Stewart glared ferociously past the brilliant watercolor sky, obscured by a light feathering of brilliant white clouds. He looked past the boats that looked like no more than children's bath toys, bobbing ever so slightly, almost mocking Stewart's weak heart. He did not, however, look past the cerulean ocean upon which the toy boats floated and upon which the watercolor sky was resting. His energy was running low, but he sat staring, silently still and stony-faced, completely unaware of the steaming bowl of curry placed before him by his mother, despite the fact that with every inhalation, it was causing his eyes to produce the saline solution regarded widely as tears. Stewart was too busy replaying that moment in his head. The moment he had been told that he was going to die.Of course, he knew this already. Everyone died sooner or later. It just so happened that Stewart's death was meant to come sooner and until February third at precisely two minutes after four, he had not been aware of it. He was constantly plagued by the memory of that moment.
His health had not seemed poor. He had just been in for a check-up. The doctor whisked his mother away, as he had not wished to alarm the young boy, and told her he wanted to run some tests. The doctor's glacial hands matched his attitude as they brushed across Stewart's skin, and half-heartedly tried to prepare Stewart for the same tests that had gone so smoothly just a few years earlier. The whole process was so cold and detached. Stewart loathed it. He longed for his living room couch, his new cell phone that would keep him in touch with his friends and girlfriend, whom he had met in pure serendipity and a huge bowl of popcorn drenched in fake, mouth-coating, bright yellow butter. He clenched his fists as his body entered the equally cold metal tube. Why did he have to be the test subject? Why was he the only one they had ever seen cursed with what he liked to call “dark matter”. It wasn't fair. His body had decided to take years of evolution, meant to create stronger and healthier human beings, and throw it out the window, creating something in the backbone of his DNA that no doctor or scientist had ever seen in the human genome before.
There was no justice in the world. At least, that is what both Stewart and his mother thought as they drove home that day, past the playground-turned quarry where Stewart had broken his arm as a quirky and energetic seven-year-old. Now he sat stone-cold and broken. His mystery disease only worsened by medications that had acted as catalysts. Stewart felt inhuman. He was a mutation; a firework. He could die at any time, and deeply hurt those who had become close to him, but for the cold, detached doctors and scientists, his death would be a beautiful array of new information to be discovered.
