Extracted - Chapter 13 – How Many Eggs Does It Take – Part 3 of 3

 

Extracted

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 13 – How Many Eggs Does It Take – Part 3 of 3

 

“This is Henry Marsh.  What can I do for you?”

“Henry Marsh?  This is Congressman Stiller.”

“Stiller!  Wait a minute.”  He looked up.  “Out!” he shouted to all the people in his office.  “Everyone out.  Now!”  He watched as they all hurried out.  “And close the door!”  A moment later, he was alone.  “Sorry,” he said into his phone.  “It gets busy here.”

“I’m sure it does.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I really just wanted to talk.  Nothing more.  Right now, I’d really like to pour you a drink and sit down with you to try and get to know you better.”

“Huh!” Henry replied.  “Tell you what, I’m opening my desk drawer right now and pulling out a bottle of Scotch.  Hang on a minute while I pour myself a drink.”

“In that case, I’ll do the same,” Mike Stiller told him.

The two men poured their respective drinks, and took a sip before sitting down at their desks to talk.

“What’s your take on this situation?” Stiller asked.

“Other than it being a huge mess?  Other than making me feel like my life has been ripped out of my body, leaving nothing but a huge hole?  I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Yeah.  Agreed,” Stiller replied.  “My daughters mean everything to me.  Now, for all intents and purposes, my youngest one is dead.  Murdered!  That…hurts.  And I don’t mind telling you that.”

“Murdered is exactly the right word,” Henry agreed.  “You’re a congressman though.  What do you think is going to happen?”

“Humph!  Need you ask?  The rest of the government is going to go crazy to get their claws into this thing in every way they can.”

“That sounds like…”

“Like shit!” Mike finished.

“Pretty much,” Henry agreed.  “I was hoping to keep this as quiet and easy for my family as I could.  I’ve suddenly got a stranger living in my house.  A stranger that looks like my son, but who isn’t.”

“And I’ve got the opposite right here.  My daughter, isn’t my daughter.  And we were going out of our way to keep this as quiet as possible too.  I’ve got to think about how this can affect the confidence the people have in me.  My enemies will go to any length to stop some of the things I’m working for in congress, not to mention possibly trying to get me out of office.”

“I hadn’t considered that for you,” Henry told him.  “But you’re right.  It is a problem.  I hope it won’t affect my position here.”

“We both may have to keep the optics of the situation in mind,” Mike told him.

“Yeah.  Thanks.  I’ll be doing that now.  Congressman, do you mind if I call you Mike?”

“Please do.  In this case, we’re just two fathers who are concerned about our families.  Nothing more.”

“That’s the way I see it,” Henry agreed.  “But as a father, you’re a man, and I’m a man, how is my Stephen coping up there.  No matter how I try, I can’t imagine how he’s feeling.  I can’t imagine his situation at all.  I’m just…beside myself.”

“Yeah.  I’m sure you are,” Mike replied.  “Henry, I’d like to say that your son is happy, but you already know that he’s not.  From everything I know, he was someone who loved sports, and he talks about football all the time.  He’s stuck now in a world that he doesn’t even understand.  I’m the only man in the house with three females, one of those females is now your son.  To be honest, I haven’t got a clue how to help him.  We don’t have a football in the house, and even if I buy one, he’s a girl now.  As I see it, he should be doing girl things.  Except, I already know he doesn’t have the least bit of interest in any of that stuff.”

“Yeah,” Henry agreed, realizing that everything Mike had said would be true.  Disappointing, but true.  “And I don’t know how to help your daughter.  Steve was…a big strong kid.  He played sports.  He had a bunch of friends, and they were always doing things.  He’s got his own car so he can go places.  Which reminds me, I need to get his car keys away from him…at least for now.”

“Might be a good idea.  Nancy wouldn’t have a clue as to how to drive.”

“Yeah.  In fact, when we’re done, I’m going to call my wife and have her go get them.  I don’t want her to take a chance and decide to try driving by herself.  It might be better to be on the safe side of that one.”

“Do it!  Nancy was a good girl.  Real good, and real bright, but…well, she’s a kid.  And I know from experience that you never know what one of them might get into their heads to try and do.  Especially when they’re bored.”

“Consider it done!” Henry assured him.

