If a person's been dead for long enough, you don't need to ask anyone's permission to splice their genes. If you have the right permits you don't even need to notify the government. The rules got awfully vague around genetic evolution and the use of corpses, perhaps if they were a little more enforced I wouldn't have found my grandfather's face staring at me from inside that aquarium.
It seems that only direct kin have to be asked and as my parents are both dead, in the eyes of the law I'm too far removed to count. The people who did this to him didn't look as smug as I thought they would, they just looked worried every time the it turned to face them.
There's nothing quite as disconcerting as expecting a normal eel only to see an old man's face instead.
I wondered if it had his voice, if they'd gone that far or if they stopped at the face and the smile. Even the patterns along its skin looked like his moustache and receding hairline. It caught my eye a few times and winked just like he used to when he snuck me sweets from his jacket pocket.
He wasn't the only one they used either.
There was a tank full of fish that all had the same crooked teeth that matched the photo from the "genetic donor". Further inside there were lobsters whose claws ended in fleshy fingers, complete with nails and light hair on the knuckles.
My grandfather's tank was right at the back next to a wall of black glass simply labelled "Moe". I must have stood and stared at my grandfather for so long it felt comfortable enough to move forward without me even noticing until I caught movement in the corner of my eye and saw thousands of little heads fused together to form a humanoid sponge.
They seemed to scream with every breath.
It seems that only direct kin have to be asked and as my parents are both dead, in the eyes of the law I'm too far removed to count. The people who did this to him didn't look as smug as I thought they would, they just looked worried every time the it turned to face them.
There's nothing quite as disconcerting as expecting a normal eel only to see an old man's face instead.
I wondered if it had his voice, if they'd gone that far or if they stopped at the face and the smile. Even the patterns along its skin looked like his moustache and receding hairline. It caught my eye a few times and winked just like he used to when he snuck me sweets from his jacket pocket.
He wasn't the only one they used either.
There was a tank full of fish that all had the same crooked teeth that matched the photo from the "genetic donor". Further inside there were lobsters whose claws ended in fleshy fingers, complete with nails and light hair on the knuckles.
My grandfather's tank was right at the back next to a wall of black glass simply labelled "Moe". I must have stood and stared at my grandfather for so long it felt comfortable enough to move forward without me even noticing until I caught movement in the corner of my eye and saw thousands of little heads fused together to form a humanoid sponge.
They seemed to scream with every breath.
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