Caleb Ospedale; A Modern Frankenstein

Snip snip snip
“Ah! You cut off so much!”

“Don’t worry I know what I’m doin’.”
Snip snip snip
“There you go!” he brushed the white hair over his eye with a plastic comb.
“That’ll cover up your scars, and you're so hot! Not as hot as me of course.”

“Um, hot?”

“It means sexy.”

“S-sexy?? I don’t want to be sexy!!”

“That’s the way of the 21st century kid.”

Caleb was kneeling before a tall mirror in Doctor Spiaggio’s guest room. He stared at himself in the mirror. Mike, the doctor’s nephew, had cut off most of his hair on the left and back, and combed the long hair that remained over the right side of his face; a mimic of Mike’s own hair. He looked at Mike’s reflection. He was squeezing the contents of a neon green bottle into his hand. He rubbed the stuff on both hands and began working on his hair.
“Ehhhh, that’s cold! What is that?” Caleb asked, tuning his head.
“Don’t move!” Mike held Caleb’s head in his hands and turned it towards the mirror, then continued smearing the gel upwards on the back of Caleb’s hair.
“Its hair gel. Makes your hair stand up.”

“Oh.” Caleb grimaced, and waited for Mike to finish.
“There ya go! Whaddaya think?”
Caleb turned his head to see both sides of his hair.
“It’s… really nice…”

“You don’t like it do you?”

“No, no I do! I really like it. Thank you Mike,” said Caleb, quickly standing up to face Mike. He put on his sweetest smile.
“Thank you very much, Michael.”
Mike’s face twitched into a smile, and he turned his face away from the full glow of Caleb’s smile.
“Gah! I told you not to call me that!” he chuckled, hiding his little ego trip.
He paused, then with a roar snatched Caleb by the waist and threw him to his bed. Caleb squealed. He hit the bed with a soft thump. Mike sat at the end of the bed, laughing.
“God you're so light. You're like a girl.”
Caleb quickly sat up from his undignified position.
“Well pardon me for being so feminine,” he said with a sneer. He smoothed his leather vest that Mike had given him. Actually, all of Caleb’s clothes were Mike’s too-small clothes, since Doctor Spiaggio didn’t have any children. And with Mike being what modern teenagers would call ‘emo’, Caleb’s clothes reflected Mike’s tastes.
Caleb absently ran his hand over the inside of his left arm. Mike looked down at it. He cocked his head.
“Hm?” Mike murmured. He grabbed Caleb’s left wrist and turned it over abruptly.
“Hey! What on earth are you doing??” whined Caleb.
Mike stared at the arm. “Who’s Julia?”
Mike let go of his arm, as Caleb tried to yank it back from Mike’s grasp. He quickly put his arm in his lap, and held the scars bearing the name tightly with his other. He bowed his head.
There was a long pause. Then Caleb finally said,
“Unfortunately… I don’t remember.”

“Aww. Why not?”

“I don’t know… I just don’t,” he shrugged sadly. “I feel bad because… well she had to be important in some way.”

“Well it sounds to me like she’s your chick,” said Mike, folding his hands under his head and leaning down onto the bed.
Caleb blinked.
“….pardon?” he asked.

“Hah, I meant your girl. Lady. Whoa-man. Those things with boobs.”
How can he be so rude?? Caleb thought. Mike was staring at him waiting for an answer.
“Y…yes, I do know what a woman is…”

“So?” Mike asked, picking his head up to see Caleb “is that who it is?”

“I told you, I don’t recall.”

“Hmph. Then I’ll help you,” he said, getting up and going towards his laptop.

“And how do you plan to do so?” asked Caleb.
Mike swiped the laptop, and swung it under his arm. He dropped it on the bed, sat down in front of it and booted it up.
“Oh you’re using the in-her-net?”

“It’s internet, asshat.”
Caleb glared at Mike, ignoring the rude comment.
“Okay, so what are you planning to do?”

“I’ll just google ‘who’s your chick quiz’ and see what comes up.”
Caleb had no idea what Mike meant by this, but he sat and watched patiently. When he saw the rainbow title Google, he pointed at it and asked,
“Is this that ‘google’ of which you spoke of?”

“Yup, that’s it. It’s a search engine. Type in anything you want and you get it.”

“…I see…” murmured Caleb, barely grasping the idea. Mike had attempted to explain what the internet and a computer is to him once, but he apparently failed utterly.
Mike typed in ‘who’s your chick quiz’ into the search bar and pressed enter. Then he ran his finger over the mouse pad and clicked the first link that came up.
He picked up the laptop and put it on his lap, then leaned against the bedpost.
“Damn this is uncomfortable…” he murmured. “Ok!! Here we go.”
Mike paused. He scrolled down. Reading as the words went up the page, he snickered.
“Heh this isn’t going to work at all.”

“Why not?” asked Caleb.

“Do you remember that thing I told you about labels? Like emo, punk, prep, you know…”

“Oh, yes, I remember you saying something like that.”

“Well this stuff is based on that. And there weren’t any labels in the 19th century.”

“Yes there were!” argued Caleb.
Mike closed the laptop and set his attention on Caleb.
“Yeah. Like what?”

Caleb paused. “Umm… well…”

“Exactly. All there was was the delicate flowers and the pwnsome kickass girls. And there weren’t a lot of pwnsome kickass girls back then now was there?”

“I don’t really know what you mean…”

“Ehhhhh, you know… the ones that broke the rules and shiz, that were rebellious!!” he accented ‘rebellious’ by shooting his fist in the air.

“Oh. Well, I suppose there were a few, but they would be shunned if they did. In society, not creating a scandal was of highest importance.”

“….You’re talking like an aristocrat.”
Mike’s eyes grew wide.
“Oh my GOD!! You were a aristocrat weren’t you!!! Oh my god oh my god oh my god…Dude. That is SO awesome.”

“Heh, I suppose that’s a possibility… thank you,” Caleb smiled shyly, twiddling his fingers. Mike took notice of his friend’s finger-twiddling.

“Hey. We still don’t know who Julia is.”

“Do you want to ask Doctor or something?? Because I. Don’t. Remem-”
Caleb froze. His eyes grew wide. The last thing he saw before the dark washed over his view was Mike’s worried face.

“Caleb?” he heard him ask.

From the dark, he slowly faded into feeling. He felt himself with his arms around someone, the body slightly shaking. He was sitting on a bed, along with the other person. He was murmuring something, hearing the person sob softly. The features of the room were dark; it was night.
He heard himself say, “It’s ok… it’s going to be alright…”

“No. N-no it’s not, Cale-eb. I-I c-can’t stop-p them. They're go-oing to t-take you aw-w-way and I’ll ne-ever see you again…”
It was a girl’s voice, a sound like music, even through her pitiful sobbing.
He unwrapped his arms and held her face in his hands, turning her shimmering sea-green eyes to his.
Tears left long stains down her porcelain face, and her eyes shined like the sun on water, her thick, red-brown hair pulled back into a braid. He leaned closer to her face. Her crying calmed down a little.

“It’s going to be okay, Julia…” he murmured.
“It’s going to be okay…”

Caleb’s eyes shot open. He was lying on the guest bedroom bed, where he had passed out. He blinked, then touched a hand to his face. It was wet. He sat up, rubbing his face. I was crying, he thought.
“You alright?” said Mike quietly. He was crouched at the side of the bed.

“Yeah…”

“What happened?”

“I saw her.”

“Who?”

Caleb put out his left arm before him, palm up. ‘Julia’ was carved down his arm; they were old scars from over a hundred years past.
“Julia…” he whispered, and a tear dropped onto her name.