Parthenogenia - Short Story

     Many years ago, The Committee for Preserving Current Ways of Life had the idea to build a great museum which would be a testament to all which humanity has accomplished. There would be five wings—the Museum of History, the Museum of Culture, the Museum of Biology, the Museum of Economic Sciences, and the Museum of Earth Sciences.

    After several years of funding challenges, only the Museums of Biology and Economic Sciences had been built. With the increased capital growth of this past decade which had been spurred in part by looser regulations and increased investment into public-private partnerships, funding for the Museum of Culture, now the Museum of Art, opened up. After a lengthy selection process, the Committee for Preserving Current Ways of Life chose me as its lead architect.

    Before my design process can begin in earnest, I have a meeting with the member of the Committee in charge of ensuring the work I do meets the Committee’s standards. Parts of the Museum of Biology are still under construction, so I drive through the vast, largely empty ocean of parking lot which surrounds it and find a spot close to the entrance. My supervisor is already waiting for me. He’s a large man, older, with a thick graying moustache. Wrinkles, memories of frowns, trail from the corners of his lips down to his chin. I understand he is the representative from the United States Armed Forces, and he looks the part—he’s dressed in full uniform, camo shirt, corporate emblems, medals of honor and all, and smiling. When I get to him, he reaches out his hand to shake mine. I take it.

“I understand you’re the lead architect?” His voice is gravelly but not unpleasant. 

“I am,” I say. “Halston Shawn.”

“Well. All excited for ya. Reviewed that portfolio a’ yours, n’ if it’s anything like that stuff sure we’ll approve the funds no problem.” He finally lets go of my hand. “Ah—Colonel Tom Earnest MacBrand-MacBrand. Nice to meetcha.”
“MacBrand-MacBrand'?” I ask. I glance at his breast pocket. Sure enough, it reads ‘Colonel MacBrand-MacBrand.’ 

“Sure thing,” he answers. “Mother n’ father’s last names. Hyphenated. Got one from each of ‘em.” I purse my lips and furrow my brow without meaning. 

“How’d they end up with the same last name?”

“Howdya mean? When they got married, she took his.”

“...In that case—MacBrand-MacBrand—it’s your father’s last name twice, right?” He purses his lips now.

“Hm. ‘Spose so.” He turns and begins to lead me into the Museum of Biology.

Walking through the Hall of Big Cats, MacBrand-MacBrand asks me a question. “How’s, ah, the creative process like? Never been one fer art.” I’m caught off guard.

“Uh, depends on the job. The client, too, really.”

“You’ve done government work before. What was it…?” He snaps his fingers in an attempt to recall.
“The Space Needle replica.”
“Right, right. How ‘bout for that? How’d ya do it?”
“I mean, mostly… Mostly I replicated the first Space Needle.” He stops at an unmarked black door between the stuffed lions and taxidermied lynxes and thinks for a beat.

“Makes sense t’ me,” he says, unlocking the door with a key from his suit coat’s inner pocket. Inside, a small dark gray room with tall ceilings is lit entirely with a lamp on the drafting table in the corner. A small desk and a chair have been set up next to it. MacBrand tosses me the key and I catch it, just barely. 

“Yer office, fer now.” I glance over the key awkwardly. 

“I didn’t realize this job came with an office.” I notice a similarly unmarked black door across the hallway.

“Wasn’t gonna. But figured, hell, easier t’ keep an eye on how things’re goin’ from here. Stay involved. Got an office in the administrative wing, myself, real close.” He must realize I’m glancing at the door across the hall. “Not an office, don’t worry. You don’t’ve neighbors. Real peace and quiet fer ya here. Can show it to ya when we’ve got the time. But you’ve got work t’ do.”

I collect some things from my office in my apartment. It’s quaint, smaller than the one at the Museum, but flooded with natural light and covered in memories of the work I’ve done here. I’ve got watercolor mock-ups of the Kitsap County Performing Arts Center framed next to drafts of the Lake Washington Arena above pictures of some colorful little apartments down in Tacoma and aerial photographs of the Space Needle replica. This place is evidence of my continued existence, traces of the marks I’ve left on the world. 