“Thanks.  Look.  Henry.  I don’t know if that’s somehow really my Nancy that you’ve got down there or not.  It just seems a bit too far-fetched for me.”

“Yeah,” Henry agreed.  “I feel the same.  I don’t know if you’ve got my Stephen, or if the Stephen I’ve got now really is your daughter…or…if they’re both really dead.”

“That’s the one that worries me the most,” Mike admitted.

“Me too, but at this point I don’t know what to do about it.  To be honest, I’m so desperate to hang onto the hope that Stephen really is alive, somewhere…somehow!  Even if it is in the body of a little girl.  I just want him to be okay.  Somehow.”

“My thoughts exactly.  Listen, Henry.  I don’t keep secrets form my wife…unless they involve my job.  I’m afraid I’ve got to deal with more than a few of those.”

“Me too in my job,” Henry agreed.

“Yeah.  But I’m not planning on telling Wanda about this call.  What you tell your wife is your business.  I really just wanted to touch base with you and at least start to get some kind of idea of who you are.  I mean, my daughter’s life is literally in your hands.”

“I understand.  Fully!” Henry replied.  “And I feel pretty much the same way.  But Mike,”

“Yeah?”

“I look forward to a day, soon I hope, when the two of us can sit down with these drinks, in person.”

“Yeah.  Me too.  Let’s try and make it happen.  Soon.”

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

“Mrs. Marsh?  This is Wanda Stiller.  Congressman Michael Stiller’s wife.”

“Wanda!  I know who you are.  We…almost talked last night.”

“Yes.  Since your Stephen tried to call you yesterday, I got his phone here and found the number that he called.  I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind?  I’m so glad you called.  I was trying to figure out how I could get in touch with you.”

“Good.  Do you have time to chat right now?  If not, we can try again later.”

“No.  Now would be good.  Great really.  Steve is out moping on the back patio right now.”

“I really just wanted to talk to you,” Wanda told her.  “I thought that maybe we could keep this conversation between just us ladies.”

That sounded either suspicious or ominous to Agatha.  “Sure,” she agreed.  “Fine with me.  Steve may not need to be part of this anyway.”

“Yes.  As much as I really want to talk to him again, this time, I thought that maybe you and I should touch base for a bit.”

“As I said, it’s sounds good to me.  What did you have in mind?”

“You’re my daughter’s new mother,” Wanda said.  “As a mother, how do you feel she’s doing?”

“Something told me you’d want to know that.  I have the same concerns about my Stephen.  But to be honest, I’m not sure how your Nancy is.  Physically, she’s fine.  Perfectly fine.  It’s just that…mentally, I’m not sure how she’s coping.  And to tell the truth, if I were in her position I don’t think I’d be able to cope any better.  In fact, so far, she’s probably surviving this better than I would, so I’ve got to give her a lot of credit for that.  Mrs. Stiller, I think you’ve got a pretty brave little daughter there.  I just hope my Stephen is half as brave.”

“I think he is,” Wanda told her.  “In fact, I have no doubt he’s probably braver than my Nancy.  There’s no doubt he was a pretty tough kid.  His bigger problem I think is that all that toughness doesn’t really translate into the life of a twelve year old girl.”

“No.  It wouldn’t,” Agatha agreed.  “We got a surprise visit from Stephen’s football coach a little while ago,” Agatha told her.  “He came by just to see how he’s doing.  I’m afraid I needed some excuse for how Steve is behaving so I told him Steve has amnesia.  Total amnesia, and that he doesn’t remember anything at all about his entire life.”

“Oh!  That sounds like a great idea.  I’ll have to keep it in mind.  How did it work?”

“As far as I can tell, pretty good.  Except that the coach seems to think I should have some of Steve’s old friends from the team around to maybe help jog his memory, or at least try to cheer him up.  Sorry, but he is feeling rather lost right now.”

“I have no doubt,” Wanda replied.  “So are you?  Are you going to start bringing in some friends?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe later, but not right now.  Look, mentally my Stephen is a young girl.  I’m not sure how well he’s going to fit in with a bunch of rowdy high school football players.”

“Yeah.  That sounds frightening.  I’m not sure I would want to be in that position.”

“Have any problems come up on your end?” Agatha asked.

