Semester Test

                It was the strangest thing I had ever seen, with tubes and wires sprouting in all directions. “Isn’t it beautiful,” my father whispered intensely.

                “Um,” I muttered leaning carefully over the railing. I couldn’t find the words to describe the thing in front of me; it was the strangest thing I had ever seen, with tubes and wires sprouting in all directions with a sort of electrical pulse running through the middle of it.

                He ignored my uncomfort and continued on about his achievement. “So many years of work and struggle and it is finally done! Oh Claire, this will fix everything. I’ll have everything I want now!”

                “Daddy I don’t know about this.” Something sparked out to the side and cracked as it hit the metal fence standing between myself and the machine. I flinched backwards as my heart flew. “It kind of looks  . . . dangerous.”

                “Dangerous,” he questioned looking down at me confused. He was so tall, it scared me at times just how menacing he seemed without trying.

                I flushed awkwardly, I was risky business doubting Daddy’s inventions. “I just meant that it looks like it’s as powerful as a bomb.” That was a lie. The contraption before me was like nothing on this Earth, it was in its own category of terrifying and insane. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen, with tubes and wires sprouting in all directions with a sort of electrical pulse running through the middle of it. Something above the device whirled at a speed I could fathom, so fast that it was picking up little bits of torn paper out of the air and swirling them in its own little orbit.

                My father chuckled, “No, no, silly Claire, it’s not that powerful.” I sighed relieved, the bulking machine’s appearance was just misleading. “It is infinitely MORE powerful than any bomb.” His smile was ecstatic as he took the stairs two at a time down toward the machine.

                “Daddy, no! What are you doing?”

                “Testing the child of my ingenious loin!” He laughed like a mad-man. That statement sounded infinitely correct. The machine was his child, not me. I was a mistake, a glitch in his circuit of life. That terrible, awful machine that was the strangest thing I had ever seen, with tubes and wires sprouting in all directions with a sort of electrical pulse running through the middle of it. That machine with something above the device whirling at a speed I couldn’t fathom, so fast that it was picking up little bits of torn paper out of the air and swirling them in its own little orbit, with pointy arms of steel spitting out of the sides creating a never ending chain on electrical current flowing through the crackling center. His newest creation was his child, not me.

                “What do you mean testing? You just finished it. Shouldn’t you check it over another time or something?”

                “You sound scared Claire. Don’t you trust my calculations?” My father looked wild, a cliché mad scientist. His stained white lab coat flapping in the breeze, his hair whipping in all directions, a huge grin upon his lips, eyes bulging with anticipation, and a stance of sheer unfaltering determination.

                “Of course I do.” A horrible lie that most days Daddy would have seen right through, but not today. There were more important things on his mind than my petty lie.

                He darted to a control panel and began flipping switches and typing in codes. Dear God, he was actually going to try to do it. “Daddy wait!” He snapped a furious glare at the interruption. “Maybe you should try it out on something else before the big experiment.”

                “I’ve waited thirteen years! Why should I wait any longer?” The bags under his under rested eyes made him look older than usual in the dim light and his fury more obvious. The machine sent an enormous bolt of electricity in my direction as if in its own fury. I dove to the ground and tried to convince air to refill my lungs. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen, with tubes and wires sprouting in all directions with a sort of electrical pulse running through the middle of it. Something above the device whirled at a speed I couldn’t fathom, so fast that it was picking up little bits of torn paper out of the air and swirling them in its own little orbit, with pointy arms of steel spitting out of the sides creating a never ending chain on electrical current flowing through the crackling center. The sounds it made were enough to drive a person into the asylum. So loud and sudden and fierce it made my stomach churn.

                “Give me one good reason to wait,” my father growled.

I swallowed hard. “Because you loved her. If you want this to go right you should try it on something else first. You would never forgive yourself if you let this machine loose and ruined your chances of ever getting Mom back.”

Daddy suddenly looked blank and calm, like I used to know him. “Your mother, Beatrice.” For what seemed like hours he stood still and silent.

The resurrection machine attacked me again. “Please,” I called desperately at my frozen father.

He blinked twice and nodded, “Yes. A very good thought Claire. I’ll try it on something else first.”

I sighed easily as he went back to the mainframe and switched enough dials that the apparatus stopped acting quite so violently. “Good,” I called down to him. “We’ll turn it off for now and find something else to test it out on a bit later.”

“Now,” he yelled back. “We try it out now.”

“What?!” No, no, no, please no.

He darted into the closet next to him and a horrendous stench followed him back out. My father had two dead animals in each hand. A dog, a pig, a cat and a small beaver. “No,” I whispered. The thought of his collection of departed organisms nearly made me hurl. “You’re sick.” I know he heard me that time, he glanced at me for a split moment then tossed the animals towards a marked spot on the base of the machine.

“Here we go.” It took all his strength to pull the switch. Everything went to bright to see as the electric current hit a new high and blasted out in the lab, small fires started on my father’s notes. I couldn’t breathe in terror yet again. Four small animals ran around under me.

My father made a triumphant noise and leapt into the air. “It worked! I can bring Beatrice back!”

“NO!” This was wrong. I missed Mom terribly, but this was wrong.

He ignored me and reset all the dials and knobs to the massively powerful setting he had the set at before, the ones that were supposed to bring my Mom back to life. I got shakily up and stood watching frantically over the barrier between me and magic. Something smacked me in the head and I fell back wards. I recognized Mom’s coffin in front of me being lowered from the ceiling. “Watch it,” he barked at me watching the descent of my Mom, like bringing her back from heaven. It was then I realized my father was not really my father, just another man.

                As soon as Mom was in her spot Frank yanked the switched the crank. Another bright flash. Frank ran to the casket just as a hand grabbed the side of it from the inside. It had worked. I threw up until I dry heaved. Not right. My former parents embraced and cried. My mother looked up at me and smiled. My eyes unfocused as if I was going to pass out. Then, suddenly, an earth shattering noise. The machine. Something fell off the side, then a spike got sucked into the whirling and flew at the wall embedding itself. It was falling apart. The two adults below me tried to run but . . .

It was the strangest thing I had ever seen, with tubes and wires sprouting in all directions with a sort of electrical pulse running through the middle of it. Something above the device whirled at a speed I couldn’t fathom, so fast that it was picking up little bits of torn paper out of the air and swirling them in its own little orbit, with pointy arms of steel spitting out of the sides creating a never ending chain on electrical current flowing through the crackling center. The sounds it made were enough to drive a person into the asylum. So loud and sudden and fierce it made my stomach churn.  It was the machine that killed my parents just after making them both seem alive again.