Thanks to the many innovations created by my researchers, my company has extended the lives of millions of people. I have willingly been the human test subject in many of the vaccine trials and I’ve been given many medals and awards for my accomplishments. My name is already in the history books and I’m not even dead yet. All this fame and high status have come at the cost of a long life. Even though most people would call an extended life a blessing, it has been a hollow blessing. I’ve experienced everything in life that interested me and I’ve outlived my entire family with the children of my great-great-grandchildren being the last to go. My old friends are gone along with their children and new people who have forgotten my company’s original vision are running it. At least I only have a few more years left to live so I won’t see or know what they’re doing to it.
I don’t even know how to spend the rest of my life since everything has become boring to me. Today, I go to a mall that my mother and I always visited on Saturdays. The mall itself is nothing special especially compared to the more expensive and larger malls that I’ve been to, but I’ve made it a goal to keep it the way it was. My company has been keeping it afloat with funding so that it could stay the way it was so many years ago. Despite my best efforts, being in the mall doesn’t feel the same way it did when my mother was alive. I thought that distance and time would make my heart grow softer to it, and yet, it hasn’t. It’s not the fault of the new stores nor some of the modern redesigns. I just can’t figure it out and it’s making me irritated.
In an attempt to find what I liked so much about this mall, I go to the places that my mother and I would spend my most treasured moments nearby. My mother and I would eat and talk about our dreams at a fountain near a department store.
“I want to grow up to run our company and become a hero to the sick and needy!” I would say.
“You will! I believe that you’ll become a hero and more!” my mother would reply with a smile brighter than the sun.
I remember throwing change in the fountain and then praying that my dreams would come true. They have to some extent-
“Hey! Get off the fountain!” I scream to a child trying to climb it.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the child’s mother says as she takes her child and scolds him before heading off.
The fountain no longer has the same mystical qualities that it had years ago. That child’s disrespect of it didn’t do anything to it, so what am I missing that made it so special? Bah, I head off to another place to see if it’ll make me feel any better. This next place is a garden near the mall that has a view of the river that separates the mall from the city. A small graveyard was put here for those who gave their lives serving my company, and frankly, I don’t remember any one of them. Mother and I used to clear our heads about what was stressing us out and joke about it.
“I sabotaged his project so that it wouldn’t be better than mine,” I once admitted.
“Why would you do that?” my mother said in an upset tone that I wasn’t expecting.
“Because I needed the scholarship and recognition more than him. It’s my goal to reach the top so I can help more people. I want to be the hero that I said that I would be. I…I wanted to make you proud that I got first place.”
“You don’t need to get first to make me proud of you. Even if you got last place, I would still be proud of you because I know that you tried your best.”
Remembering this still makes me want to cry. Even touching the flowers from the garden brings a tear to my eyes from the memories that I had that I could never relive in any way. My condition has confined me to a wheelchair, but I can still stand without feeling any pain. The only feeling I get is a stiff feeling that makes it hard to stand straight. This feeling is nothing to the pain I’m feeling in wishing that I could experience my old memories one last time. What made it so special? Standing up from my wheelchair, I grab the flowers in the garden and squeeze my frustration into them.
“What is it?” I ask myself aloud.
Maybe it was the simple joy of shopping? No, that can’t be it. I hate shopping. I hated it even when my mother was alive. Besides, I own everything that I could ever want and more. Tch, I guess I could go to the one store that was always special to me. Sitting back down in my wheelchair, I go to the dollar store in the mall. Yes, I know that the dollar store being a special place sounds ridiculous, but it was for me when I was a child. It had so many things that I was interested in and my mother would give everything more personality than it had. My mom knew how to make the arts and crafts section a place of endless possibilities with a handful of sticks being whatever creature I wanted and the blank masks becoming the masks of a hero and his villains.
Of all the things I could buy in the store, I buy a simple pack of gum and leave the store. My mother would always buy a pack of gum for me or something simple and these seemed like the greatest treasures at the time. Now, I don’t know what value I saw in these gifts. What is going on over there? Is that young girl being bullied? I will not anyone sully the good energy of this place.
