THE PERFECT MAN

I shave in the evening in front of the mirror and tell my beard not to grow. In morning I wake up, smooth as a baby’s butt and I don’t scratch you.

This is the final proof that I am perfect.

And you say something is missing.

Before you I was quarantined. For a long time.

Forty-one days to be exact.

Men wearing lab coats ran tests on me and stared at the foot of my bed. They whispered.
I listened hard and heard them say that it just wasn’t possible, this perfection, that the equipment must be broken. And the one with the beard said that I had to redo the tests.

They suspected that I was listening to them. From then on they only spoke behind the glass wall.

I learned to read lips.

The men in lab coats said that human beings were imperfect by nature; so much perfection couldn’t be good. They had a responsibility, they couldn’t release me back into the world, they had to keep me here. And the one with the beard insisted that I repeat the tests.

They didn’t trust me and they stopped talking behind the glass wall. They moved into the next room to talk. I immediately learned to read their minds.

The men in lab coats were worried that time was running out and their equipment was needed to analyze an alien and a winged unicorn. They had to make a decision. The most logical thing to do was destroy me for the greater good. The world wasn’t ready. The one with the beard had both moral and practical problems; he insisted that they should run the tests again.

My instinct for survival worked perfectly, just like everything else. I called them in by pressing the button at the head of my bed.

They came right away.

I told them that if they released me I would limit myself to finding you, I would stick to you like glue, I would put you on your pedestal and hold you there until my forces drained. I wouldn’t use my powers for evil. I wouldn’t destabilize or change anything.

The man with the bear stopped thinking that he should run the tests again and they all stared at me, just like you’re staring at me right now.

Of course I can read your mind.
In this precise moment you’re thinking that I would tell you anything not to lose you.

Traducción : Brett Lalonde