Earl is going to work this year

This is a story about a man named Earl. He works at a chemical factory in a small town. <br><br>Earl is a maintenance worker, which means he walks around the factory all day making sure all the big machines and vats are working properly, and he makes sure all the other employees have the tools they need. He keeps the break room stocked with snacks and coffee, and they even gave him a key so he could let himself in before anyone else showed up and turned on the big lights. <br><br>Earl likes being the first one there, and the last one to leave, and he likes that they gave him the key. <br><br>Earl used to have a wife named Doris. She died a couple weeks ago. <br><br>Earl was taking the holiday off, but he stopped by the factory on New Year’s Eve to check the equipment. A lot of times the vats and the big machines would break down in the winter when the weather got colder. <br><br>Earl walked through the whole factory, whistling, making sure everything was running smoothly. <br><br>He stopped to check one of the big machines. He and Doris had gotten married on New Year’s Eve, thirty years ago. He remembered the first time he met her, at the end of the previous year, and how he had known he wanted to marry her on sight. <br><br>That was why he got married on New Year’s Eve, he said. <br><br>When he met Doris and fell in love, she didn’t have any family. Earl’s parents were alive, and they were mad when he told them he planned to get married. Earl ignored them. <br><br>He was hoping Doris would get pregnant right away, but she didn’t. <br><br>You can’t blame a man if he wonders who the father of his wife’s child *really* is. <br><br>Doris got pregnant, and Earl was so happy. He bought her a house, and they moved in together. A few years later she had a baby, and Earl was over the moon. But the baby didn’t look anything like him. It had dark hair, and Doris had dark hair, but Earl had red hair. <br><br>He wondered if Doris had had an affair. <br><br>It didn’t matter, he told himself. He loved his baby boy, even if he wasn’t really his. He named him after himself, and bought him everything he wanted. <br><br>He and Doris were happy. At least, they acted happy. <br><br>Doris died a couple weeks ago, and now Earl was alone. <br><br>He started whistling again, and went over to one of the vats. It looked like it was malfunctioning, so he popped the lid open and peered inside. <br><br>The fluid was moving on it’s own, and it looked thick and syrupy. <br><br>Suddenly, he felt something grab his ankle. <br><br>He looked down just as a hand grasped his ankle and tugged. <br><br>Earl stumbled and fell, but he caught himself before he landed in the vat. <br><br>A head poked out of the vat, grinning at him. <br><br>Earl screamed. <br><br>“Hello, Daddy,” said the man in the vat. “How’s it going?” <br><br>“What the…?”<br><br>“I know you know I’m not really your son,” said the man. “That’s okay. Just because we don’t share blood doesn’t make me less your son. You raised me. You made me what I am today.” <br><br>“What…what are you talking about?” <br><br>“This,” said the man, waving his arm at the vat of fluid. “I’ve been working on this for a while. I think it’s perfect.” <br><br>“What do you mean?” <br><br>“I think you’ll like it,” said the man. “I think you’ll love it. I think you’ll be like me.” <br><br>Earl recoiled. “What are you? What have you done to yourself?” <br><br>“I told you, I’m your son,” said the man. “I’ve been watching you for a while now. I’ve been paying attention to the way you talk, the way you move, the way you think. And I’ve been teaching myself how to do all those things. It was hard. But I wanted to be as much like you as I could. I wanted to be your son.” <br><br>“You’ve been living in my house?” <br><br>“Doris and I work together,” said the man. “We have for a while. She’s been helping me learn more about you, and she’s been teaching me how to do all the things you do. We’ve been living in your house, and we’ve been watching you.” <br><br>Earl remembered Doris was dead. <br><br>“I’ve been living in your house,” said the man. “I’ve been watching you. And I think I’m ready to come out into the light.” <br><br>Suddenly, Earl was flooded with images. He saw a man, living in the walls of his house. He saw a man, following him to work. He saw Doris, talking to a man in his house. He saw what appeared to be an imposter, working the job he usually worked. <br><br>The man in the vat stood up. He was impossibly tall, and his limbs were too long and too spindly to be real. He looked nothing like Earl. He didn’t look like anything, really, except for the fluid in the vat. <br><br>Except for the fluid, Earl realized, the man was almost translucent. <br><br>“I know you’re not really my son,” said the man. “That’s okay. But I want to be your son. I want to be you. I want to live where you live, I want to be what you are, and I want to do what you do. But I’m still going to be a little different.” <br><br>“Come on out, boy,” said Earl. “You can live in my house. You can have my job. You can be me.” <br><br>Earl was very confused. He was disoriented, and he was scared. But something about the man’s demeanor put him at ease. <br><br>The man climbed out of the vat. Earl’s eyes widened as he got a good look at the man’s height and reach. <br><br>“Don’t hurt me,” said Earl. “I’m going to help you.” <br><br>The man smiled. His skin was translucent, but inside his translucent skin it was dark. Not dark like shadow, or dark like dirt. It was *dark*. <br><br>Dark like fluid. <br><br>Dark like the fluid in the vat. <br><br>“I want to hug my Daddy,” said the man. <br><br>“Okay,” said Earl. “I love you.” <br><br>“Do you?” <br><br>“Yes!” <br><br>“Even if I’m not really your son?” <br><br>“Yes,” said Earl. “But you are my boy,” he said. “You’re my son and my boy. And I love you.” <br><br>“Okay,” said the man, and he reached out and wrapped his arms around Earl. <br><br>They hugged for a while. <br><br>And then Earl went home. <br><br>Things might be a little confusing in this story, so let me explain. Earl got married to Doris, and she was soon pregnant. Earl wasn’t the father, but he loved Doris and he never wanted to lose her. <br><br>And he loved his son. Even though it wasn’t his son, he loved him all the same. <br><br>He raised both of them, and he took care of them. <br><br>He never resented them. He even gave his son his own name. <br><br>Earl was a good man, who loved his family and took care of them. <br><br>And one day, they moved into the walls. <br><br>They were still his family, and he took care of them and he fed them and he gave them everything they needed. <br><br>And they lived happily ever after. <br><br>Earl is going to work this year. <br><br>I wonder what he’ll do when he gets there.