“Huh!  A few.  Nothing major.”

“Like what?”

“Last night I caught Nancy in the kitchen trying to make some eggs.”

“Stephen did that all the time.  He ate…quite a bit.”

“So I found out.  I had to explain that a sixty pound girl doesn’t need to eat half a dozen eggs at one time.  We had ice-cream together instead.  Oh, and he decided he likes chocolate better than he used to.”

“Hm!  A lot of women I know like chocolate,” Agatha noted.

“Nancy may become another one.  She’s young yet though.  Her tastes will change as she grows.  And speaking of growing…”

“Yes?”

“I had to sit down with him this morning and have that little talk.”

“Little talk?”

“About bras and periods.”

“Oh.  Goodness!  He would be about that age, wouldn’t he.”

“Yes.  Nancy has only had a few periods so far, and it was all fairly new to her as well.  But in my Nancy’s case, she’s had her sister living right across the hall all her life.  She pretty much knew what to expect.  This Nancy, your Stephen…well…”

“He didn’t have a clue,” Agatha finished for her.  “I’d like to laugh, but I can’t.”

“Yeah.  Oh, he knew some of it, but not the details.  I can tell you though that he knows a lot more now than he did before.”

“It won’t kill him,” Agatha told her.

“No.  And he could very well need to know all that fairly soon.”

“You mean she’s due?”

“Maybe.  As I said, Nancy just started having her periods.  She’s only had a few so far, which means they haven’t settled down into a predictable pattern yet.  Which means that it could happen today, tomorrow, or two months from now.  We simply don’t know.”

“Poor Stephen,” Agatha said.

“He’s stuck being a girl for now,” Wanda said.  “He’ll have to learn to deal with it like every woman in the world.”

“True.  Who knows.  Maybe he’ll learn something from it.”

“I’m sure he will.”

“Maybe this little talk between us was a good idea,” Agatha told her.

“Yeah.  And maybe we should do it again sometime.”

“Absolutely!”

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Doctor Faucet rang the doorbell to the large house of Doctor Judith Rameriz outside of Philadelphia.  He had noted several other cars in the driveway, so he was guessing he wasn’t the first one here.  The door was opened by a woman he recognized from her picture on the internet.  “Doctor Rameriz?” he asked.

“Doctor Faucet,” Judith greeted him happily.  “Come in.  Come in.  Meet the…eccentrics.”

Faucet realized that eccentrics was probably what he should expect.  He was soon introduced to everyone.  They all seemed to be a congenial group and only first names were used.  They all sat around with drinks and talked or argued over their separate opinions on various aspects of what the souls, or ghosts as he thought of them, were capable of doing.  What traits they would most likely have.  Surprisingly, Faucet found the discussion to be the very thing he himself had always found to be the most interesting.  He joined in wholeheartedly, enjoying the give and take of all these learned people.  The only strange thing he found was that they mostly called ghosts, souls.  But then, wasn’t a soul the very definition of a ghost?  He really had no problem with that.

It was later in the evening, while one of them was arguing a particular point with him, when that person asked a strange question.  “But what if we could somehow capture someone’s soul?  What do you think might happen?”

He found himself feeling like he had been put on the spot, with everyone paying more attention than usual.  “Capture a soul?” he asked.  “I can’t even conceive of such a thing.”

The man waved his concern aside.  “But what if we could?  What traits do you think you might find in it?”

Sometimes the science minded people could put the simplest of questions in the most awkward way possible.  “You mean somehow hold the spirit captive just for the purpose of studying it?”

“Something like that,” the man confirmed.

“I don’t know,” Faucet replied.  “We all seem to agree that ghosts somehow carry the memory of their original person, if only to a very small extent.  We all would love to know how it’s possible since there’s no physical brain to hold that information.”

‘Yes, but most ghosts also retain the original shape and face of the person they used to be as well.  Even their clothes.  How do they do it?”

“As always, that’s the twenty-million dollar question,” Faucet replied.  “I simply have no idea, even though I’ve tried to figure out just that.  How do the spirits of the dearly departed, hold so much information…without a physical brain?   We may never really know.  Especially since, as you proposed, it would be impossible to really capture one to study it.”

And then one of the men in the group asked, “But what if it’s already been done?”