Something was off. Heather examined the bones and squeezed the firm but scant flesh surrounding them. She lowered her nose to the open bag and immediately caught a whiff of phytol. She knew she’d been had, and was warned she would be. This was sheep.
Her ex, Randall, was the one who taught her how to spot the difference, the one who introduced her to goat meat in the first place. She’d seen it in passing, downtown mostly, in more than one of the Caribbean-Canadian fusion restaurants that kept popping up. She’d get the curry chicken wrap, the jerk poutine on cheat days, and one of the house fruit drinks; but she’d take a special interest in the orders of the Caribbean people that came in. Or the people she figured were Caribbean. Insight, she’d tell herself, into what was authentic and wasn’t. They’d order oxtail, Randall corrected her when they first met and she pluralized it, get side orders of festival or plantain, and they’d order the curry goat.
She thought about asking the butcher to examine the meat herself before she bought it, like Randall had mentioned, but that seemed excessive. Now, she regretted it. Heather pressed her filmy hands onto the counter and eyed the raw meat like it had done something wrong. She didn’t have enough time to go back and get actual goat meat before her guests, Drs. Sigma and Lloyd, arrived, so she’d have to try her hand at curry mutton and hope for the best.
The facility was a couple of hours out of the city, besides the distance, the space was exactly what Heather needed.
“It used to be some sort of farm,” the realtor told her as the two toured the property. “They converted the main building into a research lab and kept this secondary structure relatively similar to the way they found it, renovating the stalls and updating temperature controls.”
Heather glanced through the window of the airlocked door just off of the main entrance of the holding facility. She found it endearing that they kept the original barn structure up around the renovations inside. It gave the facility character. The biologists that were selling the property were biotechnology specialists and used the secondary space to store their live research subjects. With the intense pushback from activist groups and rights coalitions, most labs had begun keeping sentient subjects in separate, but nearby, spaces.
Heather’s advisor used to have her tend the pigs they used for xenotransplantation in a facility similar to the one she was looking at. She fed them fruits mostly, she’d pile buckets in troughs and watch them attack like they hadn’t eaten earlier that day. Heather knew she’d never feed her own subjects that way. She’d give them some dignity before their untimely deaths. She hated the research at first, the multitude of failed heart and liver transplants she assisted with, but eventually became enamored with live cell and organ extraction and all of the possibilities it warranted. Prolonged life, that’s what intrigued her, prolonged life at cost she could live with.
“Can we go in?” she asked.
The realtor shook their head, “I’m sorry. The area hasn’t been cleared out yet.”
“Would I be able to keep them?” Heather asked the realtor. “Didn’t the owners relocate out of the province or country? My research deals with cell extraction as well, and since I know what they were working on I should be able to absorb their database.”
The realtor paused and searched Heather’s face for an inkling of confirmation or certainty in what she asked for, “So you want to make an offer on the property and their research?”
Heather laughed, “No.”
They both chuckled as Heather clarified, “The property and their research stock.”
The realtor squinted, “I’ll see what I can do.”
She didn’t get all of the livestock, just the juveniles, when she got the property. The previous owners were concerned about transferring them to a new facility and having to cross provincial lines. So she received two test subjects right off the bat, and couldn’t have been more thrilled. Heather’s grant and proposal funds had been sitting in her account for nearly three months before she got the lease. She’d temporarily moved back in with her parents after she and Randall parted ways. He was in his last year of law school and at first Heather thought it was burnout or exhaustion from the program, but she eventually recognised the only thing Randall had grown tired of was them. Heather knew she was neglecting him and the relationship, that her research was the priority and she didn’t hide that. She thought Randall, of all people, would have understood that. He told her he did, and that the problem wasn’t the research, it was her.
“Do you know how selfish you are?” he asked her once.
“Does anyone?” she asked in return.
Heather didn’t realize how much she’d miss their apartment building. The low bass buzzing of dancehall she could feel in her feet and constant smell of spices she’d inquire about from neighbor to neighbor. The crooked panels and slanted floors she and Randall used to conduct marble races on. It started off as a way for her to prove the building wasn’t level, and ended up as another wrenching memory she’d try to forget. The facility, or farm as she began to call it, had a small studio apartment on the second level of the primary building. She was moved in a week after the paperwork was signed. All the pieces were coming together, the last details were Dr. Sigma and Dr. Lloyd, that’s why the dinner had to be flawless.
Heather heard the two speak at a conference while she was completing her grant application. Their microbial extraction methods were more developed in their area of study than anyone else she’d looked into in biotech. Heather’s focus was on molecular biology, and while she had a grasp of the rudimentary, she knew she needed biotechnology experts on her team. Their research aligned and the short initial meeting they had was as cheeky as it was informative. Tonight was the real deal though, the informal offer she would make and acceptance she hoped to agree to. It would happen over dinner, not a catered one, but one that she cooked; because what was more charming than a molecular biologist that could cook? A molecular biologist that could cook Jamaican food, that’s what.
