Continued The Correspondent
TO: customerservice@
FROM: sybilvanantwerp@
SUBJECT: HERE GOES NOTHING (Attn: Basam)
Hello Basam,
I hope you still work here because I have decided to send in my spit to see what kind of mutt I am.
Please do be sure, once you run it through your machines and get whatever you need, that it’s thrown in the bin.
I hate the thought they would take the DNA of an old woman like myself and God forbid try to clone me.
I wonder, are you a reader? I could never trust a person who wasn’t a reader, though my doctor says I am going to go blind here in the not too distant future, at which point I suppose I will become a nonreader.
Did you read the book Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro?
I am haunted by it. How long should I expect to wait before I am contacted with my results?
Additionally, it’s terribly unfortunate about your home in Syria.
And of course I apologize for the offense I caused when our correspondence began, flippantly referring to your foreignness as being “Indian.” I was worked up and I often find myself behaving with less civility over e-mail, and now as I type this I do feel rather ashamed of that carelessness.
I hope you will forgive me. How old are your children?
I had three children, but I’ve two now, one of whom seems determined to make a life as far from me as possible.
Anyway, they will be the reason for which I’m embarking on this ridiculous venture of DNA testing.
Did I mention to you I’m adopted? Parentage of unknown origin, and now the family decides it wants to know.
Even my grandchildren are heckling me. From which institution did you receive your engineering degree?
Kind regards,
Sybil Van Antwerp