Claire, page 1
Ͼlaire
a novel by
Vincent Martineau
Copyright © 2015 by Vincent Martineau
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission.
Vincent.Martineau.Author@GMail.com
Printed by CreateSpace, An Amazon.com Company
First Print Edition: May 2015
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead (with one expressly permitted exception), is coincidental and not intended by the author.
- Ͼ -
For Karel Čapek
It was the sunlight upon her skin that woke Claire in the early dawn, rays of warmth whose gentle pressure upon the arm and leg that stuck out from the sheets teasing her from the depths of slumber with its promise of what the day would bring. The darkness outside had given way to a dim hue of reddish gold that leapt over the surrounding buildings and into the bedroom, painting it and its occupant in its glow. It was a beckoning call that Claire could hardly refuse, and she drew back the rumpled covers so that all her body might feel its rejuvenating glow.
She drew herself up to a sitting position, grasping the knob of the footboard to steady herself. Slowly she arched her back and lifted her chin to ease her face into the light. Eyes closed, she breathed deeply and basked in the moment, replenished by the light of that beautiful late spring morning of a kind which only a few months before she was sure she would never see again. Her free hand wandered up and rubbed her scalp, the dark stubble of hair a bristly brush under her palm. The lack of hair and lingering weakness were the long-term effects of the treatment which had saved her life. She reminded herself in those now-lessening moments of enervation that she was alive and had the luxury of being bothered. With a final, deep breath and slow exhalation her eyes opened as she stood and went to the bathroom.
There the mirror awaited her. She did as she often did, avoiding its gaze as she relieved herself. But after she washed her hands she looked up, saw the face that was still a touch gaunt, still a touch grey about the eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. It was her face, pale and unadorned, and she stared at it as if to will away the lingering traces of her ordeal. Still me. Still my eyes, still my lips, my teeth, my nose. I’m still me, still here. That mantra came easier this morning than it had in the days following her homecoming. The face in the mirror was far closer to the one Claire had known before the cancer had come. She found herself smiling a bit, first time in ages, and kept it up as she brushed her teeth. There was a pleasing calm to that act. Something about this daily routine, the discipline it required however small it may be, helped her to stay focused through her decline and recovery.
It had all come upon her so swiftly the previous autumn. The survival rate for her cancer was low, her prognosis dim, and it had been noticed very late. No one, including herself, had thought she would live past the New Year. But word came of an untested treatment, and would she be willing to try it? She had almost laughed at the absurdity of asking a woman on Death’s door if she might want to risk a cure. The first week of therapy had been the worst, and Claire wondered at one point if the cure would not hasten her demise. On the Winter Solstice she had slipped into a coma, her death seemingly inevitable, the cure a failure. But then, to everyone’s surprise, she returned to the living. A rapid recovery began. Within a week she was sitting up in bed. She could eat without nausea in less than two weeks, and barely a month later was heading home.
Her ablutions complete, Claire wandered out of the bathroom and spent a moment in front of the living room window, basking in the dawn. Eventually she turned from the nourishing sun, stepped across her bedroom and pulled some clothes from the dresser. Her gaze wandered as it always did to the framed picture sitting atop it, flicking from it equally fast. For a moment her mind wandered back to the garden, to Lisette and a happiness whose absence stung her even now. Claire shook her head in dismissal. That’s the past, she told herself again. Think of the future. The future starts today.
She turned her attention to the contents of the open drawer and picked out some clothes for her walk in the park. It was still a bit cool in the mornings so she went with a pair of black stirrup tights and a matching long-sleeved top. It was hard not to notice how easily the tights and top slid on her recently-emaciated body. The past few months had seen some of her curves return to near-normal, such that she no longer hesitated at the thought of wearing such clothes in public. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror and thought the all-black ensemble made her seem a shadow, that were she as thin as she had been no one would notice her at all.
A few minutes later she was pulling on her trainers and the stocking cap that hid her lack of hair, ready to face the day. Claire reached from habit for her carry pack but decided to leave it on the counter. She’d only be out for an hour or so and was not going far. The building door had a facial recognition entry system so she wouldn’t need her keys, though it had been acting a bit funny with her since she returned from hospital. Of course it has, she thought, you’ve hardly looked yourself. But her face in the mirror moments before told the tale of her return. She needed no other confirmation, and today she wanted to feel unencumbered. Throwing caution to the wind, Claire left everything behind and made her way outside.
“Beautiful day”, Claire said aloud with content as she took in the clear skies and gentle breeze that greeted her on her exit. She took a deep breath and savored the moment. The park with its many paths and exercise stations was only a few blocks away. She had missed these early-morning outings where the city had not yet awakened and seemed all her own. She bent down and did a few quick stretches before starting her brisk walk to the park.
