Much had happened since he was brought to the secret advanced laboratory buried in the side of a mountain. Scientists working in secret and without restraint had poked and prodded and sometimes humiliated him. Government agents, some apparently evil and some apparently good, had questioned him incessantly about his origin. For a long time they were convinced he was an agent of a foreign government. The words "Potential Terrorist" were used to describe him. All he had to answer their accusations with was the truth, although most times offering the truth was not appreciated or accepted by men and women who were so frightened by world events that suspicion had become their dominant instinct.
However, gradually, he navigated through every lie and accusation and arrived at a point where he came to be believed. Even so, he was dismissed as a "freak of nature" by scientific freaks with far less generous natures. Most though proclaimed him a "miracle of science." It was those he eventually called his friends, although even they kept a certain amount of distance away from him.
Being highly intelligent, but unable to leave the secret laboratory, he took online courses offered by major universities in all of the natural sciences. He read voraciously and quickly developed an encyclopedic mind where every fact of science, art and history was just a thought away. Soon, he was writing papers of international importance.
His scientist friends got him a job at the laboratory and a white lab coat of his own to wear. One day, he was allowed to leave the laboratory with a group of them, and they drove to a nearby housing development where they presented him with a slightly used subcompact Korean car, a barely adequate sum of money and a middle-class home that was a moderate fixer-upper, all paid for by a grateful federal government, with the only stipulation being that he sign a waiver saying that he had been at all times properly treated.
He signed.
"Hey, do you guys want to come in and have a soda or something?" the scientific genius who was a sentient bag of sulfuric acid asked his friends.
It had been a long day at the top-secret laboratory in the side of a mountain for all of them, so they politely offered their regrets and left him on his front porch with the key to his fairly new home that would probably need aluminum siding or at the very least a professional paint job soon. He went inside, turned on a few lights, and saw that it was fully furnished with 1970s vintage furniture and wall decor.
"A little dusty, but hey, home is where the heart is," he muttered to himself, altogether unsure if he did in fact have a heart in the traditional sense. "If I don't have a heart, then why am I so sad?"
And so he drove to work each morning with a sandwich and a bottle of milk pure and simple in a large brown bag placed on the passenger seat beside him, and he drove home every night with the empty brown bag ready to be reused the next day. He enjoyed listening to Morning Edition on the radio, even though he preferred the calming voice of Bob Edwards to the seemingly sarcastic voice of Steve Inskeep.
"Bring back Bob Edwards!" he shouted at the radio. Even though he realized it was pointless to shout at the radio, it somehow made him feel as if he was expressing his opinion in a constructive way.
The days and weeks passed, and one night while working late and all alone in his laboratory, winter arrived with a vengeance. He could hear the wind wailing outside, and the clicking of sleet hitting the single window nearby. Realizing with a start that it was late, he went to his desk, took off his white lab coat and put on his warm winter one. As he was about to leave, he saw something on his office desk, brightly colored, with red hearts. He picked it up and read "Will you 'bee' mine?" with a smiling bee on it. It wasn't signed. He looked and saw that all of the desks nearby had the same little card on them with the same sentiment.
"Wasn't that nice?" the scientist who was a sentient bag of sulfuric acid thought as he placed the card in his coat pocket.
He left by the back metal door. The door groaned as he pushed it open, a light automatically switched on, and he turned to look as the door closed automatically behind him and the light automatically switched off.
His car complained loudly about the cold, but begrudgingly started, and as he made his way carefully back home his headlights barely penetrated the ferocity of the storm.
When he got home, he put on his pajamas and his bathrobe and sat at his kitchen table, drank a glass of milk pure and simple and held up the Valentine's Day card someone had given him. As he looked at it, a wave of loneliness passed through him. He had no real friends. Certainly no girlfriend. Being made of pure sulfuric acid, he could never really get close to anyone else. It wasn't his fault, but it was an indisputable fact of his life. This is just how life would be. He could either accept it, or not. It didn't really matter either way. So he drank the rest of his glass of milk pure and simple, left the Valentine's Day card on the table, washed his glass at the sink, turned out the kitchen light and tucked himself into bed.
He was about to drift off to sleep when he thought he heard the doorbell ring. He was sure he had dreamed it and was turning over onto his side when the doorbell rang again, followed by some urgent knocking.
"Who could that be at this hour, and in the middle of a bad winter storm?" he said to himself, getting out of bed and putting on his bathrobe. As he got to his front door, he turned on his porch light and called out "Who is it?"