Heather preferred wearing rubber gloves when she seasoned meat. While Randall did it with his bare hands, said he got more of a feel for the meat and that his aunties never used gloves, Heather didn’t like the scent of curry in her nail beds. Or anywhere else. The smell was fine, savory even, but the sunken into her skin wasn’t; sunken past the point of a few handwashes or isopropyl scrubs. She didn’t like the smell being a part of her, not when she was finished using the curry. Heather put on two pairs of gloves, and began seasoning the sheep.
It was bad enough that she had the wrong meat, but she wouldn’t be able to let it season for any time at all. Randall would leave seasoned goat in the fridge for at least a day before cooking it, usually two, but facility prep had kept her neck deep in research and subject prep for the past two days. She wanted the place to be spotless. Drs Sigma and Lloyd were the first, and hopefully, last prospective team members to tour the farm. She’d hired a cleaning service a week prior, but was tidying odds and ends when she should have been prepping her dinner. She wasn’t worried about her research proposal, it was as thorough as she was going to get it, but even a trace of dirt disrupting her bleached lab needed to be scrubbed out. Heather would have to season the sheep and put it directly onto the stove, not knowing how long it would take for the fool’s goat to cook through.
She started with the onions, dicing them into quarters the way Randall’s mother would. Heather wondered if she did that because it was better for the cooking process or if it was to avoid watery eyes. She’d known his mother for two years and in all that time had never seen her shed a tear, in or out of the kitchen. Not at her own brother’s funeral or when she dislocated her shoulder moving the sofa Randall told her he’d move. Heather asked her about the onions once, she told her it was just the way the dish was made.
Heather diced up the potatoes and carrots next, digging her hands deep down between them and the meat to see that they were evenly distributed. She wasn’t sure what she threw in next. A handful of all of the seasonings she stole from Randall when she left. They’d agreed she should be the one to leave Blackcreek since it had been his place before. When Heather got up the morning she planned to move out, he wasn’t there. No note, no text, and no Randall. She wondered if it would be too hard for him, if a small piece of love lingered in the empty space he made sure occupied the apartment that day. She wondered if it would be too hard before she accepted that he just didn’t want to deal with it. Six years and a slow growing disdain would do that to a couple. As Heather got her things together she crept around the apartment like Randall was sleeping, she also wondered when he realized she didn’t love him, that she wasn’t sure if she ever had. The only thing Heather was sure she loved was her research. It would always be the priority, and no part of her regretted that. She did feel bad for Randall, for making him feel second best when he always strived to be sure she never felt that way. It was the nature of what she did, what many people did, and if someone couldn’t understand that it probably wasn’t meant to be.
The curry powder was the last ingredient. She only added a few scotch bonnets with the rest of the seasoning, not knowing everyone’s spice tolerance. She’d add the coconut milk after the meat started to cook down. The smell of curry filled the room and the back of her throat. She longed for memories filled with scents when she learned about Jamaican cooking. Heather would try her hand at any recipe and immerse herself in the kitchen of whoever would allow her in theirs. Sometimes Heather felt more enamored with Randall’s background than she did with him. She wanted to be a part of something like that, a culture so rich that even the generations born outside the country felt as a part of the place as their parents did.
When Heather asked her parents about her background, her father said, “I think we have some British in us.”
Her mother said, “German? No, Norwegian?”
It wasn’t that Heather needed to be associated with her origins to feel whole, but at times it seemed as though all she had was poutine, ketchup chips, and hockey. She knew there had to be more than that in a culture, her observations and time with Randall had proved that. She would indulge in whatever tiny morsels of his culture she could get her hands on. Heather took off the gloves and put the seasoned sheep into a pot with water and left it on high, unable to leave it to simmer on medium the way she was taught to prepare it.
Before leaving the kitchen, Heather was reminded of her three subjects. She wasn’t sure if it was the lingering smell of seasonings or simply being in the kitchen for the first time since morning. Whatever it was, Heather realized that she hadn’t given them a proper meal the entire day, just a bit of granola in the morning. She took pride in her ethical practices, and the fact that they had barely eaten bothered her.
“I’ll give them some of the curry sheep for dinner,” she said. “That’ll be a treat.”
After the previous owners turned down her initial offer, Heather decided to begin engaging in humane extraction protocols. She knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid testing forever. She started taking courses on subject storage and ethics procedures–all of which she soon appreciated, having her counter offer accepted to acquire subjects that had not yet reached maturation. She’d been conducting research for years, and had yet to begin testing live subjects out of the same fear of blowback a range of other researchers encountered. The advancements in live cell extraction were too pronounced for that fear to perpetuate. While in postsecondary, the opportunity for Heather to work with the pigmented species her professor’s had acquired had arisen on a few occasions, but once she had signed off on her own, she saw how quickly her progress grew. Alongside those of the previous owners of the farm, Heather retrieved another subject on her own, totalling three for the duration of her research.
