He had no friends. There had never been a girlfriend. He could never get close enough to make contact with anyone else, so he went on with his life and made it through each day and drank his glass of milk at each day's end and tucked himself into bed.
It's hard to get close to people when you're made of pure sulfuric acid.
Yet, that's what he was. A sentient bag of sulfuric acid in human form. There was no scientist father or mother. No advanced laboratory buried inside of a mountain marking his birthplace. No good or evil government conspiracy. Some kid who didn't know what she was doing with her chemistry set inadvertently caused his creation. She poured some of this into some of that, stirred it vigorously with a headless Ken doll (for some reason she always tore the heads off of her Ken and Barbie dolls), let it bubble overnight, and then when she woke up the next morning he was sitting on the edge of her end table just looking at her. He was about a foot tall at that point. Later on, he grew.
She lifted her head from her pillow, looked over at him and rubbed her eyes. "What are you?" she asked.
"Heck if I know," he said. "You're the one who created me. If I had to guess, I'd guess that I'm a sentient bag of sulfuric acid that's being held together by a totally valid scientific process that modern science has yet to discover that causes me to retain the form of a little man."
She reached out to touch him, but he twisted away.
"Don't touch me! Are you crazy! I'm made of pure sulfuric acid!" he yelled.
"Besides," he said, quietly this time. "I don't like to be touched. Please don't do that again, OK?"
She backed off, looked at him thoughtfully for a moment and answered "OK."
Just then, her mom called her for breakfast, so she dashed down the stairs and told her parents all about her new creation. Her father and mother were seriously concerned. They huddled together and spoke in seriously concerned whispers, looking back at her with occasionally seriously concerned looks. Finally they both turned to look at her.
"Sweetheart," said her father. "Your mother and I are a little bit concerned about what you just told us. Are you sure you didn't just have a dream? You know how your dreams can get pretty scary and pretty realistic at times. We've talked about that before. Your mother says that Doctor Lerner talked to you about that, too, during one of your sessions with him. I think you'd better just go upstairs with me right now, and we'll look in your room to prove that this guy made of sulfuric acid isn't really there. Then we can all sit down and have a nice breakfast together. Does that sound good to you?"
She was pretty confused and unsure at that point. Maybe it was the medication they pumped into her at regular intervals that caused her to see things that weren't really there, although she thought the medication was supposed to stop her from seeing things that weren't really there. It had happened before. That's why she was seeing Doctor Lerner. She liked him. He made funny faces at her sometimes that made her smile.
"OK daddy," she said. "I'm sure you're right. He's not really there, but let's go and look anyway."
So her father held her hand, and together they climbed the stairs and went down the hall and opened the door to her room. It was a bit dark, so her father reached over to switch on her table lamp. As he switched the switch light flooded the room and he suddenly cried out in pain.
"OW!" her father cried out in pain. "Something bit me!"
He rubbed his hand and looked down to see a figure in the shape of a man, but clearly made of sulfuric acid, sitting on the edge of her end table.
"Hi!" said the man made of sulfuric acid, as he proceeded to playfully swing his legs back and forth while sitting on the edge of the table. "Are you OK? You don't want to go around touching sulfuric acid, my friend. You'll get burned. My advice is to please be careful next time, OK?"
Her father put his slightly burned finger in his mouth and muttered something that sounded like, "Mo-ka..."
Just then her mother called from the kitchen below. "Is everything all right up there? I thought I heard someone yell."
Her father took his finger out of his mouth and replied, "Honey, I think you'd better get up here."
He looked at his daughter, and then he looked at the little man made of sulfuric acid, and then he looked back to his daughter. Her mother ran up the stairs and came into her room. Her father directed her attention to the man sitting on the end table. Her eyes opened big and wide.
"Well," the little man made of sulfuric acid said, "Now that we're all introduced, can I join you for breakfast? I don't know about you, but I'm starved!"
To be continued
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