“Leave this child alone,” I say to the bullies.
“Oh, yeah? What are you going to do if we don’t, old man?” a bully says in a snarky tone.
I wave over a security guard who intimates the bullies into leaving.
“Thank you, sir,” the girl says.
“You don’t need to thank me. Where are your parents?” I ask.
“I don’t have any since they both died. I’m here all on my own.”
“You should go back home wherever that is. A girl your age shouldn’t be out here all alone.”
“I’m twelve years old and I can take care of myself. Besides, my adoptive parents trust me to be here.”
“If they trust you to be by yourself, then I will leave you alone.”
“Wait!”
“What is it?”
“I want to show my thanks to you by helping you around the mall.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Please?”
The girl seems like she won’t accept no for an answer, so I agree to have her accompany me. I let her take me where she wants to since I don’t want to go to anywhere in particular in the mall, and of all places to go to, she takes me all the way back to the fountain where I previously was.
She tells me, “My mother and I would eat and talk around this fountain. Sometimes being around this makes me feel her presence watching over me.”
I assume that people share similar memories like mine of being around fountains with their parents. It is a nice place to be.
“What about you, sir? When you do you feel that your mother is watching over you?”
“When I do good things, I’m sure that she isn’t looking at me when I’m doing the opposite.”
“But your mother loves you, doesn’t she?”
“Of course she does.”
“Then I’m sure that she’s always watching over you even when you fail.”
I guess so.
We then go to various stores that the girl likes and she tells me about what she likes, why she likes what she likes, and some things about her mother and father. Truthfully, most of what she says goes in and out of my ears but strangely enough, I’m not irritated by her constant talking and her asking me about my family. This is much like the times when my own parents and I would be shopping and I don’t know why I think that. How could I be enjoying myself shopping around this place with this random girl as much as I enjoyed myself being here with my mother? I haven’t felt this way in a while.
Again, the girl surprises me by taking me to the garden by the river where she prays by a grave. Her parents were employees of mine? The names on the grave that she’s praying in front of do feel familiar to me. Wait, does she not know that I ran the company? It’s been a few years since I was last the face of the company and featured on billboards, ads, and the like. Have I been forgotten about so easily? Come to think of it, the security guards are the only ones who recognize me. No one has looked at me, come to talk to me, or talked about me from a distance.
“Sir, do you pray for your loved ones?” she asks.
“Huh? I…no, not really.”
“You should. It’s a good thing to do and I’m sure they would love to hear from you.”
“Sure.”
We then go back to the dollar store, of all places again. There the girl speaks similarly to my mother in how she puts together simple pieces used for art and tells stories through them and brings them to life. She manages to get a few laughs out of me with how silly she can be. This really brings back the feeling of me being with my mother. To reward her for making me feel happy again, I buy her whatever she wants from this store and the other stores that she goes to. Her parents couldn’t afford to buy her clothes and toys from the more expensive stores so I buy them instead and fulfill her dream of getting them.
She even asks about this when she asks, “Why are you buying all of this for me?”
I want to say it’s for putting a smile on my face and putting joy into my heart, but I instead say, “Because you’ve been wanting these things for years, haven’t you? I thought this would make your dreams come true.”
“Thank you for the many things that you’ve bought me, but getting these things aren’t even part of the dreams I have. I just want to make people happy.”
Just make people happy…This reminds me of something that my mother said. Yes, that was her dream as well and she used the medical company that we owned to do it. Was her dream ever part of mine? I remember saying it, but not as much as saying that I wanted to be a hero.
“Well, you’ve made me happy today,” I unintentionally whisper aloud.
“What was that?”
“Oh, nothing. I should get you back home. It’s getting late.”
“Ah, I didn’t even notice. Thank you, my mom and dad would’ve gotten mad if I didn’t start to leave by now. My parents and I are going to be moving to a house near the shore soon. Doesn’t that sound exciting?”