“I’m not hurting them,” Heather told her parents when they came to visit. “They’re well cared for. They were wards of the state so are better off than if they were in some government funded thing, trust me.”
Her parents threw looks at each other as she went on, “This work has so much potential. I’ve already been contacted by two pharma companies and multiple cosmetic science departments, all of them asking for updates on my progress.”
“Did you get funding from those companies?” her mother asked.
Heather nodded, “Every one.”
Her father hesitated, “And they know about these…testing procedures?”
“Oh yeah,” Heather said. “They know I’m following provincial codes.”
“But,” her father said. “It just seems wrong, somehow.”
Heather approached her father, touching his arm as if to comfort him. “I promise dad, everything is legit. They are treated with the utmost care and receive top quality accommodations. The government approved their placement here because the testing is non-invasive.”
Heather looked at the farm, “This work is just the beginning. Think of the people we’ll be able to help? Treatments and products supporting the prolonging of life and health. This could change the world.”
“But what about them?” her mother asked, looking at the subjects.
“They’re a part of something bigger. I know that now, they will one day too,” Heather said. “Let’s go grab some dinner.”
Heather rushed around the facility for the next hour, stirring the sheep, setting the table, wiping down counters, and swapping blazers. Minutes before Drs Sigma and Lloyd were expected, she stood in front of a mirror and straightened her collar. Her shirt was pressed and buttons were together. Everything had amounted to this moment, Heather knew. It wasn’t that she couldn’t reach out to other biotech researchers, but they were the best, and her best chance. Heather didn’t know what everything would have been for if it didn’t work out. The years of study, extensive research, substantial funding applications, and even losing Randall. She adjusted her blazer and looked back at herself in the mirror, wondering when she had become her work; wondering what she would be without it.
There was a knock. Heather made her way to the front and felt the same nerves she did whenever Randall introduced her to a new family member. It wasn’t so much about being accepted, rather impressing people that mattered to Heather. She could live without warm embraces or an invitation for cocktails, but she wanted the people she met to be sure in her competency. To be sure that they knew they were meeting someone that knew what they were talking about. That was the only validation Heather’s pride required, everything else was inconsequential. She pressed her hand to the brass handle, its coolness settled her into the moment, and opened the door.
She expected them to be dressed differently, in research attire maybe. Lab coats and goggles hanging from their pockets. It seemed something another researcher wouldn’t assume, a cliché she should have known better than to adopt. Heather figured it was her nerves. Imagine Goliaths solely as giants. They were both in sweaters and slacks, Dr. Lloyd wore a blue blazer over his ensemble. They were older than Heather expected, both likely pushing fifty. She greeted and invited them inside, offering to take Dr. Lloyd’s blazer before showing them around.
“What an interesting facility,” Dr. Sigma said. “You said the previous owners were researchers as well? What did they study?”
Heather replied, “Gene splicing, mostly on germline cells.”
Dr. Sigma nodded before she said, “That’s great, there’s not enough work being done in that area.”
“Just like ours,” Heather added.
She caught Dr. Sigma throw a glance at Dr. Lloyd, unsure if they were eyes of endearment or a reaction to perceived impertinence.
“Well,” Heather clarified. “Yours. What I’d like to be ours.”
They exchanged smiles and continued on the tour. Heather broke down the basis of her work and how far she’d progressed. She was sure they’d already read the report and knew most of what she was saying, but she filled the quiet spaces with the what and how she’d been focusing on.
“But why?” Dr. Lloyd asked. “Why this particular field of study?”
Heather cleared her throat, “Prolonged life has always been of interes-”
“No no,” he interrupted. “Why? We know all about the mission, but why?”
She stopped to think, having never been asked that before. Heather led them into the kitchen and scooped the curry sheep out into a serving dish. She placed the meat on the pre-set table and joined them.
Heather hesitated before she said, “It’s only fair isn’t it? To offer everyone an equal chance at sustaining and building a longer life for themself. More time to reach our goals, discover our passions, accomplish what fulfills us?”
Dr. Lloyd replied, “It’s a little paradoxical though, no? I mean, we are extracting cells from one being to assist another. Doesn’t that negate your fairness? To take from one to give to another, doesn’t scream equality.”
Heather scrunched her mouth and lowered her eyebrows.
“Leave her alone,” Dr. Sigma said. “There are always going to be ethical concerns with live subjects, Heather. As long as we stay in the boundaries set by our governments, there’s nothing to feel bad about.”
Heather nodded, but Dr. Lloyd’s words continued to ring. She began serving the sheep as the two researchers went on.