I take it all down and pack it into my car, along with my pens and pencils, sketchbooks and rulers, and my personal drafting table that’s bigger and sturdier than the one MacBrand supplied me. I meet Grace at the Museum. She tells me that it pays to have friends as good as her and, together, we lug all my things through the Hall of Big Cats and into my new office. She helps me figure out the feng shui of the place while I stick adhesive hooks on the wall to hang my work. 

“It’s… dark,” she says before she leaves. “Could use a floor lamp, or something.”

“It’s alright,” I say. “I’ve got that one.” I point to the little clip-on desk lamp attached to the tiny drafting table MacBrand left for me.

“Hal. You’re gonna be in here, what, at least four months? You may as well make the space nice when you’re not at the desk, too.”

“No, no, look.” I step towards the lamp. “If you tilt it out, it lights up the whole space.” I grab the head of the lamp and rotate it to face the opposite corner of the room. It’s still pretty dark. 

When Grace leaves, I open my sketchbook and start thinking about the Museum of Art. I envision it in the style of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1892, an homage to the brilliant white buildings with stark columns which showed the world that Chicago had risen from the less-than-metaphorical ashes after the fire which had devastated it 20 years prior. A grand exhibition of visions for what the future could be. What could be a more powerful testament to the power of art? 

A week later, MacBrand takes a look at my preliminary drawings. Without remarking, he takes it to his office to scan and knocks on my door not half an hour later holding my sketchbook and a long cardboard tube. He returns my sketchbook and pops open the tube, unfurling a blown-up picture of my sketches covered in red annotations—notes from the Committee. He tilts the clip-on lamp so they’re easier to read. 

“It’s good. Said the columns could be bigger up front. Bigger space fer bigger banners to advertise exhibits. N’ ya need an entrance on every side. Don’t wanna make folks who park on one side walk all th’ way ‘round.”

His summary barely scratches the surface of the Committee’s notes. I tape the marked-up sketch to my wall so I can study it while I keep iterating. 

Between rounds of Committee feedback, MacBrand asks if I want to see the room across the hall. It’s dark, illuminated only by the lights of the tanks which cover every inch of every wall. They hold fish, bugs and small reptiles with one exception—the largest tank in the room, situated directly across from the door. It’s taller than I am, and longer than it is tall. A bird is perched in it, unmoving, bald, and yellow-headed, covered in thick black feathers below the neck. A vulture. 

“The Parthenogenesis room,” starts MacBrand, “Means birth from an unfertilized egg. Babies come out clones a’ the mother.” He taps one of the tanks. Inside, a writhing mass of tiny orange insects cover a leafy plant—at least, I assume that’s what they’re swarming. There are so many of them that despite straining my eyes I fail to find an uncovered spot of green.

“Aphids,” he continues, “Well, these little bastards have got eggs stored inside ‘em from the moment they’re born, and they just pop out clones like nothin’.”

The aphids keep chewing, digging deeper into the stem of the plant. I watch as it becomes too thin to hold the weight of the insects.

“Means the clones’re born pregnant too, with the eggs already inside ‘em. Each aphid already’s got exactly everythin’ it’ll ever be right when it’s born, everythin’ it was meant to do to keep the species alive. Everythin’ its grandkids’re ‘sposed to do, too.”  The stem collapses and the bugs topple down to the bottom of the tank—they squirm to get out from under the weight of the still-intact leaves of the plants and their sisters and mothers above them.

“The boys in science don’t have to do any nudging like the finches ‘er the crayfish fer them.”

“Nudging?” The vulture is staring at me.

“Sure. Only really happens in nature when there’s no potential mates around. Can induce it with certain, ah, pheromones, er somethin’, though. Through the air. Room’s full of ‘em. Asked the boys in science what it’d take to get some soldiers who can do that, actually.” The bird sizes me up, hungry, unmoving. It must think I’m a carcass. Must not be able to smell the life on me, or maybe MacBrand either. 

