Genosimulation (A Teen & Young Adult Science Fiction): A Young Adult Science Fiction Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

used to filling his days the same way,
every day, at his father's bedside. On the contrary, Zomy hated every minute of
seeing his father wither before his eyes to a crumbling skeleton of a man, like
a vision of flesh falling from dry bones. Zomy hated the long hours of
quibbling, endless talk in the dark, narrow room where he lay. Jail room.
Narrow, dark dungeon. Hundreds of scented holy books guarded it. Old, silent
books filled the overflowing room, leaving just barely room for his father.
    Life without his father was emptier, not of time, but of
purpose.
    As long as his father was breathing, Zomy had a purpose.
Determination filled his days, shaping his dreams at night. He was
all-powerful, equipped with divine permission to destroy the cancer that gnawed
his father, every fiber of his being devoted to this task.
    Every day the determination burned within him, a cocktail of
desire that his father fed, a raging fire that left him, at eleven years old,
stuck to his mission, day after day. He was going to beat the cancer, no matter
what. No matter what.
    And he lost.
    Day after day he’d endured. Sat two, three, four hours with
his thinned-out father, reading passages, valid interpretations, proving to his
creator that he was not created for nothing. The child is a prodigy, Father had
bothered to say from time to time, when his aching head allowed the effort. The
child is a prodigy.
    Until that cursed day, when the prodigy could not stand one
more second without the fresh air of freedom, and went to look for it in the
rainy sidewalks. And the winter was so pleasant to his senses! Rapturous in the
sharpening-cold air, in the flow of puddles under his clumsy shoes.
    Only a few more minutes, he thought, just a few more breaths
of the wet soil's scent, of the urban grass's touch, of the sight of the
spectacular rainbow gracing the tops of houses. Only a few minutes of freedom -
and then I'll go back, he promised himself.
    When he returned there was no place to go back to. His
father died, was taken to other provinces. And in his childish mind, prodigious
as it was, Zomy knew why. He was a guard asleep at his post, the messenger who
neglected his mission. His father died because Zomy was not there on time, was
not there for him. Death, that black ambassador of extermination, filtered into
the room in his absence, and picked his father.
    This was the answer. It was his sin. Until the day he died,
years later, Zomy did not know comfort.
    In the meantime:
    An hour chased the next, minute-to-minute dissolved, and
empty, black, rotten emptiness trickled into the prodigy's life. Not because of
the long hours of battle that are no more. But because the war itself was no
more - the struggle, without which there was no purpose to existence. Without
father, what was the point in learning? Without the hope of his life, what was
the point in an effort?
    The processions of words that Zomy had gulped only a few months
before, seemed hollow, bitter suddenly. Quibbling became stale, for what use
was his commentary on this verse, or anything else, if it had no purpose?
    And faith, yes faith. Vengeful God was his God, vengeful and
unforgotten. A God who didn't excuse the little boy who wanted some fresh air.
A strict God. An awe-filling god. And Zomy's faith wasn't hurt. On the
contrary, faith turned into knowledge, definitely. Yes, God was in heaven. Was
also on the earth. Was everywhere. Even in the cancer flattening the body of
his father.
    And in taking the father, God left him with nothing but air.
    Things that form the heart of the child: one small trip, in
the streets, became a whole day trip. And from a day, it's easy to move to two
days. What is the difference between two days and a week? There is a
difference, but not great. Not all at once, not all in slamming the door. There
are doors that open slowly, there are freedoms you have to drink from
sparingly, a little bit.
    The streets of Bnei Brak, their twisted twists turned into
his home.