so similar to what I experienced before. It is nostalgic. A memory. Throughout the long drive, however, instead of admiring the passing trees and clouds, I begin thinking about seeing Edmond Hill again. Questions appear in my thoughts.

Why was I created? To replace Miriam Lee?

What exactly happened in September 2084? Why does he avoid the topic?

Shouldn’t he accept that his fiancée was dead already?

Or… was he deluding himself into believing that Miriam Lee was truly still alive? And that I was her?

I look out the window. What happened to me In-Between? I clearly think differently than how I thought before.

My thoughts end when the car pulls up to Edmond Hill’s house. He is there for me, waiting by the front of his door again. This time, instead of running, he waits for me to walk towards him. I do.

As usual, his arms wrap around me, pulling me into a hug. “Miriam. Miriam. I missed you.” He smiles at me.

I smile back, just like I should’ve. “I missed you too.” The words don’t sound right escaping my mouth. I can’t help but flinch away. I think of the white, the only thing that I miss. Then, why did I tell him that I missed him?

Was I lying?

Edmond Hill looks at me confusingly. “Is something wrong?”

I shake my head. “Nothing, Edmond Hill.”

“Call me Edmond."

Words

2.0

Edmond talks to me more and more now. I didn’t seem to mind it before, but now, it seems excessive. He clings onto me. He doesn’t like to see me leave his sight. He spends day and night with me, waiting by my side, talking to me using words and words and words.

I try to listen to him, but most times, I reply to him with words that I don't truly mean.

Eating

2.0

Only three days after returning to him, Edmond invites me to dinner again. I come down to the dining room slightly earlier than usual, cautiously looking into it. He isn’t there. Instead of the last time I ate, where candles and plates of different dishes as well as a cup or two of champagne were ordered neatly on it, the table is empty as well.

I turn my head towards the right of the room, where the kitchen should be. Heading in that direction, I can hear someone—presumably Edmond—rattling the pans, spoons, and whatever cooking utensils that he is using. Inside, Edmond is frantically moving a plate from the shelf to the marble counter. He turns off a knob of the stove afterwards, pouring scalding hot food from a pot he had in his hand onto the plate. His free hand pinches a bit of salt, lightly sprinkling it over the dishes and tops the plate off with a leaf of basil.

After those frantic movements, he looks up and sees me standing in the open archway of the kitchen. “Oh.” Awkwardly, Edmond pulls himself straight and sets the pot back on the stove. “You came early. I was, well, trying to make dinner. The droids usually do it, but I found an old cookbook the other day and figured I would give it a try. If I remember correctly, you liked Italian before, right? I hope you like pasta.”

I stare at the two plates of steaming pasta soaked in red sauce on the counter. It looks fresh. Appetizing. “Pasta is fine.” I smile at him. He grins back.

Instead of the dining room, we end up eating dinner in the kitchen that night. Edmond teaches me how to twist a fork and manipulate a spoon so that the pasta effectively goes on the fork into a perfect, bite-sized serving. The pasta is delicious, a little lacking in seasoning, but simple and filling enough. The plate is still warm by the time we finish the meal.

I expect myself to throw up the food that night as usual, but it rests well in my stomach. Edmond takes me upstairs to the rooftop, where we quietly watch the scattered stars until they wink out. Eventually, the sun rises from the horizon. Edmond falls asleep against my shoulder, and I watch as the sun spreads its warmth and light across the world. The world glows a soft, golden yellow.