“What’d they say?” I ask. It’s just staring at me, though.

“Probably not,” the Colonel answers. “Those pheromones don’t work on humans, I ‘spose.” The vulture spreads its wings across the length of its tank, nine or ten feet. “‘Course, if they could figure it out, those boys’d be much better soldiers than the ones we’ve got to train ourselves,” he muses. It raises its head and lets out a low, wheezing grunt, and then another, not ceasing to look me in the eye, calling out the only way it knows how.

“Asexual. Wouldn’t get distracted by a Playboy.” MacBrand laughs, then coughs, proud of himself. He looks at me. “It’s a joke, son.”

Grace invites me out for coffee. I realize that my plans for the Museum are not just inspired by the White City—they are the White City, or, rather, a cheap knock-off. My inspiration has manifested itself as duplication. I point this out to Grace, who laughs, and correctly reminds me that neoclassical architecture, the style of the White City, is itself really just Greek and Roman architecture, stripped of some of its meaning and minutiae. She offers to pay for my drink.

I go to sleep restless, two months closer to my deadline, and look for whatever could have inspired the Greeks while I dream. The next day, Grace helps me move a mattress into my office.

The chair at my drafting table is starting to really hurt my back. It always hurts, being hunched over a blueprint for more than a couple hours, but this is worse than usual. The chair MacBrand got for me must’ve come from some office surplus store. It’s cheap and rolls too much for my liking. He drops off another cardboard tube with another set of mark-ups and I ask if I can see the file the Committee sent back, not just printed out, but see the file itself on his computer. I follow him back to his office and sure enough he’s got one of those fancy thousand-dollar chairs from some German manufacturer. 

That night I walk past the tigers and snow leopards and into the men’s room with my toothbrush and toothpaste. My back hurts so badly that I take my shirt off, put it on the cold faux marble countertop, and look at it in the mirror. The splotchy birthmark on my lower back is barely visible against the new pale red marks which cover my skin. A rash or something. I decide I’ll go out to the store and buy some lotion during my lunch break tomorrow. I brush my teeth and go back to my office to sleep.

A few days later, Grace takes me out to lunch at a nice restaurant in the city with a rooftop patio. We get our hamburgers and beer and she asks how everything’s going at work.

“The last sketch you showed me was really beautiful,” she says. “I feel like it’ll have a real sense of scale. How tall did you say the columns’ll be?” I shake my head and finish chewing.

“They’re… they said no more columns.”

“What? What happened to making the columns bigger? They said that, yeah?”
“Yeah. But now no more columns. They said they liked the ‘aesthetic’ but that the columns might be alienating to some demographics.”

“Isn’t that the whole point? Why do something neoclassical if you can’t have columns?” she asks. I give her a look that says that I agree without having to say it out loud.

I get back to my office and MacBrand brings me another cardboard tube. I watch again as he unfurls it and gives me a summary of the Committee’s notes and he watches as I tape it up to the wall. I‘ve taken down almost all of the adhesive hooks I put up to make room for the feedback—I start a pile of the watercolor mock-ups and colorful photographs on the floor under the drafting table. Everything comes down  but the photos of the Space Needle replica. They, for some reason, speak to me. 

My back hurts too much to sleep, so I leave my office to get some water. The door to the Parthenogenesis room is ajar, and I faintly hear something rustling inside. Against my better judgement, I put the one glass I’ve brought to the Museum with me next to the taxidermied leopard and slip inside. 

The vulture, its enclosure straight ahead from the door, is dead. Or, rather, a vulture is dead. It’s laying face down in a pool of its own crimson blood as a second, considerably smaller vulture hunches above it, its face engulfed in the carcass. I freeze. I can feel my heart beating in my chest as the sound of beak scratching against bone reaches my ears. My legs don’t take me where I want them to, and my eyes fix themselves to the placard next to the cage. 

