As I walk through the automatic doors of the pristine white clinic
my eyes are greeted by a spotless interior illuminated by neon blue light
that bleeds out from the edges of the room. There is a waiting room
squared off on a small gray section of carpet, it has chairs hanging
from the ceiling and there are plants spread about. Before I can take a seat
a woman in an all white business suit and blue surgical gloves approaches
from the back of the room. As we begin the process she asks me a number
of questions about customizations I am able to make; Eye color? The same.
Hair? The same. Height? The same. Birth sex? Female. I give them my dna
and blood next, I give them the last part of this me. When we finish the process
I am told ‘It should take about six months sir.’ The words are nails on a
chalkboard as my brain anticipates the wait.

As the six months go by I fall apart as my prison begins to feel more and more
restricting. Locking myself in for weeks at a time, my brain begins to fade
and I start to forget myself when looking in the mirror. I don't know who I see. One day however, I woke up to a phone call. After exactly five months, twenty-three days,
six hours and approximately forty-two minutes a entered the clinic once again.
I was brought to the back as I was before but now to a different room, one of their main manufacturing facilities. The scale alone takes your breath away, a lab the size of a colosseum. As I observe the intricate factory, watching as dna is transferred from
one station to the next, I am interrupted by the same woman I met months ago.
‘They are here to meet you sir.’

For the first time ever I look into the mirror and see myself, though there is no
reflection. Now sitting on a water tower in the summer night air, watching the town
I’ve lived in for the past five years, I talk to her about our life. She doesn't remember
the past six months but she still holds my brain, but she holds it better than I do.
I break down everytime I look at her for too long, she doesn’t say anything because I would never know what to say. I ask her to leave now and blossom into who I always wanted to be. The rest of my night is spent in bottles and ash.
I climb back on to water tower
and watch the town one more time.