Deposits by Susan Gibb
Honest to God, Martin really believed that as long as he left even a single cell of himself science could grow him back into a complete human being when the time came. He already had a dozen sealed tubes of skin cells and a few snagged by a robotic arm during prostate surgery in case internal cells were better. He’d spent a great deal of his dead mother’s money on clone preparation and cryogenics at reputable labs in California. As a precaution he had a vacuum-packed baggie of a good collection of hair, several toenail clippings, a scab, and one of his teeth stashed in the safety deposit box at his box. He had then worked on gathering a small sample of body fluids–blood, saliva, tears, and pus–and some fresh shavings of fat and muscle if he were lucky enough to accidently cut through the skin. Since he had never gotten married or had children, he also had seven vials of semen frozen at the sperm bank. Martin felt quite secure as to his future and less worried about his overall health and mortality as he grew older.
When Martin was fifty-three, he was diagnosed with skin cancer. Without a second’s hesitation he had the surgeon amputate his left arm from the elbow on down to insure that all the cancer had been taken. A few years later he had unblinkingly opted for double amputation of his legs when diabetes inhibited the healing of sores on his feet. A lung, his prostate along with his nuts, a kidney and his right eye were all eventually given up too.
“How much of the colon would you be taking,” Martin asked Dr. Riche.
“About two-thirds,” the doctor answered. A week later Martin was down to seven feet of small intestine and had his spleen removed at the same time (the doctor thought it looked a bit off-color).
By the time Martin was seventy-one he was down to a trunk and a head. “You look like a pillow,” said his niece Sarah, who was one of the last of his family to visit him in the care center where he’d lived for the last three years. Sarah had, under direct pressure from her mother who was Martin’s youngest sister, taken care of selling his home and doing his banking, bills and taxes for the past year when Martin had lost his right hand.
“Sarah,” Martin said, “I think it’s probably time to get in touch with the Fresno Pro-Living Lab and the Sanderson Clinic, and let them know I’ll be looking to start the process.”
“Huh?” Sarah said. She fluffed the real pillow and tucked the sheets around him. Now he looked like a pie.
“The Lab. The Clinic,” Martin said. “You know, you’ve been paying them an annual fee for storage…”
“Uncle Martin,” she said, “the insurance company kicked back the bills three times so I just stopped paying the bills.” She had wondered about that at the time.
“Oh no,” groaned Martin. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He took a deep breath that made Sarah think of two dozen blackbirds. “The safety deposit box at First Federal?” he asked.
She twirled her hair around her finger as she did when she felt uncomfortable.
–
Susan Gibb is a writer, publisher, reader of all sorts of story. She has explored the nature of new media as in hypertext for fiction and is opening up to the graphic and audio versions as just another means alongside poetry, fiction, lyrics and film. She has presented her sides of the stories at conferences, workshops and gatherings and enjoys the interconnections of artists in all forms of expression.
“Uh, bankrupt,” she said.
© 2010, Metazen. All rights reserved.
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Such a tale of putting one’s eggs into the bicylce basket of the deaf and blind, smirking rider called ‘Fate’, felt like an ideal that could have been used by that under-rated show from the ’50’s ‘The Outer Limits’ Susan. I am glad that this piece found its place at Metazen.ca.
Delicious fiction. Or is it fiction at all!? Hazar has a good sense of where this one works as a screenplay. Outer Limits is just right. Brilliantly conceived, Susan. And the best part is how the insurance company kicked back the bills.True story, right? A coy cry for Universal Health Care! Oh, you liberal you.
and to think, i’ve been trashing all my unwanted jetsam and flotsam..great flash here.
Thank you, gentlemen! I loved “The Outer Limits” and was raised on Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” and Alfred Hitchcock before that. (You’ll see a touch of them in my Valentine story on Fictionaut today.) Arthur–not a liberal, nor a conservative but a liberally-minded conservative I guess. And yes, insurance is a prickly pear in my skivvies though we pay part of our premiums to the tune of thousands a year and never do seem to come out even.
Great piece. I’m an old Twilight Zone fan myself and it’s a shame Rod Serling can’t get his hands on this to put it on TV. Oh wait. Maybe he can. Contact that lab in California. STAT. Good good story.