Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Forty-Six. The Request

Part Forty-Six.  The Request

They think I’m sulking again. 

I know they’ve all told me to stop spying, but seriously it’s the only way I can get any information around here.  I mean, I guess I could try asking, but if they were gonna tell me what they were talking about, they’d probably just talk about it when I was in the room.  And okay, I was kinda sulking before, but that’s not what I’m doing now.  Now I’m just trying to think so I can figure things out.  But it’s not easy.  And I’m getting a little scared, because I think there’s something wrong with me.

I’ve been trying to go talk to my mom for the last few days.  I want to tell her what I’ve been thinking about because maybe she’ll know how to fix it.  I’ve been a little dumb, thinking I know more than she does.  I don’t like it.  But my mom really does know more than me.  And it’s silly that I keep arguing with her even though I know that.  I should just listen.  But at the same time… I wish she’d listen to me a little more.  Even though I’m not that old or that smart or whatever, I gotta have some thoughts she’s never had, right?  But every time I decide to go in to see her, I… well, I chicken out.  I don’t know why.  She never really says anything mean to me.  She doesn’t insult me like she does Dad.  I really have no reason to feel this way.  I guess chickening out is better than starting another fight.  I wish I knew what made me so scared to talk to her, though.  I used to love having conversations with her.  And I probably still would, if we didn’t start arguing every time we started one.  But I’m so tired of fighting with her.  I don’t want to fight with her anymore.  And I wanted to apologise to her after the last one, but I couldn’t.  I got to her chamber, but I couldn’t go in.  I don’t know if there’s something wrong with me, or if I just didn’t want to admit I made something out of nothing.

All right.  I’m gonna do it this time.  I’m gonna go in there, and I’m gonna talk to her, and we’re gonna have a normal conversation.  No fighting, and no arguing.  Just normal old conversations, like we used to have.  Here we go.

“Hi Mom,” I say, coming into her chamber a little.  “Are you busy?”  That sounded good. 

She glances at me, then back at the paper she’s looking at.  “It can wait.”

So I go in and she puts her paper away, and… nothing.  Nothing happens.  Now that I’m here, I can’t think of anything to say.  And I know not to count on Mom to come up with a topic.  Starting conversations is not her thing.

“Uh… what were you doing?” I venture.  Actually, that was a good start.  I expressed interest in what she was working on!  Smart move, me.

“I was drafting,” she tells me, glancing at me again.  “I might have to add an extension to the Botanical Housing Depository.  I want to get started on bioengineering.”

The… what?  Botanical has to do with plants… a house is… where you put stuff… oh, she wants to make the greenhouse bigger.  And she wants to…

“What’s bioengineering?”

“It’s the fabrication of organic life that does not exist, or the deliberate modification of organic life that does exist.”

“So you want to invent some new plants?”

She nods in consideration.  “Basically.”

I wish she’d just say stuff like that, instead of getting all science-y about it.  But I guess if she did it that way, she wouldn’t be my mom.  I don’t want to talk about science though.  I hate talking about science because it’s always her telling me stuff.  We can’t really talk.