The Cure, 5.2: Delivery Part Two

|05.2|

DELIVERY

PART TWO

| EXTRACTED FROM NEĒREĒ TĀU /

HOME LOT 2807 OF 81SUB / 19.2.3434 / 8:22āam |

| KNIJÄ: FIVE MONTHS, 21 DAĀYS OLD |

 

The last five months and 20 daāys have been strenuous and endless with chaos and new experiences. The doctor did not explain nearly as much as we would have liked and was unable to abate our many questions. She insisted that all would be answered but, for now, we needed to be satisfied with what we were given.

The deliveries come on the 2nd of every month without fail and without us ever knowing who has placed the box on our home lot doorstep. We have noticed that it usually happens when the daāy resets and a small ‘knock’ makes us aware that the box had arrived.

“Why her, why us?” was the one pressing question that I asked the doctor, one that I felt must be answered before she left.

“I wish there was a more complex answer that I could provide you, Mrs. Tāu.” She exhaled and the neutrality in her face faded into something else, perhaps sadness, an emotion that we usually do not possess. “The reality is that there is no elaborate explanation. This was an act of fate. Knijä was selected at random.”

“So what is to happen now?” Noeāl asks. “Are we to just wait?”

“Unfortunately,” the doctor’s expression falters for a moment, “yes. There is nothing we can do but move at our current pace. Any quicker and the entire project would be compromised.”

The doctor turns our U-chips back on after that, and even though I feel normal and appeased once again with the U-chip’s technology coursing through meē, a part of meē still feels unsure. Our daughter continues to grow and change, and nothing could have prepared us for this.

“I will get the rattle!” I say to Noeāl who is holding a red-faced Knijä in his arms. “She adores that rattle. That will pacify her!”

We learned very early (or more assumed, given the lack of information) that Knijä’s U-chip does not sync to Peār. It is fully functional in a superficial capacity but it does not update and therefore it does not calm or neutralise her unfiltered emotions. She is a force to be reckoned with.

“Okay, Knijä,” I bend down in front of her and shake the rattle. My hair is in disarray, my forehead is crinkling in stress, my breathing is abnormal. “Here is that rattle you love. Now, my dear, shhhhh!”

I say it low and soft, much like I wish for her to be. The inability to update means that Knijä’s teeth are coming through at a meticulous pace, a process that appears to be tedious and excruciating for her.

“Perhaps we should give her some more of that numbing cream we received?” Noeāl bounces her on his knee as her screams escalate.

“Yes, I will go get it,” I say as I inelegantly rush out of the multīspace and enter Knijä’s private space. The boxes that have been delivered to us are neatly placed on a shelf and I put my hands into the most recent one.

Each box contains unusual objects, unseen and unknown to us. They are accompanied with brief descriptions and directions, along with explanations about things we need to be aware of. Crying, for instance, is something that our daughter does when she is in extreme pain. These instructions are touchable, real and have texture. They are printed on a thing called ‘paper’ and are done so to prevent Peār from knowing a word of this.

The most recent delivery contains a set of perfect U-man toddler teeth, which we are meant to adhere to her gums in 27 daāys. This is apparently when the update for toddler teeth usually occurs.

We somehow have to put these fake teeth over Knijä’s real growing ones until she is old enough to do it herself. We have to make her blend in, a task that is proving to test us as she is not of age to understand that she needs to be passive, neutral and grey. She needs to blend in. No colour and no differences.

I take the clear tube of gel from the box and race into the multīspace.

“Here we go,” I say, applying a strip of the cool gel on my finger and running it along her tender gums. The burn and pain is dulled and, even though her eyes are still wide with concern, she calms at my touch.

“Much better, my sweetie.” I cannot help but smile at her gnawing at my fingertip, something so foreign, so unusual. I deflate to the floor and try to regain my breathing.

I love her. I know that much. But I also know another thing with all of my heart: my daughter does not and will not blend in. No matter how many deliveries are sent to us.

 

The Cure will be published in full on Monday the 15th of August.
The Cure is written by J. R Knight, illustrated by Paul Ikin and edited by Kayla Marie Murphy.
The first 15 instalments of The Cure will be published week by week on The Knight Life. The next instalment will continue this coming Monday.
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