It was another day. Darrik Oil and Co was running smoothly. Its owner, Mr. Darius Darrik, was none the more pleased. Production was faster than ever, and shareholders were happy. The same could not be said for the workers, but no union ever had a chance while within the grasp of the eagle-eyed Darrik family. Mr. Darrik peered through his window, which was the only bulletproof window he had customized to not have any tint — so the workers would see he was watching them. Just to increase productivity. He craned his neck out to the oil field.
Towering over the prairies, sixteen oil-drillers worked away, moving up and down as they drilled their way into the ground.
Fifteen newly-painted blue oil drillers shined in the evening sunlight, glimmering and reflecting metallic wonder. The sixteenth driller was orange, with painted-on rust. Beyond the oil field, there was a massive expanse of untouched land — bought to prevent eco-protesters and others who had no business sticking their noses in Darius’s oil drilling business.
Legally, there were only ever fifteen drills allowed to be in operation at a time, for environmental reasons. So, in the event that anyone came in with a permit, the rusty drill would pause drilling. This would sustain Darrik Ltd’s official stance: that the old drill was too old to operate, yet too old to remove. The workers knew better than to officially dispute this, and the company’s legal team picked lawyers directly out of Ivy League law programs.
By definition, Mr. Darrik and his company were untouchable. He had friends he had contingency plans for, and enemies he had bribes for. He would wake up every morning at 5 for a gym session, eat breakfast at 6, and be at his office at exactly 7:30 sharp. He’d work until 5. On Saturdays, he’d visit a club to take home a beautiful woman and have her killed the next morning to leave his wife none the wiser. In his line of work, there was no space for someone knowing more than they needed to. That was until he met a dancer named Sarah, who convinced him to let her off with an NDA in exchange for her continued affection.
Sometime in November, Mr. Darrik caught himself feeling lightheaded when he was off with Sarah. The pain in his abdomen first started as a dull ache, then grew to become a searing hot poker of pain. His doctors suggested a liver transplant, and he took it immediately. It helped for a few weeks, but the disease returned faster than he could enjoy his health. Mr. Darrik knew — in his bones, in his gait, and his soul — that he was a dying man.
Image Source: Getty Images
In his office, he leaned back against his chair and looked at his desk, clear except for his stationery and an obligatory photo of his family — PR suggested it for shareholder optics. He knew it was a photograph from a year ago when the entire Darrik family was brought home for Christmas galas and photo ops. In the frame, five faces smiled back at him, wearing red sweaters and dresses. His wife, Elena, wore a velvety red gown and a pendant bearing the company’s logo. He and his three children — Erica, James, and David — wore similarly velvety clothing with the company logo on pendants and tie clips. They were picturesque, almost familiar. The children spent their youths at boarding schools and university before they were to join the company on each of their 24th birthdays. Erica was placed in a minor HR role. James, being the eldest son, immediately joined the board of directors. He was headstrong, yes, but he challenged any authority he saw. Mr. Darrik chuckled, remembering how Erica stormed into his office after she heard the news of his younger brother’s appointment. She calmed down after Mr. Darrik placed her as the company spokesperson.
David, however, never seemed to care about the family, even less for the company. He never spoke unless spoken to. Even in a polished family photograph, his hair still managed to be a wiry curtain over his wide eyes. His posture was trained to be stiff, but he was still soft around the edges. He evaded every single value that was supposed to be etched into him as a Darrik family man and joined his school’s acting troupe.
A rap on the office door pulled him out of his state, and James peeked his head in through the door.
“Got any time?”
Darius’s eyes darted to the clock.
“Until 3:30,” he said, waving his son inside.
“What’s at 3:30?” James quipped.
“A meeting.”
“For…?” James’s eyebrows momentarily shot up to the top of his face.
“Something you do not have to concern yourself with,” Mr. Darrik said sternly.
“Well… there was something we should do about the future of this company.”
“I’m not leaving this position until you are ready to.”
“I’m not saying that I want to take over, I just wanted to sit in with you and learn the ropes.”
Sarah was recently appointed as his personal assistant, and the danger of letting his wife’s favourite child near his mistress sank in instantly. Having James ‘learn the ropes’ lent the possibility of his own loose ends being found. P.R. would be abysmal, and he would have to resign in shame. And have Sarah killed — this time with his wife’s approval. He’d have to spend his last days divorced, alone, and without a job.
“That will not be necessary,” Darius said, clearing his throat.
“But you’re old, Father. Wouldn’t you want me to start applying my training and sit in on a few meetings? Like the one you have at 3:30?”
“Son, you just got out of university. Finish that Master’s degree in business management and then we’ll talk.”
“But I worked so hard to get here and work with you just for—”
Darius was done with this conversation.
“You had everything handed to you on a silver platter. If Erica was your brother, she would have had your job, and you would have had hers. You’re where you are because I put you there. Remember that before you utter your next sentence.”
