Making Delilahs
By Megan Sampson
Delilah bray was the love of Elijah Murdoch’s life, it was one of those love at first sight kind of loves you see in sappy romantic movies, and if you had seen them you would have thought they were the stars of such sappy romantic movies. They met in high school across the schoolyard, Delilah with her long wavy golden hair and mesmerizing green eyes had Elijah captivated from first sight.
They never left each other’s sides, they went to university together where Elijah studied science and Delilah music. They eventually married of course. They moved to a small country town, where Delilah taught music and Elijah experimented away in his basement.
So now we skip past the happy humdrum lives they led and get to the part where the story gets interesting.
It was a sunny summers day as Elijah and Delilah were driving to the quant little markets they visited every Sunday, Elijah looked over to his beautiful wife in the passenger seat she looked back at him and smiled, he couldn’t imagine life being any more perfect than it was at that exact moment.
The next few seconds would change Elijah’s life forever, as he looked back at the road ahead a single goat stepped onto the road directly in front of the car in a split second decision Elijah swerved the car. Delilah’s scream and the screeching of the tires and the bah of the goat were the last thing he heard.
Elijah awoke to find himself in a hospital bed, he looked around and called out in confusion “Delilah!” a nurse entered the room, a look on her face that put a knot in Elijah’s stomach she looked at him somberly and reached for his hand, Elijah lay back in his bed and stared at the roof waiting for himself to wake up, this can only be a dream he thought. A doctor entered the room and signaled for the nurse to leave. “Your wife Mr. Murdoch, we did all we could” the doctor paused “I’m terribly sorry”
A few weeks past and Elijah barely left his bed, besides the occasional grilled cheese sandwich he had barely eaten, he hadn’t showered either and had slowly begun to look as though he had spent much of his life living in a cave or on a park bench. He had given up entirely on life, he had no will to live.
In one of his daily staggers to the bathroom, he stubbed his toe on the doorframe, jumping around like a mad man swearing at the doorframe he smacked his head into the towel rack, falling to ground taking the contents of the sink with him. As he lay there on the floor all he could think about was Delilah and how he missed her with every bone in his body, he ached for a chance to spend one more minute with her. As he picked himself up he began to pick up the contents of the sink from the floor, there was Delilah’s hairbrush, in it still strands of her beautiful golden hair. Elijah stared at the brush for a few moments before placing it in the draw and walked to the kitchen, then an idea struck him like a bus, he ran back to the bathroom and swung open the draw, “I will clone her” he whispered “I will clone her!” he then shouted, like a mad scientist on a mission he ran downstairs to basement.
Weeks had past and Elijah emerged from the basement, he showered shaved and cleaned the house from top to bottom in preparation for the return of his Delilah.
He had used the DNA on Delilah’s brush to clone her, he built a large cloning chamber, which looked much like you would picture from a sci-fi movie, it was tall and cylinder shaped, it was hooked up to a large electric cable that ran to test tubes and beakers, and then to a switch. He had worked tirelessly for weeks and finally it was finished.
He nervously flicked the switch and waited a few moments, sparks flew all across the basement and Elijah took a step back, the sparks stopped and Elijah took a step closer to the cloning chamber. He opened the door to the metal chamber and standing there was a sight he thought he would never see again, Delilah. She stared back at him with the mesmerizing green eyes he remembered. Elijah stood in disbelief. He reached out his hand and whispered “Delilah” “why are you wearing that ugly shirt?” replied Delilah 2.0 rather judgmentally.
“my goodness this basement is dusty” Delilah 2.0 continued as she stepped from the cloning chamber, she proceeded up the basement steps, Elijah followed behind, puzzled and concerned.
“Look at this dreary old house, when was the last time you opened a window?” complained Delilah 2.0. “Delilah?” asked Elijah again “do you remember me?”
“No, can’t say I do but I’m sure you’ve looked better” stated Delilah smugly
“I’m your husband, its me Elijah” stated Elijah quite confused.
“That’s all very well and good, are you going to make me lunch now, or are you lazy and homeless looking” Delilah stated looking at Elijah rather disappointed and judgmental.
