Rachel in Love
By Pat Murphy
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Rachel has the mind of a teenage girl, but the body and the innocent heart of a young chimp. Sometimes when she looks at her gnarled brown fingers, they seem alien, wrong, out of place. She remembers having small, pale, delicate hands with painted fingernails. Memories lie upon memories, layers upon layers, like the sedimentary rocks of the desert buttes.
Aaron Jacobs, the man Rachel calls father, was a neurologist who discovered how to capture the electrical pattern of a living brain’s thoughts and memories. When his daughter died unexpectedly, the grieving father imposed the electrical pattern of the girl’s brain on a young chimp, creating Rachel, a chimp he recognizes as his daughter.
Rachel knows that she is a real girl – but when Aaron Jacobs dies, she must make her way in a world that treats her as nothing but an animal.
Pat Murphy
Eugene R. "Pat" Murphy is the executive director of The Community Solution. He co-wrote and co-produced the award-winning documentary The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, has initiated four major Peak Oil conferences and has given numerous presentations and workshops on the subject. He has extensive construction experience and developed low energy buildings during the nation's first oil crisis.
Read more from Pat Murphy
The Falling Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alien Sex: 19 Tales by the Masters of Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoints of Departure: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City, Not Long After Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shadow Hunter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Women Up to No Good: A Collection of Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Cartographic Analysis of the Dream State Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exploding, Like Fireworks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Rachel in Love
Related ebooks
Nothing Sacred Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sacrilege Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fardwor, Russia!: A Fantastical Tale of Life Under Putin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Root of Everything & Lightning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hive Queen: The Bond Trilogy, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShadow Swarm Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5White Fang Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sideshow: A Novelette Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShadowbaby Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn My Daddy's Belly: The story of a Transgender Dad giving Birth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Malignant Dead Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Farris Channel: Sime~Gen, Book Twelve Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Family Resemblances: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCentaur, The Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIntegrity, 130,000 BC: The Cerutti Mastodon Site Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings7 best short stories by Louisa May Alcott Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShades And Shadows Collection: The Complete Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHalf the Day Is Night Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Of Civilized, Saved and Savages: Coronam Book II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnder The Gaze of Ganesh Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5All True Not a Lie in It: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chimerascope: Short Story Collections, #2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fighter In the Sands Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Monument Maker Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnvil of Stars Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Six Impossible Things Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Emperors Knife : Tower and Knife 2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Guys Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for Rachel in Love
7 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Rachel in Love - Pat Murphy
Rachel in Love
By Pat Murphy
Copyright 2012 by Pat Murphy
Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Also by Pat Murphy and Untreed Reads Publishing
A Cartographic Analysis of the Dream State
Bones
Exploding, Like Fireworks
Love and Sex Among the Invertebrates
http://www.untreedreads.com
Rachel in Love
By Pat Murphy
It is a Sunday morning in summer and a small brown chimpanzee named Rachel sits on the living room floor of a remote ranch house on the edge of the Painted Desert. She is watching a Tarzan movie on television. Her hairy arms are wrapped around her knees and she rocks back and forth with suppressed excitement. She knows that her father would say that she’s too old for such childish amusements—but since Aaron is still sleeping, he can’t chastise her.
On the television, Tarzan has been trapped in a bamboo cage by a band of wicked Pygmies. Rachel is afraid that he won’t escape in time to save Jane from the ivory smugglers who hold her captive. The movie cuts to Jane, who is tied up in the back of a Jeep, and Rachel whimpers softly to herself. She knows better than to howl: she peeked into her father’s bedroom earlier, and he was still in bed. Aaron doesn’t like her to howl when he is sleeping.
When the movie breaks for a commercial, Rachel goes to her father’s room. She is ready for breakfast and she wants him to get up. She tiptoes to the bed to see if he is awake.
His eyes are open and he is staring at nothing. His face is pale and his lips are a purplish color. Dr. Aaron Jacobs, the man Rachel calls father, is not asleep. He is dead, having died in the night of a heart attack.
When Rachel shakes him, his head rocks back and forth in time with her shaking, but his eyes do not blink and he does not breathe. She places his hand on her head, nudging him so that he will waken and stroke her. He does not move. When she leans toward him, his hand falls limply to dangle over the edge of the bed.
In the breeze from the open bedroom window, the fine wisps of gray hair that he had carefully combed over his bald spot each morning shift and flutter, exposing the naked scalp. In the other room, elephants trumpet as they stampede across the jungle to rescue Tarzan. Rachel whimpers softly, but her father does not move.
Rachel backs away from her father’s body. In the living room, Tarzan is swinging across the jungle on vines, going to