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It was past five in the morning, and Klaus was awake, sitting on a blue-and-yellow-striped deck chair in the total darkness of the Smith House's backyard, broken only by the shimmering dewdrops, and the dim, distant, and slightly warm light from street lights.
He almost always remained awake late at night where an almost threatening neutrality reigned. He would say that was because he enjoys having a moment of loneliness and silence before the family wakes up, but the truth is that he didn’t do enough activities during the day to be tired at bedtime.
When he felt the kiss of the cold night mist, Klaus wrapped his arms around his legs and leaned back on his knees. He finds himself forgetting that he has a body more often than not. He spent so many years daydreaming, picturing the rush of emotions he would feel the day he would get it back…
But when that day came, it was just like all the others.
A few years had passed since that night when Stan came home from work and casually commented over dinner that the C.I.A. made a new cloning technology using 3D modeling instead of DNA. After months of testing, they managed to prevent their clones from dying after a few days due to premature aging, and now it was totally safe. Klaus had given up a long time ago with cloning; his old body was gone forever, discarding the possibility of getting a DNA sample, so when he heard those words he jumped out of his fishbowl and asked if they finally could put him in a human body, “Yeah, why not…” Stan replied.
And so, Klaus started going to the C.I.A. every day with Stan, working with a 3D artist to recreate virtually every detail of the body that once was his, using photos and his vivid memory, fed with endless years of daydream. It took several months until every detail of Klaus's body was exactly as it was, every freckle, every lighter hair that was tangled between the various shades of orange and red, the scars from his ski injuries, those from fights in bars, even the small mark on his ankle from when a turtle bit him.
When the model was finished, it was printed in organic material; with the detail of making it with a brain compatible with a fish, adapting to the specific situation. The process was over, the minds were changed and after so many years, Klaus returned to who he really was.
He realized that out there, somewhere, the little orange body he had inhabited for so long now belonged to a carefree swimming fish, and was invaded by a bitter, nostalgic shiver. Klaus remembered that the fish was now the pet of Stan's sector in the C.I.A., and everyone was in charge of taking care of it. Not only was that fish very likely to see more interesting things every day than anything he had ever seen in his entire life; he surely received more care, affection and attention than Klaus had ever.
With his eyes closed, he focused on the sound of the wind hitting the leaves of the trees against each other, and he thought they whispered "loser."
He opened his eyes and noticed that the sky was slowly turning white, bright and misty; and decided to go back into the house. For him, gazing at the static whiteness of the sky before dawn began could be depressing, frustrating, and a bit scary, so he preferred to be inside. The interior of the house was still tinged with the cobalt blue of night's darkness, with sparkles of golden shimmer from outside on reflective surfaces, and in fuzzy outlines on the edge of furniture.
Klaus loved that contrast.
As he finished filling a cup of coffee, he wondered if he was going to light the first cigarette of the day; and decided to postpone it. The light began to become more and more prominent in the environment, and he went to the window to observe the sky covered in pastel tones, pink clouds subtly shaded in lavender and furious red flashes approaching from the horizon.
When he felt the warmth of the sun's rays on his face, his eyes closed again. He remembered how much he had missed that sensation while he was in the cold water, and the edge of his relaxed eyelids grew slightly moist.
He spent whole days just watching the bubbles in the fishbowl break as they floated to the surface, moving his fins to make more when they were gone, with his head set on making scenarios of all the things he would do the day he was human again.
And now he was, and he hadn't done any.
Klaus used to think that when he would be human again he would stop feeling lonely, but he didn't, he even felt lonelier than before.
He was too proud to admit it, but sometimes he missed the ethereal sensation of swimming in cool water.