Hour 18: Lose a lover, win an ex

Dear diary,

She wasn’t smiling. Oh no. Not even a tiny bit.

It had taken me quite a few minutes to get my bearings. I mean, you can imagine how disorientating it feels to split yourself into two. There’s the darkness, the unbearable pain, the double personality. And then the fear. So much fear. No matter how much you may want to die, the fear never seems to recede. And then suddenly you are fine again. Split perfectly, pain is gone, you are as good as new. And you are so relieved! Because you are alive, and isn’t life beautiful?

That’s when I heard her whisper: ‘Welcome back’. And I had grinned with all my heart and soul. It hadn’t even occurred to me that what had just happened may have actually been a bad thing. That I had officially contributed to the creation of more cancer cells. That I had just confirmed that I was a cancer cell, after having promised her that I wasn’t. That the cancer cells around me were cheering and welcoming the new addition. That I should be feeling guilty. That she probably thought the decent thing for me to do would have been to let myself die. No. I hadn’t gotten to all that when I turned to look at her, grin on my face, and met her icy, revolted stare.

It hit me like a punch. With her look reality came crashing down. What had I done? What could I say? My grin melted off my face, washing the happiness away in one fell swoop. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I just hung there, transfixed, staring into the iciness of the one cell that had once been my whole reason to live. And she stared back, coveying more hate in one look that I could’ve ever managed with all the cursing in the world.

Suddenly, I felt something beside me move ever so slightly and Selina shifted her gaze to look behind me. Her face immediately changed, her jaw dropping open in confusion. She stared, and then looked from me to behind my shoulder in quick succession. I felt a new dread overwhelm me as I turned around slowly.

And there it was. There I was? I found myself looking in the face of the brand new cell I had created when I split. Only it was my face. It was my body. It was me. But it couldn’t be. Because I was me. Was I? Were there two of me? Was I me? I wish I hadn’t turned around. This was much, much worse than Selina’s anger. This was like looking in the mirror and losing your identity.

The new me, my alter ego...whatever you want to call it, was grinning, noneplussed. It had shifted slightly to peer curiously at Selena, who was still looking from me, to it, in confusion. And then it spoke, with a clear confident voice, so much like my own. Yet different, as I don’t think I had ever mastered that assertiveness.

‘Hi.’ It said looking straight past me, ‘I’m Cell X’.

Selina’s jaw dropped even further, and a small part of me wondered if a cell's jaw could get dislocated.

‘You must be Selena,’ it continued, ‘I heard a lot about you’.

That did it. You can come into my world, looking like me, sounding like me. But you will NOT come into my world and be more charming than I ever was to Selena.

‘No!’ I shouted before I could stop myself. Both cells turned to stare at me: Selina with her mouth still forming a perfect ‘o’, and the other ‘me’, looking at me with a look so friendly that it made me wonder if I had shouted ‘Welcome’ instead of ‘no’.

‘Of course, I know who you are’ it said. ‘You are X. Thank you so much for bringing me into this world’. And then it proceeded to stare at me with a look of awe and wonder and love, like a lost puppy to its master.

‘I…’ I started. I was thrown. What was happening. ‘I..what...?!’ I fumbled for words, while the other ‘me’ started at me expectantly.

‘No.’ I concluded lamely.

‘No?’ It asked me politely.

‘No.’ I said more confidently. ‘No. I am Cell X.’

‘Of course you are.’ It responded with a warm smile: ‘Me too.’ It chuckled, like this was the most wonderful thing in the world.

‘No.’ I said firmly. ‘I am. Me. This’ I said pointing to myself, ‘is Cell X.’

‘That’ I continued pointing in its direction ‘is…?’

‘Cell X’ the other cell responded promptly.

Oh boy. This was clearly not going to work. I sighed in frustration looking for another angle to make my point. Meanwhile, Selina just continued to stare. As did most of the other cells around us, of course. Nothing better than an audience to witness you trying to prove you are yourself. And all the while, the newborn cell just looked around nonchalantly, like this was the best day of its life. To be fair, it probably was, as it had just been born. 

A passing immune cell broke our stance by carrying-out a routine antigen check. We all promptly pulled out our I.D.s, and tried to put on our best ‘I am a healthy cell' smile. After the first scare, I had grown accustomed to these checks. I wondered how the new cell was faring, and peered in it's direction. I noticed another tumour cell handing the other ‘me’ a freshly-made fake I.D. The new cell took it and handed it out with a charming smile. Was nothing scary to him? Even Selena appeared less in control, and handed the I.D. out with the look of confusion still on her face. Luckily, she was still too stunned to speak, let alone report us to the immune cell. The cell checked all our I.D.s and, finding nothing out of the order, left us to it with a curt nod.

The newborn cell (the 'other me') like the rest of us, started to put its I.D. away. That gave me an idea.

‘Can I see that?’ I asked quickly, pointing to its I.D.

‘Why?’ Said the newborn cell. Its face finally changed from warm to suspicious. That made me strangely satisfied.

‘I just want to see the picture’ I lied. ‘I’ll show you mine if you want?’

That seemed to do the trick. The cell handed me its I.D. and I promptly exchanged it with mine. I pretended to look at the picture, praising the angle of his filopodia, while I quickly scanned the text until I found what I was looking for.

NAME: Cell EX

Oh. Of course. He wasn’t Cell X. He used to be. Hence Cell EX. I was still me! I returned the ID to Cell EX and smiled and nodded politely as it jabbered on about something. But I wasn’t listening. I had turned back to face Selina, who finally seemed to have recovered from the shock and confusion. I knew that because she had started glaring at me again. At least she had figured which one I was.