James paused, shifted something in his mind, then continued.
“But Dad, I can do so much more. There’s this initiative that can really change things for the company. Maybe something renewable could actually shift the public view for the better—”
“I heard the rumours about you trying to shift the consensus to make the company ‘greener’ and I will not stand for it. All you’ll do is make yourself look like a complete pansy to the shareholders. At this stage, I couldn’t possibly leave my empire to you or your brother. I’d put myself in charge if I could. If you have any of that garbage to say, I’d suggest you take it to anyone else.”
“Dad, I—” He opened his mouth, then closed it. He shot out of the office, barely uttering a goodbye.
Image Source: Ava Tsarynnyk
“So you found a way for me to get cured? We should be celebrating, Doctor.” Mr. Darrik walked up to his cupboard and took a bottle of whiskey with two glasses. He watched him adjust his thick glasses and smooth his thin hair back on the reflection of the glass.
“Well, it’s more complicated than curing you.” Darius’s eyebrow quirked up.
Mr. Darrik poured out two glasses, then moved a glass toward him. Dr. Mohan motioned to take it, but Mr. Darrik pulled it away a second later.
“Well, ‘complicated’ is not what I paid 20 million for, Doctor.” Dr. Mohan sat up from his chair. He averted his eyes and fidgeted with the end of his tie.
“Well, our research was absolutely not in vain, I can assure you of that much. It’s just…a different way than you originally intended,” Mr. Darrik moved the glass toward Dr. Mohan.
Dr. Mohan took a tentative sip, then opened his mouth.
“I was raised to believe in the Hindu gods and respect the power that they have. I don’t believe that I am a god. But as a scientist, rather, I work just beyond the confines of what the gods have planned for ordinary humans. With my help, you will be reincarnated anew. Your body will be young, your mind will be fresh, but you’ll still be able to bring over your memories to the next life you have.”
“Sounds perfect. When can we start, Mohan?”
“At any point we want. We’d just need to find a donor willing to give you her baby. It—”
Mr. Darrik sat up in bewilderment.
“A baby?”
“Well, yes. You would have eighteen years of childhood—”
“I’d have to wait eighteen years before I get my company back?”
“—but it would give you a fresh perspective when you come back to the company.”
“Yes, but God knows what my sons would do to the company in eighteen years’ time before I come back.”
“How would it work, Mohan?”
“Well, it wouldn’t work if it was dead. You’d rot inside it forever.”
“We’d need to get a living thing without a heartbeat yet, and then put your soul in it.”
“But…what if you just took someone and stopped their heart for a minute?”
“Well, that would work. But I don’t know if that’s ethical, Mr. Darrik”
A small pause. The two roared in laughter, nearly to the point of tears.
“But then,” Dr. Mohan says, in between residual giggles, “we’d have to find people for it. You’d want the body of someone compatible with you and your legacy.”
Mr. Darrik thought about it for a moment, letting his eyes wander over the room. The clock that showed military time, the family Christmas photo, his penholder, his computer, the family Christmas photo, his keyboard, the family Christmas photo. His eyes kept on drifting to the family Christmas photo, and the gears turned in his head to form a new possibility.
His eyes scanned the portrait again. He avoided him and his wife and looked at his children. His healthy, young adult-aged spawn. Erica, James, and David. Erica — a woman. James – too precious to his wife. David.
“What if I gave you a body to reincarnate into?”
“Scientifically, it would be possible. But there’s a chance you’d have to fight that person’s soul.”
Darius’s eyes passed over the oldest two, then lingered on the youngest.
Small, shy David.
“What if I had a living, teenage body for me to reincarnate into? What if I gave you the body of someone weak?”
“Well then, you shouldn’t have any trouble at all.”
“Good.”
“Darius and David Darrik were allegedly in a car accident. Nothing about the crash itself was made public, but it was confirmed that two were transferred to St. Michael’s Hospital. Darius Darrik died in the hospital, and his will revealed David to be his sole successor. More on that in—”
The news droned on in the background as David Darrik stared at the mirror in front of him. The face he had on was the same, but new to the person inhabiting it. Mr.Darius David Darrik looked at his eyes in the mirror. They were bluer than the ones he used to have, brighter. The wrinkles he was used to seeing were nonexistent. The stubble growing from his face was not grey or white, but brown.
But yet, there always seemed to be someone behind him in the mirror. Right in the workings of his shadow, in the corners of his new eyes. In his fingers that occasionally moved independently of how he wanted them to. In the frown he never remembered putting on his face — plastered on so betrayed, so gruesomely anguished.
A report reads:
“It’s been said that David Darrik ended his life oddly, almost as if he was fighting some invisible figure when he tripped over his penthouse railing.”
Featured Image Source: Ava Tsarynnyk