CALIFORNIA CONDOR

GYMNOHYPUS CALIFORNIAS

I try to read the map next to the name which shows its range, but the condor looks up and draws its eyes to mine. I’m captured. Its yellow head has been stained red, engulfed in the entrails of the other bird. It stares at me, some piece of stringy muscle stretched from the carcass to its beak. It begins to spread its wings and puff out its chest, the flesh breaking with a loud snap as it raises its head. It startles the bird just as much as it does me—our eye contact breaks, and I stumble out of the stale air of the parthenogenesis room and into the restroom to vomit. 

Returning to my office, I gather the courage to close the door that separates me from the condors. I return to my bed, lightheaded, still thirsty, and unable to sleep. I convince myself I’ll tell MacBrand about it in the morning and he’ll do whatever it is he does. Something.

Come morning, I leave to grab my glass from where I left it the night before. It’s gone—the custodial staff must’ve taken it. 

Grace invites me out to this new Greek place in the city for lunch. It’s fancier than our usual spots, with nice cloth napkins. 

“And I tell her, you know, that I don’t need to eat her food out of the fridge, because the food I bring for myself is perfectly good, as I’m sure she’d know.” I laugh.

“You have to wonder how she gets anything done…” I flag a waiter. “Sorry, one second.” Grace furls her brow as the waiter arrives. I scratch my back.

“Do you have, ah, cocktails?”
“Yes, sir,” he answers, “ Would you like to see our selection?”

“No, ah, no, sorry. Could I just get a napkin? One of the little square napkins?” The waiter hesitates a moment. 

“Yes, sir, right away.” Grace has been looking at me with a confused look this whole time, I realize as the waiter walks away.

“Please go on, I’m sorry. I just had an idea, and I wanted to write it down before I lost it. You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I was going to ask you if you wanted to, uh, go out for dinner some time.” The waiter arrives with my cocktail napkin. I take a pen from my pocket, click it, look down, and start scrawling a floorplan onto it. These chairs have been killing my back. 

“Lunch would be better,” I tell her. “I get my best ideas at night, y’know, and with MacBrand down my neck I just need to be on top of things right now.”

“...No, I meant…” She trails off. “Like, go out for dinner.”

“I don’t follow,” I answer, still hunched over the little white paper. I’m hoping the ink won’t smudge too much.

“I just figured we’re both not seeing anyone right now, and we… I don’t know. I like you. And we click. I thought we might make a good-”
“I’m sorry,” I say, holding up the napkin drawing so Grace can see it. “Does this make sense? The Committee wants a third restroom on the second floor, and I think this would be the only way to make it work with the plumbing while still maintaining a nice flow through the exhibit spaces.” Grace looks taken aback.

“I mean… it… I don’t see why not.”

“Okay, great.” I let out a sigh of relief and fold the napkin up into the pocket of my coat. “That’s a relief.” We look at each other for a second. “You were saying something about dinner?”
“Never mind, Hal.”

The pain in my back is too bad to sleep again, so I lay on my side. Something’s moving under my skin. I stare at the dozens of scrapped designs which coat my walls, each covered in the Committee’s red scrawls. It’s scratching at me from inside, clawing at my back. I clutch my stomach and close my eyes and all I can see is Chicago burning, the fire hopping the garbage-filled river as my back bursts.

Something climbs over me to get out of bed, and then another something and then two more. The first one, a foot and a half tall, walks calmly towards my desk and I notice the splotchy birthmark on his back. The second, third, and fourth all sport identical birthmarks. They use their hands to wipe my blood and the stretched remnants of my skin off of one another. I’m breathing so hard the bed starts to shake. One of the me-shaped things helps another into my chair and two more lower my drafting table for him. 

I watch for what must be hours as the one in my chair makes broad and then gradually smaller strokes on my blueprint paper—his brothers glance up at the walls and whisper into his ears. I watch as he erases and fixes subtle errors in the design, carefully measuring with my ruler. The blood seeping from the hole in my back soaks through the sheet and I can feel it reaching up my cheek.

I’ve been watching long enough that morning must have come when the me-shaped things finish their design for the Museum of Art. I have a clean view from my bed—it’s inconsistent, derivative and yet uninspired, deeply bland and absolutely perfect.