Black and White chapter 1

         I have always wondered if I am human.

         There is no doubt that I am as near to perfect as most humans have come. My face is beautiful, I am entirely moral, and my mind is brilliant. People like me. After all, what is there to not like?

         I was born when I was eight years old, the week after my sister was discovered to be irrevocably flawed. So- at first- I was a replica. The doctors changed me after I was born. The alteration was the whole point, to make me different from my sister who is not perfect.

         She really does not have much, though she is beautiful. Her face is mine because they could find nothing to improve. I admire her for it. It is rare for someone uncloned to have anything so perfect as her beauty.

It is strange to look at a face in an old photograph that is your face but surrounding a mind and personality inconceivably blemished in contrast to your own. It is stranger still because that mind was, a very long time ago, yours exactly.

         The photograph was taken of her at the age of six. She is crying because she disliked almost everything not excluding cameras with a phobic hate. There is a thumbprint over her face.

         I prefer my parents house to my own apartment. They are both old now, unable to stand, breathe on their own, for the majority think, and living perpetually in their two bedrooms, supported by everything the hospitals of the world have to offer. They allow me to have the rest of the large house to myself.

         The study is the best place. Something very tangible, but indescribable, is in the air of that room. The ghost-light of morning is trapped behind the grey silk curtains. It glows on the surfaces of formerly garish furniture so that every little speck of dust is revealed with long shadows. Really, I find nothing wrong with dust there. It makes the room quieter. It muffles the outlandishly bright colors and dulls the hum of electricity. The fake-leather and gold books appear truly antiquated.

         This is the room my sister appears in one day. It is the first time I meet her.

         Unexpectedly, fearlessly, she strides up to me to shake hands. “I’m Amber,” she says. “Did they give you my name as well as my face?”

         “Yes,” I reply, awkward and shocked.

         “So where are our parents?”

         “Upstairs,” I say, recovering quickly. “They won’t be able to communicate with you at all, unfortunately. Too old for that… you can stay here as long as you want, though.”

         “Thanks,” she says brashly.

         She plunks down in the deep armchair and glances around. Though her speech didn’t suggest it, she seems uneasy, as if she is disconcerted by the gaudy embellishments of the study.

         Of course, I am uncertain how to proceed. How exactly did she locate our house?

Isn’t she supposed to be in some prison-like confinement?

         In the moments it takes me to think of something to converse about she begins.

         “What did they tell you about me?”

         “Well, that you had difficulties that most other people don’t have.”

         “Like?” she probes.

         I wince at the memory of asking my parents about my sister. It was clear from their mortified expression that they had never meant for me to know of her. They had avoided telling me exactly what was wrong with her, in fact, other than that she had “irritable characteristics”.

         “…That you get upset easily and are a bit mean.” I decide.

         She smiles and nods.

         “A little bit mean…” she ruminates.

         “I actually don’t know exactly what was wrong with you.” I say so as to cover up my slight impoliteness.

         “Neither do I. They say that I exhibited mental disorders but I really don‘t think I ever had anything wrong with me!”

         I smile kindly.

         “They also said that they wanted to experiment with my eyes.”

         “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

         She looks up at me and spreads out luxuriously in the cushy chair.

         “Don’t you sit down?” she asks.

         I sit in the chair opposite her.

         “They say my eyes can see more colors than normal ones.”

         “Wow.”

         “Yes. But they did surgery on them eventually. Actually, that wasn’t what made the colors go away- they just started giving me drugs that seemed to work since the surgical operation didn’t.”

         She gazes happily at the ornately painted ceiling.

         “I can remember being able to see properly. You’ve no idea what you’re missing.”

         I frown. A nervous and unhappy feeling that I have never felt before is gnawing at me. It might be jealousy, but I never feel jealous. Perhaps it is that my parents, who had raised me so well, had condemned this person so similar to myself.

         “That’s impressive,” I say impartially. “So, could you see just more colors or more objects as well?”

         “I don’t really remember.”

         “How can you not remember?”

         “I didn’t even know I could see more until I was six years old when they looked inside my brain and stuff.”

         I have been studying her and I realize that no, she is not me at all. It is in the way she moves, suddenly, assured, and constantly. She cannot stop gesticulating and twitching. While I tend to focus on people’s noses or other features when they are talking, she glares straight into my eyes, watching every little movement. Her eyes seem somehow disconnected from the rest of her face: she turns her head but does not direct her eyes away from their previous point of interest, when she smiles or laughs her eyes do not. The skin does not even crinkle around the edges of them. She is also rather overweight, with three deep creases on her neck and a shirt that wedged itself into her stomach in several places. I am as fit as I can possibly manage.

         “How long are you planning to stay here?” I ask.

                She blushes but says cooly, "Oh, I was just visiting. I'll leave if you want me to."

                What an awkward statement to answer.

                "Stay as long as you want," I mumble. "Would you like to stay the night or are you really just visiting? Somehow I feel like you don't have anywhere else to go."

                She has the grace to not hide her embarassment now.

                "You're right, I don't. Through no fault of mine- I'm sure you know where I've come from."

                I don't reply.