‘I’m still me’ I whispered to her. I said it with sadness and relief, with a hint of a smile playing on my lips, and a broken heart in my eyes.

‘Do you realise what you’ve done?’ She replied.

There was so much anger and pain in her eyes. How could I have done something like that to her? I met her gaze in silence, lost for words once again.

‘It will be ok’ I whispered eventually, more to myself than to anyone else.

‘No, it won’t.’ She mumbled, desperately.

‘Yes it will.’ I said more firmly, looking up at her. ‘Because I’m still me.’

And even if she didn’t realise it, that made all the difference in the world.

Selina didn’t respond. Her anger seemed to have webbed away to become sorrow. Somehow, that made me feel even worse. She turned away from me and refused to look at me for the remainder of the hour. I let her be. I wasn’t sure I could forgive myself, so didn’t know how she could either.

Here I was, stuck with a cell I had created. Literally. I had destroyed the only cell I had ever cared for. And funnily enough, despite the wonderful charade Cell EX was putting on, I had a strange gut feeling warning me not to trust that bright new little cell. Except I was a cell and didn't have a gut, but it still counts. It felt like a memory from a dream, full of dark thoughts muddled with my own.

When I finally turned to look at Cell EX, I found it staring at me expectantly.

‘Yes.’ I answered automatically. What was the question?

Cell EX looked even more puzzled. I guess ‘yes’ was not the right answer.

‘Sorry, what did you say?’ I asked.

‘I’m hungry’ said Cell EX.

‘Oh. That’s ok.’ I said relieved. ‘Just grab one of the molecules floating by…’ I said gesturing to the nearest blood flow. But the words died on my lips, as there were no molecules.

Our food had disappeared.

Cell X 

Hour 5: Even evil fears

Dear diary,

Today has been a frenzy of scribbling and typing, as all tumor cells attempt to create a credible fake I.D. The air is full of tension and the usual darkness that surrounds us broken by the relentless flashing of photography (don’t ask me how we managed to get cameras down here. You should still be trying to establish how it is that I have a computer with a fully functional internet connection. Just accept that we now also have cameras, and read on). I took advantage of the sudden bursts of light to comb my filopodia (those long things sticking out of my body that make me look like an octopus) for my picture. I thought a fringe would make me look more amiable: after all, if Justin Bieber and those One Direction boys pulled it off, why shouldn’t I? Sadly, it seems I too have become a victim of the ‘please-tell-me-I-don't-look-like-that-in-real-life’ syndrome. Not that it is my fault! The photographer instructed (after an eternity of turning me this way and that, look up and down and at the side at the same time) to say 'cheese' right before he took the shot. As I have never heard of a thing called 'cheese' in my life, what I instead ended up whispering was 'what?!’. I think the result is quite clear in my picture. I hear my syndrome is a very common problem amongst humans, usually striking post-adolescent people who are about to take a formal photo that's meant to last them for the next decade. It is such a big problem that humans have had to make their IDs small enough to fit in a wallet, so that they could be hidden from view. Hence, I have decided that after the inspection my ID will remain hidden deep between my filopodia (and constantly rubbed until my picture fades).

Gosh, the inspection. It’s funny how even the most evil of things have something to fear. And if there is one thing us tumor cells fear, it is the immune system. You see, they are the ones who control what survives and what doesn’t in the human body. I’m guessing it could be compared to the human police force, only the human police is not as harsh: where you get a fine, or a warning, or even prison, we get death. There is no middle ground with the immune system. There is no bluffing, or pleading. They are not there to listen, or to be misguided: they are there to protect the body. And anything that is not meant to be in the body will have to be disposed of. Funnily enough, the immune cells have no eyes. Or ears, or noses for that matter. So how do they know what’s meant to be there and what isn’t? Well, they have a very simple, very ingenious system: they call it the antigen check. Now don’t be alarmed at the world antigen, it’s all actually a very simple principle: each cell, of every living being (human, animal, plant), or even of every non-living thing (dust, dirt) has an antigen (which is basically an I.D. stuck on top of its body like a flag). This antigen will be recognised by the immune system, allowing it to understand if it’s a foreign body (non-self a.k.a. terminate) or if it’s part of the body (self a.k.a. peace and love). For each antigen (ID), the immune system will have a specific soldier at the ready. Surprisingly, the immune system will create all soldiers particular to each antigen before each human is even born: these little immune cells will be at the ready, should you ever come in contact with whichever cell of whichever creature it may be, to protect you. It’s as if your police force had the ID of every person, born or unborn, ready in its files, just in case it ever came across you.

Lucky for me, cancer cells have discovered a way to go around this system: the standard norm states that if it belongs to the body, it gets to stay. Now, unluckily for you humans, us cancer cells are actually created by your bodies. Yes, we are mutated to something that barely resembles a cell. And yes, we are evil (at least most of us are) (not me! Not me!). But we are still technically from the body. Which means that, in most cases, our antigens will be the same to those of the other healthy cells. Hence, the fake I.D.s: if our antigens (I.D.s) state that we are from the body, the immune cells will have to move on. And we could be saved.  

I wish the theory it-self would be enough to keep us calm.  We are a trembling mass as we await the arrival of the immune cells. All seems quieter, or maybe it's just that for once, there is a complete lack of whispering. It's as if even the healthy cells surrounding us are aware that something is about to happen. One more heart-beat and then all goes still: they are coming.

Cell X