Her early-morning treks to the park had often been lonely ones, and this one proved no different. Many buildings on certain streets had not been occupied in years. The city center was more bustling but a person could travel through entire neighborhoods on the city’s edge and see only a handful of people. Such was the legacy of that terrible series of events thirty years prior now commonly known as the Kollaps. It had threatened to bring humanity to the edge of extinction as a century of antibiotic overuse had finally produced microbial strains that resisted all treatment and spread across borders in waves of pandemics. More effective treatments were eventually found but the damage had been done. Fear ruled supreme, and loosed War and Famine to join their brethren as the Four Horsemen rode upon the Earth. It was exhaustion that finally quelled the panic and forced the nations of the world to lay down their arms and pick up the pieces. New alliances were forged, treaties drawn up and promises made. And many, many graves were dug, after which everyone began the long walk back to normalcy.
Thirty years on, Claire was a part of that legacy. She had been too young to remember how it all ended, except that it did, leaving her like so many children with few living relatives or friends. She had been fortunate to have lived in a region largely untouched by war. But Claire was not one for staid village life, and her social needs compelled her to move to the city after graduation. It wasn’t entirely what she had expected. She was an empathic and social person who yearned to connect with those around her, and while the recovering city gave her ample chances to connect, there were still moments when it seemed a palace of ghosts, haunting in its silence.
Such a place can make for startling meetings, as Claire discovered when she came around a corner deep in shadow and in her hurry bumped into someone. Or, as many would have it, something. It was a Drone, one of the artificial humans produced in the post-Kollaps years to supplement the labor force lost to the pandemic. These were clones, pod-grown manufactured humans with refined physiques and docile minds. Most were owned by corporations, employed as factory workers or domestics, but a growing number of more well-to-do citizens were finding Drone ownership to be a practical and fashionable status symbol, and their numbers seemed to have grown in Claire’s absence. She had seen many in video or from a distance when on the bus, but this was the closest Claire had ever come to one, and meeting it alone in that dark and lonely spot shook her a bit.
“Oh! Sorry”, Claire said quietly. The Drone stood a moment, awaiting orders from the human who had interrupted it. Then, with a slight smile and a nod of respect, it stepped around Claire and continued on whatever task it had been assigned. Claire assumed its silence was due to being muted. Many Series were. She reflexively raised her hand to her throat and wondered how a person could go through life without speech – but then reminded herself that Drones technically were not people, and did not have anything approximating a life in length or in quality.
Claire was not a supporter of the Drone program despite living in “Drone Central”, with the Capriccio Corporation – first and largest of the Drone producers – having its main facility on the other side of the city. She knew they were artificial, their intellects dampened and controlled, little more than meat machines. Even referring to it as “she” would have been frowned upon by many. But as Claire stared at the one walking away from her she could not look past its legacy of humanity. Even as it was, its toned and undeniably female body dressed from the neck down in the standard, skintight black Drone uniform with its silvered designations, it seemed as real to Claire as any other person she might see on the street. Its shaved head with the Capriccio corporate logo tattooed across its smooth scalp did little to deter this impression. After all, it might have been a real person returning from some exotic fancy dress party the night before. For all I know Drones are real people, sleepwalking or drugged. Such thoughts left her ill at ease. As she didn’t own one nor knew anyone who did, she did her best not to dwell on the subject. The whole matter took a bit of the spring out of her step, and it was not until she reached the edge of the park that Claire was able to shake an odd, portentous feeling.
Once at the park with her feet on the walking path Claire felt a bit like her old self and began a brisk stroll under the rising sun. The fresh air and light were already doing wonders for her vim and vigour, though the stiffness in her limbs and the touch of effort she had to put into keeping pace spoke of her long absence. With a mind to her posture she raised her chin and began to stroll.
A dog came bounding by, a shaggy Golden Retriever excited to explore the surround as his owner leisurely kept pace some paces behind. The dog bounded up to Claire and with a shake of its snout gave her a hearty snuff before smiling in that slack-jawed way dogs do and dashing off to lead his human on a merry chase.
Claire thought back to a similar dog at the office of the oncologist to which she had been referred by her physician when the weakness first set in. He was there as a therapy dog, someone for the patients to love and be loved by in their time of need. As Claire would learn, he also had a nose as perceptive as her own, for while she sat in the waiting room on her first visit he had come in with his handler and made a beeline for her. After some very energetic sniffing the dog had laid his head in her lap, looked up at her forlornly and whined. Both the handler and admitting nurse grew silent, looking at Claire with concern. It was her first indication that something was very wrong, a precursor to the curse that soon beset her.
Counter to that was her last visit following her release from hospital, about a month ago. She came out of the doctor’s office into the waiting area to find the same dog sitting with his handler. On seeing Claire he ran over to her and again sniffed heartily, but this time he jumped up and barked with gladness, nearly knocking his frail subject over in the process. Though both the doctor’s tests and her own intuition had told her she was in remission, it was the dog’s joyful greeting that truly welcomed her back to the land of the living.
