It's been my entire life. So I finally wrote this.

**It started over there. Way over there. In that corner. I have no exact date for you. I don’t even know how old I am. They know. They know everything about me.** When they came the first time, I was over there, playing in the corner. I was with some sort of doll, brushing long hair. I have no idea how old I was at the time, but I can’t imagine I was more than four years old. We have a term for the “corner” because that is where they found me. Of course, it’s not the corner of *anything*, but rather a sort of glass pod. Really, it’s some sort of... I don’t know, a medical lab, I guess. It’s not a corner, but it *feels* like one. It’s the only place I have ever known. They scared me, the first time they came. Of course they did. No one was supposed to see me. I don’t even think they were supposed to come in until I was older. I don’t think I was “ ripe”. I remember the first time they came because it was so sudden. I have spent so much time in that room I have no perception of time. I can’t tell how long ago anything happened. It’s all jumbled into one continuous inconsequential mess. I don’t think they were supposed to come in until I was older. I think I heard them say at one point that it was a mistake. They didn’t mean to be in there. They were “counting the wrong corner”. Whatever that means. Now I have numbers, names, but I didn’t always. I have figured it out by now. 54 years. 54 years I have spent in this glass room in the middle of nowhere. 54 years they have taken care of me. The first time they came was 50 years ago. I have been in here for 54 years, but I am physically, anatomically only 4 years old. I can’t tell you how it happened, but I have aged only 4 years since they took me. 50 years ago they came and found me with the doll. I had gotten bored, and had strung the doll up to the ceiling and set fire to its hair. I don’t know how it had escaped their notice. I had been gone for days. They were shocked, to say the least. Scared, I should say. They didn’t talk for a bit after that. They just took the doll, swept up the ashes and fluid, and ran away. Leaving me to stew. I didn’t have any toys that night. Nothing at all. So I just sat in the corner of my little room and thought. I couldn’t sleep. And I didn’t have my little doll. I was waiting for them to come back. But I didn’t know that. I didn’t know, since they had never come before. I just waited. No, I prowled. I had never really looked at the room I was in. It was perfect. It was a little girl’s room, without a doubt. Every detail was... perfect. And it was designed for me. I wandered from object to object, turning it over in my mind. I knew something was wrong, and I didn’t know what or how. I think that is the worst feeling. I have known this feeling for years. I still know it. It’s much more subtle now, of course. A sort of itching in my head, like I know something and I just can’t get it right. I think that might be the worst feeling in the world, since I don’t have a reference. Over time I have learned so, so much. I don’t have any exact dates for you. I don’t know how old I am, as I said. I don’t know how old they are. I don’t know when I will die. I don’t really know what I look like. I could sit and watch you forever and know nothing about you. I have always been in this room. I have never seen myself in a mirror. I think that might be the worst feeling, not knowing something basic about yourself. I finally fell asleep that night. It took a while. Not that I knew what “a while” was at the time, but I slept a little bit. I was so tired the next day that I could not even function. When I came to, they were standing there. A man and a woman in their late 20s. They didn’t look at me. They stared at the burned spot on the wall. “What... what did you do to my dolly?” I have trouble remembering my voice at that time. I don’t remember it well. It was very high, very sharp. Very little-girly. I don’t know how well I can represent it in text, but I will try. They turned. They both turned fast, in a sort of shocked motion. And they stared at me. Sort of like they had never seen me before. Then the man sort of... deflated. He let out a deep breath. His shoulders shrugged forward and the skin on his face seemed to fall. The woman kept staring. “You can talk,” she said. I didn’t know she could talk. None of them could talk. They would watch me silently and I would talk and talk and talk, not even to them. Just to somebody. Anybody. “Yes,” I said. The woman looked shocked. The man was still staring at the floor. “You can talk,” she said again. “Yes,” I said again. Then the woman did something that I found very strange. “Have you ever considered the fact that you are not a person?” She spoke like she was reciting something. “What?” I said, sort of stunned. “Have you ever considered the fact that you are not a person?” I’ve spoken to her for years now, so I know how to talk to her, how to get through to her. I have to speak very, very slowly, or she will not understand. I wasn’t able to do that back then, at least, not as well. At the time, I sort of laughed at her. “What do you mean?” I said. I have trouble remembering back to exactly how I sounded. I have trouble remembering back to when they first came. I have trouble remembering back to when I first realized I am not a person. “I mean you are not a person.” “Well,” I said, “what am I then?” And she smiled. I will never forget that smile. I have seen it on her face countless times since. But I will never forget that first time. “You’re my daughter,” she said. Then she smiled. “Okay, mommy,” I answered without thinking. “Is daddy your daddy too?” she said. “Yes!” “Good little girl.” Then she smiled again. I cringe to think about how happy that made me. I cringe to think about much of those first years. I was too happy for too long. I think that’s why I forget so much. I didn’t have incentive to remember. They came in over the next few days. I met daddy after that, and mommy and daddy had another mommy and daddy of their own. Those were much older people, who also watched me silently. But mommy and daddy were nice to me. They would talk to me for hours. Sometimes they would both talk, sometimes separately. They made me learn all sorts of things. Mommy taught me how to make dinner and clean. Daddy taught me how to speak nice and how to play nice. Both of them taught me how to be nice. They would talk about all these nice things and sometimes forget I was even there. I remember one time they were talking about food. Mommy wanted to make chili with beans, but daddy wanted to make chili without. She wanted to add onion, he wanted to add garlic. Of course, I didn’t know what any of these things were, but I was so excited. I bounced up and down. “Ooh, mommy, can we have chili? Ooh, with beans? Ooh, can I help? Pleeease?” “Hehe, we’ll see, baby,” said mommy. “Ooh, daddy, can we have... uh...” “Garlic!” said mommy and daddy. “Can we have garlic!.” “Oh, hell no,” said mommy. Daddy smiled. “Mommy’s a picky eater,” he said. “We’ll just have chili without beans for her.” “Okaaaaay!” Mommy smiled too, and the both of them hugged me. That was a good memory for them. Not so much for me. I have been fed chili, with beans, and with garlic, many times. I don’t like chili at all. Over time, I learned that this wasn’t a house. I have never seen a house. They call the “corner” a house just to make my life more normal, I suppose. It is a facility. I live in a facility. I learned over years and years and years that I am not a little girl. I am a genetically altered clone of some man they used to know. I am made of simple DNA. That’s why I age so slowly, why I never get sick. I am not capable of reproducing. I am a super clone. I wasn’t listening when they told me how they created me. They have never told me, and I doubt they ever will. Why should they? I’m not a person. I’m a clone. For years I kept thinking of myself as a person. Sort of like how I will keep writing “I” instead of “it”. I know exactly what I am. I know I’m not a person. I just sort of... have a hard time thinking that. It

It's been my entire life. So I finally wrote this.

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