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Sunday Dinners
26 July 2007 12:33He never got along with adults after the war. Only the children. I remember him needing to angle himself just a little bit to fit his wide shoulders through our front door. He was all grunts and one-word answers.
Married once but after the war, she eventually left him. She said that the humming his augmented body made at night made her feel like she was sleeping next to a refrigerator. Then she’d pause, glance at him and add, “In more ways that one.”
He was my older brother and he’d show up here every Sunday for dinner like clockwork. No pun intended.
Both his eyes were perfect circles, white plastic insets that could see in the dark and look through walls. They looked like child-safety outlet covers jammed into his eye sockets. Light blue tracery that glowed faintly in the dark zigged and zagged back to his grey-haired temples and down each side of his neck.
We always gave him the cheap glasses and cutlery because of the lack of delicate motor control in his massive skin-sheathed hand-machines. When he walked, one foot clanked.
We’d serve him a turkey dinner or roast beef which he ate obligingly to fuel the biological components of himself but it was always disconcerting to see him finish his meal with a big glass of oil.
After dinner, he’d mess up my child’s hair and do magic tricks. The decommissioned weaponry that the government took back left large hollow compartments in his back and one quarter of his chest. With clumsy sleight-of-hand, he could make objects ‘appear’ out of those compartments that he’d hidden before arriving.
He could make miniature lightning bolts between his fingertips that would dim the lights and make his own hair stand on end like Einstein.
I’d always think of how many of the enemy must have died screaming and blackened under those sparking mitts after giving up their country’s secrets.
I thought that the indirect and subtle world of adults was confusing to the cyborg soldier mind of my brother. His eyes were good lie detectors and often enough he’d see adult’s vital signs be totally at odds with what they were saying.
Children were pure, straightforward and had no idea that he was frightening.
We probably would have tried to find a polite way of stopping him from coming over if these nights weren’t the highlight of our son’s week. I can picture the two of them now, laughing on the living room carpet while one of my brother’s hands runs around by itself. My boy’s laugh sounds like a normal child’s laughter.
My brother’s laugh sounds like crushed tin cans being rubbed together at the bottom of a well.
tags
Married once but after the war, she eventually left him. She said that the humming his augmented body made at night made her feel like she was sleeping next to a refrigerator. Then she’d pause, glance at him and add, “In more ways that one.”
He was my older brother and he’d show up here every Sunday for dinner like clockwork. No pun intended.
Both his eyes were perfect circles, white plastic insets that could see in the dark and look through walls. They looked like child-safety outlet covers jammed into his eye sockets. Light blue tracery that glowed faintly in the dark zigged and zagged back to his grey-haired temples and down each side of his neck.
We always gave him the cheap glasses and cutlery because of the lack of delicate motor control in his massive skin-sheathed hand-machines. When he walked, one foot clanked.
We’d serve him a turkey dinner or roast beef which he ate obligingly to fuel the biological components of himself but it was always disconcerting to see him finish his meal with a big glass of oil.
After dinner, he’d mess up my child’s hair and do magic tricks. The decommissioned weaponry that the government took back left large hollow compartments in his back and one quarter of his chest. With clumsy sleight-of-hand, he could make objects ‘appear’ out of those compartments that he’d hidden before arriving.
He could make miniature lightning bolts between his fingertips that would dim the lights and make his own hair stand on end like Einstein.
I’d always think of how many of the enemy must have died screaming and blackened under those sparking mitts after giving up their country’s secrets.
I thought that the indirect and subtle world of adults was confusing to the cyborg soldier mind of my brother. His eyes were good lie detectors and often enough he’d see adult’s vital signs be totally at odds with what they were saying.
Children were pure, straightforward and had no idea that he was frightening.
We probably would have tried to find a polite way of stopping him from coming over if these nights weren’t the highlight of our son’s week. I can picture the two of them now, laughing on the living room carpet while one of my brother’s hands runs around by itself. My boy’s laugh sounds like a normal child’s laughter.
My brother’s laugh sounds like crushed tin cans being rubbed together at the bottom of a well.
tags