“I’m not picking at her,” Dr. Lloyd said. “It’s just important to know why we do the work we do. So when things get tough, or a little sticky, you have a clear sense of the reason you’re doing the work.”
Dr. Sigma rolled her eyes, “And what’s yours?”
“The exploration. Getting to spend my discovering things nobody else has. There’s nothing wrong with your why, Heather. I’m just not sure if I buy the whole ‘making the world a better’ schtick, not in an area where we’re forced to make the tough decisions. So just think on it, be sure you know your why.”
Dr. Sigma changed the topic and asked, “So, what’s this delicious meal?”
“Curry goat,” Heather lied.
“It smells delicious.”
“Thanks, I made it myself,” she replied.
“Oh wow, how’d you learn to make it?”
“Just found a recipe,” Heather heard that lie come out and wasn’t sure why she told it.
The three dug in and Heather watched the two struggle to cut the sheep. She knew right away, but didn’t say anything. She stabbed a boneless piece and placed it on her tongue. The flavours were lacking, they didn’t have enough time to set. She moved the sheep around her mouth and felt it shift from cheek to cheek. Heather bit down on what she already knew was not tender, and struggled to pierce the sheep. She chewed and chewed, and finally broke through the chunk of not well marinated food. It was undercooked and under seasoned; she had botched the entire pot. Heather watched Drs Sigma and Lloyd bite into the sheep and chew profusely.
“This is wonderful,” Dr. Sigma said. “I love the taste.”
“Me too,” Dr. Lloyd agreed. “Is goat a stringier meat?”
“Yeah,” Heather said. “I think so.”
The two tore into the sheep as Heather picked over hers. She supposed it was easier to enjoy something mediocre, at best, when you didn’t know its potential.
“Thank you for dinner,” Dr. Sigma said. “We’d love to see your lab and subjects now.”
The three stood and Heather inched beside Dr. Lloyd.
“You really don’t think what we’re doing is right?” Heather whispered to him before they left the kitchen.
“I think it just is,” he said.
The two shared a strange moment of silence after. One of understanding and emptiness, of truth and disdain. Heather walked to the stove and served out three more plates of curry sheep. She placed them on a tray and told the researchers to follow her. They approached the farm and commented on its quaintness.
“How appropriate,” Dr. Sigma said. “You are farming, in a way.”
Heather forced a smile as the three approached the farm door. She entered the code, the address from her place with Randall, and they walked into the lab and holding facility; the fluorescent lights briefly blinding them. When their eyes settled, Heather walked further in first and saw the children in their favorite places. The older two were watching TV, and the youngest was at the art station.
“Dinner,” Heather called out.
The three children made their way over and she placed the tray on the table.
“It won’t be as good as you’re used to, but I tried.”
Each child took a plate and started eating the sheep. Drs Sigma and Lloyd scanned the facility and began taking notes. They only looked over at the children once or twice. They mostly looked at Heather’s technology, her molecular extraction machines, one hooked up for each subject by their beds.
“How many more of these will you be able to make?” Dr. Lloyd asked.
“As many as needed,” Heather replied and walked over.
“Do you only extract while they’re sleeping?”
“Typically, yes,” Heather explained. “But it’s painless, so we can do it while they are awake too.”
“How much melanocyte can you extract a night?”
Dr. Sigma cut in, “That’s in the report, we can look it over. This is really something you have here, Heather.”
Heather grinned, “Thanks.”
“But you have to change the name of this place,” Dr. Lloyd laughed. “The melanin farm works so much better.”
Heather forced another grin as the two continued examining her work and melanin extracting technology.
“We’d like to stay and watch the procedure when you hook the subjects up for the night, if that’s okay?”
Heather nodded again then turned her back to the researchers. She watched the children chew and chew on the tough sheep and whisper to each other.
“This isn’t goat,” she made out the youngest of them say.
One of the older kids motioned for them to be quiet, so they did. Heather stared at their varying shades of brown skin under the lights as it seemed to glow even brighter than the fluorescents. She looked at them and wondered about the why. If what she was taking from them was not something she could live with. Heather thought of Randall then, of something he said to her one night when she first tried her hand at curry goat.
“You just want our culture, don’t you?” he asked.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because sometimes I think you do.”
Heather heard Randall’s question ring through her mind as she thought about her why. She thought about it as the children chewed on the tough sheep, and the researchers prepared to take the melanin that would help prolong the life of everyone else.
Morgan Christie’s work has appeared in Callaloo, Writer’s Digest, New Delta Review, Prairie Fire, Room, Obsidian, and elsewhere. She is the author of five chapbooks and the short story collection These Bodies (Tolsun Books, 2020), which was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in fiction. She is the recipient of the 2022 Arc Poetry Poem of the Year Prize, 2023 Prairie Fire Fiction Prize, 2024 Puerto del Sol Fiction Prize, and the Howling Bird Book Prize (2023).
Punt Volat 