"It's us!" a girl's voice said. "Let us in!"
He opened the door, and there stood the girl who had created him, and her father and her mother. He was too surprised to react, so he just stood there holding the front door.
"Aren't you going to let us in?" the girl asked. "It's terribly cold out here. We just found out where you live, and we drove all the way from our house through the storm to see you!"
"Oh!" he replied with extreme embarrassment. "I'm so sorry, please come in! All of you! How are you?"
The girl came into the house with a big smile on her face, stomping her feet and shaking off the ice and snow that partially covered her winter coat. She looked over at her mother and father and said, "It's all right! We can show him!"
"Show me what?" he asked.
The father looked at the mother with a smile and said to him, "Wait just a second, OK? We've got to get something out of the car. We'll be right back!" And so the mother and the father hurried back to their car, barely visible forms lost in the storm.
"I'm so glad to see you!" said the man who also a scientist and who just happened to be a sentient bag of sulfuric acid. "All of you!"
"Mother and Father are both really sorry for the way they treated you," the girl said. "They felt really bad. I felt really bad, too."
"Oh, there's nothing at all to feel bad about," the man said. "What brings all of you out here on such a terribly cold night?"
"Doctor Lerner is friends with someone you work with," the girl said. "He felt really bad, too. He called us and told us where you lived, and all four of us grabbed everything and here we are!"
The man who was also a scientist and just happened to be a bag of sulfuric acid smiled, and then asked, "All four of you? Do you mean you brought Doctor Lerner with you?"
"What? No! After you were gone and I got home from the hospital, mother and father and Doctor Lerner watched as I mixed some of this with some of that, and stirred it up really fast with my Barbie doll. The one without a head. I couldn't find my Ken doll. I think he dissolved or something when I made you. Anyway, it bubbled and stuff, and in the morning there she was, sitting on my end table! Mother and Father were really happy! Me, too!"
"There who was?" the man who was a sentient bag of sulfuric acid asked.
"Me," said a woman's voice.
He looked up, and standing between the mother and the father was a six foot tall woman who just happened to be a sentient bag of sulfuric acid.
"Isn't she beautiful?!" the girl asked him.
"Well, uhm, uh, yes! What?" the man sputtered.
The woman smiled at him, and in a deep Lauren Bacall voice asked "Are you going to make us all stay out here in the cold all night, or are you going to invite us in?"
"No! I mean, come in, come in!" he said.
So as the terrible winter storm raged outside, they all went into the warm kitchen and had a long talk. He told them about what had happened to him since the last time they were together, leaving out certain details due to national security reasons. He did, after all, have top secret security clearance, and they did not. He couldn't help but notice that the girl and her parents were rubbing their eyes and trying hard not to yawn.
Of course they would spend the night. It was far too long of a drive, and the storm was absolutely too terrible for them to consider going home at this hour and under these conditions. Plus, it was a big house, and he had bedrooms to spare. After everyone tucked the girl into bed and wished her sweet dreams, the mother and the father both smiled and excused themselves for the night.
Back in the kitchen, the man who was a sentient bag of sulfuric acid talked quietly with the woman who was a sentient bag of sulfuric acid. As they talked about this and about that, without intending to, he picked up the Valentine's Day card he had received earlier that day.
"Is that for me?" the woman asked.
"No," he said. "I mean, yes! It's yours. If you'll have it. Would you take it?"
She looked at him with just a touch of sarcasm in her face and replied, "Well, sure, as long as you don't need it."
"Sorry," he apologized. "I'm sorry. Please, take the card. It's just that it was such a pleasant surprise to meet you, and to see everyone tonight."
She looked at the Valentine and read it aloud, "Will you 'bee' mine?"
"Sure!" he said. And coughed. And looked with severe embarrassment at the kitchen floor.
"That wasn't an offer, big boy," she replied. "At least not tonight. Boy, you move fast and are kind of cute, in a deadly sulfuric acid sort of way."
He lifted his gaze from the floor and said "Oh, where are my manners? Would you like something before we go, I mean, before you go to bed?"
"How about a glass of milk?" she asked.
"Plain and simple," he finished.
"What?" she asked, totally confused.
"Uh, nothing! Nothing at all. One glass of uh, milk, coming up." he stammered.
As they both drank a glass of milk at the kitchen table, she smiled at him and said, "Thank you for the Valentine's Day card."
"Oh, sure!" he smiled back. "Happy Valentine's day."
And it was. For all of them.
The end.
Loved it! You are a very gifted writer, Steve!
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