Claire had lost touch with her world in the many months between those meetings. What few friends she had drifted away. Only Lisette had stayed close, coming to visit her in hospital even in the worst of times. Claire remembered the pain they both endured as she declined in her sickbed. They had broken up shortly before Claire had been diagnosed. It was Lis who had asked to end their relationship, a terrible blow made all the worse by her unwillingness to explain her reasons. Many long days and tearful nights would follow that found Claire wondering if it were all her fault, if she had said or done something wrong, but try as she might she could not see what it might be, and Lisette had insisted that was not the case.
Whatever the cause for her rejection, it was Lisette who had sat with her and held her hand when the Doctors had presented the offer of an experimental cure. And a month later, when Claire had walked unsteadily from a taxi to her front door, Lisette had been there to help her in, clean the place (so dusty!), even prepared some of that horrid gruel the docs had her eating for her digestion. Then, getting assurances from Claire that she would call if she needed her, Lis gave her a hug and went out the door. Claire thought she heard her stifle a sob in the hall.
That was months ago, and Lisette had not been back. There had been a few emails, a few texts, even a brief late-night phone call. But Claire had not seen her since that day. I’m sure she had her own life to deal with, Claire reasoned. Even now, the absence of Lis in her life was a hole she could not fill. No miracle cure awaited this affliction; no balm would soothe her ache. Lisette was gone.
Claire did her best to dismiss that truth as she ambled through the park. In short time Claire was on the jogging trail. She frowned; this had been her favorite place to run before she fell ill. She had only treaded that path a few times since her return from hospital. It had taken some effort, her first attempts slow and shaky, but now she was completing it in quick time and was bored with it. “Screw it”, she thought. “I’m tired of taking it slow.” After a minute or so of stretches she set off at a quick clip.
The various scents of spring wafted around her as she made her circuit through the park. They brought her mood up, reminded her how she loved being outside amongst the trees and grasses. It was her adoration for Nature and its endless variance of aroma that had drawn her on her career as a parfumier. In hindsight it seemed only natural that her unnaturally sharp olfactory sense would lead Claire to such a career. A chance meeting through a mutual friend had lead to an audition that she passed with ease. Recognition of her natural talent brought her a lengthy apprenticeship that had ended right as the company which employed her thought to branch out into new markets. Being a rising talent she had been asked to contribute several scents for a potential new line. The better part of the next year was spent in her company workshop, a modern alchemist’s laboratory where Claire had tinkered and refined her creations for a line of toiletries inspired by thoughts of spice on a desert wind. All was nearing completion when the first waves of dizziness and nausea hit, leaving her slumped against the wall, her alarmed coworkers approaching through a haze of cinnamon escaping from the shattered vial at her feet.
Thoughts of the future had become a luxury for Claire during her illness. She strove to make long-term plans, to see beyond the wall of pain and queasiness that enveloped her like a grey mist, blotting out the light. Getting through the day was a chore soon reduced to enduring an eternal moment of weakness and misery in that stale, sterile hospital room and its artificial, medicinal, mechanical stench mixed with the unnerving whiff of her cells in rebellion. She’d been told that certain animals could smell the cancer in a person, and she believed it, having encountered the sad dog in the waiting room. She was sure that she could sense it in herself once it had begun its final assault. It was Death, and she had known its presence but also its departure. Her first act upon awakening from the coma was to inhale deeply and with a sigh of relief astound the attending nurse by saying, “It’s leaving me”.
Now, running through the park as she had in what seemed a distant past, Claire was infused with the life around her. The morning air of the park invigorated her with its many aromas carried on the light breeze. Here was pine, and there came a whiff of wisteria, while the wild rose bushes hinted and teased. She ran through them all, soft curtains washing over her, awakening her, welcoming her back to place she loved so much. Her last trek through the park had been in early autumn, a feeble hobble in the midst of her illness made marginally better by the smell of falling leaves on the cold wind. That mild respite’s appeal had mirrored her declining state almost as well as this spring revel seemed to proclaim her own reawakening. She took it all in and mused of composing a new parfum in honor of Springtime when she returned to work.
Her thoughts were swept away as Claire felt her legs go soft under her. The world grew fuzzy and grey. She stopped, bent over and shook her head. Damn, overdid it. She gave herself a moment, then straightened up and meant to walk the rest of the way. No sooner had she taken another step and the dizziness hit her hard, causing her to stumble and fall to the ground, grazing the back of her head on a large rock half-buried in the dirt. With a small “Uh!” she passed out.
Her collapse did not go unnoticed. Several other early-morning joggers ran to her aid and called for help. An ambulance crew arrived within minutes. The two EMTs began their work.
“She’s unresponsive. Pulse is slow, breathing shallow. How’s her blood pressure?”
“Low. Temp’s off, too. She might be in shock.” He looked up at the small crowd around them. “Anyone see what happened?”
A woman stepped forward. “I did. She was running and all of a sudden she slowed down, looked kinda woozy, then she stumbled a bit and fell. She whacked her head pretty hard.”