It was clear that something wasn’t right, this wasn’t Delilah, or it was but a different version of Delilah, a nagging, not so pleasant version of Delilah.
Elijah decided to take Delilah 2.0 to the place he had proposed in an effort to perhaps kick-start her memory and bring back his real Delilah. Elijah had proposed at a look out not too far from where he and Delilah lived.
It didn’t work Delilah 2.0 wasn’t his Delilah, something was missing, he looked at her as she looked out from the edge of the look out. “Do you remember this place?” asked Elijah with a glimmer of hope. “My goodness its much to outdoorsy here look there’s bugs and dirt everywhere, we should move to the suburbs, oh and get a dog not one of those terribly annoying barking ones though, of course you would have to get a better job” it hadn’t worked.
Now weather it was grief, disappointment or a lack of sleep and sanity from his months of work, Elijah new what he had to do, there was only one option now, he walked closer to Delilah 2.0 as she stood at the edge of the look out he closed his eyes tightly and with a bump, back to square one. He missed Delilah but Elijah wasn’t going to settle for a nagging wakadoo second best.
So once again he spent weeks in his basement laboratory, and finally Delilah 2.1 was ready he stood back in anticipation hoping this time he had it right, he opened the cloning chamber and out jumped Delilah 2.1. “Look out” she shouted. “Delilah?” Elijah asked curiously. “Shhh, they might hear you,” whispered Delilah 2.1. “Who?” asked Elijah confused and a little scared. “Them…up there…the aliens” whispered Delilah 2.1 with a crazy look in her eyes and then she ran up the basement stairs looking around paranoid and antsy.
Elijah mumbled to himself “not again” Delilah had always been a sci-fi nut but Delilah 2.1 was clearly a nut times a hundred.
Elijah followed her up the basement stairs and walked into the lounge room to find her ripping the antenna off the television “they think they are so smart but I’ll show them” she stated as she ripped the phone cable from the wall.
Elijah shook his head, he was too exhausted to bother with paranoid Delilah 2.1 and so went to bed hoping she would snap back to normal over night and perhaps get her memory back.
He awoke the next day hoping that Delilah 2.1 was more normal than paranormal. He stepped into the living room to find it covered in tin foil. He could hear a noise coming from outside, he walked onto the front lawn and looked up to see Delilah 2.1 covering the roof of the house in tin foil, while wearing a tin foil hat. “ha ha ha” shouted Delilah, “try and spy on me now”
Once again Elijah knew what he had to do, after a few hours of convincing Delilah 2.1 that there had been an alien sighting near by, a trip to the look out, he closed his eyes again and a bump later he was back to square one once again.
Next came Delilah 2.2 who was emotionally unstable, she burst into tears at the drop of a hat. “Would you like a cup of tea Delilah?” Elijah asked, Delilah would begin to wale and sob, as she looked up with snot and drool covering her face, Elijah couldn’t help but think he had got it wrong again. Once again it was back to the look out.
After that was Delilah 2.3 who seemed more like, well a monkey really, she ransacked the cupboards and sat on the kitchen counter eating cereal from the box, and then the box after that.
Delilah 2.4 and 2.5 again were no more like His Delilah than the others, everything he tried didn’t work, if anything the Delilah clones were becoming more unlike the original the more he made, he was becoming disheartened, and wasn’t feeling like any more trips to the look out.
Elijah was at a loss; he missed Delilah terribly but couldn’t seem to bring her back. Even though they all looked like her none of them were Delilah. He could clone Delilah on the outside but couldn’t clone what really made her Delilah, her soul, her memory, all the things about her that made him love her.
Nothing would bring that back. Elijah realised that she couldn’t be replaced or recreated no matter how hard he tried, it just wasn’t the way nature worked. A clone would never make him as happy as the real Delilah did, and would never truly be the same, it was simple, Delilah’s soul was hers alone and could never be duplicated.
Elijah decided then that he would make no more clones. His life wasn’t ready for the existence of the emotionally unstable and crazy things that would emerge each time from his cloning chamber. So that was it that was the end of it, he finally accepted that there was no bringing her back, she was gone, he had done all he could, Delilah was perfect to him, nothing would compare. There was only one choice now; He knew what he had to do, make a robot wife instead.