Mr Lim
A standalone sci-fi short story.
The first spring flowers are opening here, so here’s a speculative short featuring some of my favourites. The publication plan for the next couple of months has changed slightly, because the modern fantasy I’m working on, inspired by Scottish folklore, still needs work — it’s now turned into what will probably be a three-parter. Look out for the first instalment in your inboxes in a couple of weeks’ time! Meantime, enjoy this one!
Mr Lim turned off the sound on the TV and shuffled over to the tall bay window, where rain lay like spit on the panes. Across the road, the decaying red sandstone was sodden, the colour muted. Down the road, he could just make out the purple and gold blur of the crocuses in Alexandra Park. His hands were trembling.
Mrs Lim came in with their morning tea. He heard the pause of her slippers at the sitting room door, then the clink of the mugs as she set them down on the coffee table. He knew without looking that one of the mugs showed King William’s face as a smiling young man, and the other Queen Catherine’s. Tina had given them that set for their fifteenth anniversary.
“John, what’s happened?”
The anxiety poked through her voice like a bone through skin. Mr Lim sensed the shift of her body as she turned to look at the screen, and he turned to face her, still trembling. She stepped over to hold him. He smelt the lilac of her perfume and felt the soft scratchiness of her cardigan, and wondered fleetingly whether this was how a child felt hugging its mother. Eva was taller than him, and he remembered how proud he had been that such a beautiful woman was willing to be with a short man like him.
“Pyongyang’s fallen,” he said. “They’ve found him.”
They sat down close together on the sofa and held hands.
“Are they sure it’s him?” she said.
He nodded at the screen. The news was on a loop.
“Look,” he said.
The picture showed Japanese soldiers carrying a stretcher out from a dark corridor. The body looked thinner than they expected, the greying hair unkempt. The soldiers passed, and the footage went back to the storming of the compound.
“He’s dead,” she said.
“He would never let them capture him alive,” he said.
KIM JONG-UN FOUND DEAD, SUICIDE SUSPECTED, the ticker-tape headline read. PYONGYANG 80% UNDER ALLIED CONTROL, FIGHTING CONTINUES IN NORTH.
“Are they sure it’s him?” she asked. “He looks… younger, a bit?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
They sat for a long time, holding each other, staring at the screen, knowing without having to hear it what the news anchors were saying. The end was in sight.
“Should we tell the children?” asked Mrs Lim later that day. He was helping her peel potatoes.
Mr Lim shook his head.
“No, it’s not safe yet. It may never be safe.”
He rinsed the next potato and smelled the cool peppery scent of earth.
“After I’m gone, you can tell them,” he said wryly.
“John!” she said. “Don’t go on like that about being gone, please! You know very well there’s no reason I shouldn’t go before you.”
He shook his head. Then, suddenly, he put down the potato and the vegetable peeler, dried his hands on the towel by the sink, and put his arms round her as she stood by the cooker.
“Eva, I love you,” he said. “Whatever happens. But don’t tell the children until then. Maybe not even then, depends what happens.”
She leaned back against him and felt his cheek rough against hers.
“Oh, I know, darling, I know,” she said. “And I love you. There.” She twisted around and kissed him. “Now finish peeling those potatoes, or we’ll never have dinner ready tonight.”
DNA EVIDENCE CONFIRMS KIM JONG-UN IDENTITY, next day’s headline read.
“Where did they get the DNA from, to check?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Who knows? Hair from the bathtub in his suite in Moscow? Doesn’t matter.”
The sun came out later that morning.
“Let’s go for a walk,” said Mrs Lim. “Go to Celino’s for a coffee. Fresh air’ll do you good.”
He looked out the window, the tenements glowing now in the watery sunshine. He shook his head.
“I’m not.. I don’t want to draw attention to myself just now.”
She sighed.
“You’ll bring more attention to yourself if you hide in the house all the time. Maybe we should go away for a few days?”
“Daniel still has school,” he said. “Anyway, being in a strange place would be worse.”
A great slab of light lay across the carpet. He loved when it did that, the way the shape of the window frame stretched warm, the way it echoed the colours in the Cadell print on the wall, one of Eva's favourites.
He stretched out his hand, marvelling at how thin and papery the skin looked. He remembered the brothers who had died in infancy and childhood, when their hands were still chubby and elastic. There must have been others who never made it to the nursery, the babies too big to be born, or those born missing a heart or a brain or fully developed lungs. Only three of them had made it to high school, at least by his time. There had probably been more since then.
It was, he realised suddenly, almost exactly thirty-three years since he had run away. The path had been sliced with sunshine cutting through the trees, patches of brindled snow lying in the hollows, Lake Geneva glaucous blue below the hill. Getting away from the minders had been almost too easy that day. He had joined the cross-country team at school, partly because he enjoyed it and partly because he was already making his escape plan. The minders had got into the habit of sitting in the village for a smoke, especially on muddy days, while the team went on their training runs. He had faked a stitch in his side, let the others run ahead, then run off the slippery trail, into the dripping trees and away from his destiny. There had been wild crocuses there in the woods, with translucent purple petals, delicate as painted fingernails. He had tried to eat them once, when things got desperate. It was months before he was dumped onto a drizzling beach somewhere in Norfolk, heaving and shivering in the early hours of the morning. He had walked until he found a town, slunk past the chattering cafes and chippies and sunburnt holidaymakers with dripping ice-creams until he found a police station, and claimed asylum. They had taken him to a grey detention centre and debriefed him, then sent him to Glasgow. He’d been surprised at how readily they accepted his story. North Korean refugees weren’t priority, then, though.
Eva was the only one to whom he had ever told the whole truth.
KIM DEEPFAKE SIGN OF DESPERATION, SAY EXPERTS. Mr and Mrs Lim sat tense on the edge of the sofa. “A broadcast on the DPRK’s national news network earlier today shows signs that the country is on the edge of defeat,” the news anchor announced. “The broadcast, which purports to be a live speech from former president Kim Jong-Un, who was found dead in his bunker three days ago, is believed to be a deepfake produced by the country’s propaganda department to boost morale among DPRK troops. Analysis of the footage is ongoing.”
“It’s him,” said Mr Lim.
“Are you sure?” she said. “How can you tell?”
He nodded. “I know. I’m sure that’s him. The real him.”
He leaned his head on his hands. He’d often wondered what had happened to the others. He hoped they hadn’t suffered because of him. He prayed, silently, for any who were still alive.
KIM “CLONE” CLAIMS FALSE, DPRK CLOSE TO SURRENDER. “Leading geneticists have stated that rumours of an advanced human cloning experiment run by Pyongyang, including the existence of clones of former president Kim Jong-Un, are ‘ridiculous’. Let’s go to Iain MacInnes at the Roslin Institute for more details.”
Mr Lim gave a brief and joyless smile.
“Let’s hope they keep thinking it’s ridiculous.”
Mrs Lim squeezed his hand.
“Come on, John,” she said. “It doesn't matter how you came into this world. You're you, and that's all that matters. And even if they find out, they can't blame you. You're not him! Now let’s go to the park and see the flowers.”
Mr Lim got up wearily.
“You know it's not that simple. We've talked about it before. Even if Kim’s guys don’t get me first, they would test me, who knows what. You know. They've never had a real human clone to test, not in this country. And who knows what people would think. The neighbours. People at church...”
He shook his head, then went to the closet in the hall and got out their coats.
“But you're right, I can't stay inside forever. Let's go and look at the crocuses.”
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this story, let me know with a like, comment or share!
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It’s well and truly winter in my part of the world now, so here’s a chilly short story set in Edinburgh. Enjoy!