“I’ve had a house down the shore for a while. Trust me. The charm wears off.”
“Maybe if you come and visit, we could have fun together.”
“I don’t know. Let me think about it for a second.”
I should get her adoptive family something special as a reward for raising her to be this way and the time we spent together. Maybe we can do this again sometime. Silly me, thinking about spending time at a mall with a young girl just because she brings back feelings of me being here with my mother. This was just a one time thing.
“Sir Albinus,” an approaching man says.
He’s from the company. What’s he doing here?
“Yes?”
“You are needed, or rather your blood is needed and it may cost you your life.”
“Who are you and why are you asking his nice old man for his life?” the girl asks.
“He’s from a company that I used to run.”
“Sir Albinus used to take part in many vaccine trials and was a hero for taking the risk of being a test subject so that millions of people could benefit from the medicine. As a result, he’s lived longer than any human in the history of the world and his blood contains what we need to create better medicine, but the procedure is fatal for a man in his state.”
“My mom and dad used to work in a company that had its boss take vaccines.”
“What’s your name?”
“Elaine Anastella.”
“Anastella…oh, yes, I remember that last name. Your mother volunteered to test out a new treatment that was out since she was suffering from a particular sickness that the treatment cured, but Sir Albinus took her place instead. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of what happened after as a result though we must thank your mother for her service.”
“You? You were the reason my mom died?!”
I honestly don’t know what to say to her, so I say the first thing that comes to my mind.
“I had an image to keep up. I mean I let myself be the test subject in many medical experiments so others don’t have to.”
“I know what you do, and I can’t believe I forgot it because you haven’t put your face on all your company’s ads. You play the hero so you enjoy all the fame that comes with it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sir Albinus,” the man interjects, “A team will arrive shortly to take you to the hospital where you can prove this girl wrong by sacrificing yourself for scientific progress. I’ll be waiting at the front of the mall for you.”
“Do whatever you want. Just…leave me alone.”
“Wait, Elaine!”
She runs away in the direction where her mother’s grave is while the man from my company heads in a different direction. What am I going to do? I could just do what the man said and sacrifice myself for scientific progress, but is that really the right thing to do? It sounds like it. It’s just not sitting right with me for some reason. Why should the rest of my life be forfeit for research? This may seem selfish, but I chose to live. I go to Elaine who is praying at her mother’s grave.
“Elaine!” I say while getting out of my wheelchair, tossing it aside, and getting on my knees, “I’m sorry that I was the reason your mother died. I wanted to be known as a hero for my actions and didn’t actually care about making better medications or treatments for people. Please, forgive me!”
I hear her crying. She must be mad at me and upset that I’m even here. I had a feeling that this was a mistake.
“I…forgive you,” she says to my surprise.
“Y-you do?”
“You seem like a nice man now, and I believe that you are sorry. Why wouldn’t I forgive you?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“So, I guess this is the last time I’m going to see you.”
“It doesn’t have to be. I don’t have to be a part of the experiment that will take my life.”
“Don’t you have a place to call home or a family to return to?”
“No, not really despite my many houses.”
“Then why don’t you come and live with my family?”
“I…I would be honored.”
Elaine hugs me with tears in her eyes while I smile and begin to cry as well. Together we leave the mall. Her family accepts me as one of their own even when they learn of what I did. It’s astounding to me how I could be forgiven even after I confess more of my wrongdoings to them. At the shore, we go to a church where I pray and confess for the first time in God knows how long. My mother always used to tell me to go to church, but I hardly ever went when she didn’t accompany me.
For the rest of my years, I act as a pseudo-grandfather to the family who gives them advice and an understanding mind. I was once foolish and now somehow wise simply by letting go of my prideful façade of being a hero. My mother once said near the time of her death that she didn’t care if I was recognized as a hero or not because I was always a saint in her eyes. I don’t know what grace God revealed to her in her dying moments but I hope that I’m proving her right by the life I now live.
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