subrosa: the adventures of bill chase chapter_25

Chapter 25


I was a few days till Christmas. Though I had no connection to Christmas, I was reminded how alone I was. All my roommates left to visit family. I thought it would be pleasant to have the flat to myself but its emptiness depressed me. My only excitement was to watch the river flood. Everyday when I went to school, the river was higher. The highway that went along the river was passable only by boat until the water was so high that the boats could not pass under the bridges.

The market was under water and many businesses were trying hopelessly to hold the water back with sandbags. Even the army was at work trying to fight the water. The streets roared with the sounds of generators supplying energy to pumps. The air was thick with the fumes of the noisy motors. Many people came to watch and take pictures. People enjoyed the excitement of the minor disaster.

At night I remained alone, I did not have enough money to go to a bar and have more than one beer and I was never sure what to do at a bar alone when I could not speak to anyone. If I met someone who spoke English, they would ask me why I would leave Canada to come to Germany. They thought it made more sense the other way around. I had no answer. I could not tell them I was a mutant gene manipulated runaway. It was something I was trying to leave behind me.

I had learned a little about my condition and knew that I was not so very different. I still had to eat and stay warm. I functioned better with a few friends rather than being alone. It was hard enough to be a foreigner with little knowledge of the language without having people not trusting me because I was not conceived the same way as they were.

I wondered about the out come of fellow mutants. It seemed a pointless experiment to give us so many advantages that did not help us in daily life. As far as I could understand my mutation that was meant to make me more fit, had left me at a disadvantage. My genes and my mental training were little compensation for the apparent ordained fate of my lot to be watching form the outside.



by Joanne B. Washington

index for writing by Joanne B. Washington



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