Doctor Wilson’s machine…how I believed in the impossible.
I’d first heard about his machine in the newspapers…a three-dimensional technology able to print a person from the past and provide a second chance to resolve regrets. For thirteen years I’d lived in regret of leaving my wife, so I’d booked an appointment hoping to resolve the pain.
When I arrived, we talked a few minutes and then the Doctor said, “Where’s the DNA?”
“Right here,” I said setting a photo and locket of her hair down. “You said you can cure me.”
“Yes…yes…I’ve had plenty of cases like this,” said the Doctor rising from the desk. “Now follow me.”
So I followed him into another room circled by mirrors. In the corner was a spider-shaped apparatus with a silver tray beneath. The Doctor pointed to a red button. “After the glow clears you’ll see the impossible come to life.”
After the Doctor left, I saw the round tray and set my wedding picture there with her locket of hair, and then a golden halo hovered over the plate and a humming sound rang out. Within seconds an oval white light appeared nearby and hardened, as if an egg shell was taking form, and it very well could be a place where something new was born to be mine. An egg of my past reborn. And I saw her appear as she once was in her wedding gown, my vows yet to be broken, my bride to be again, her innocence bare beneath the white dress, breasts smooth as clouds, a burst of blue sky in her eyes, hair long and golden, uncurling a priceless warmth of sun. The woman once my wife stepped toward me, a billion secret thoughts shimmering in those eyes, hidden away invisible as countless stars.
“You’re so beautiful,” I said. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“What’s beauty to you?”
“Can’t you see Illana…I’m sober now and full of regret. That woman…it was a mistake. On the outside she was pretty, but quite a monster inside.”
“You and your obsession with beauty…leaving me for a younger woman. An image of perfection is all you want…it’s all you ever wanted. My beauty is nothing to me. It’s my insides I feel and cherish. It takes the emotions of a man to see beauty, not his eyes. Love and beauty are things no machine can create. You can’t force me to love you again.”
“All I wanted was a second chance.”
“By printing me? Second chances aren’t born by the will of others. What you want to see in me is only something you really want inside yourself. I’m only an object to you, a genie in a bottle.”
“Why this rant, Illana?”
“I studied philosophy and majored in Kant, remember? Or did you forget that too in your self-absorbed ways after the wedding.”
“I made a mistake.”
“Time will never change that. Not even this machine can. You should’ve known better than to run away with that woman. You always had to have the last word.”
“Can’t you forgive me?”
“Here’s to forgiving a man who thinks rain is blemish to a good day.” She said lifting her fingers to her cheeks, long nails drawing marks, red streaks of blood seeping down.   
“Stop that!” I yelled. “You’re hurting yourself…stop-please!”
“What am I to you, but a genie in a bottle?”
“I said stop!”
“At what point does my beauty turn ugly? You see, it’s what’s inside of me you don’t like…something causing me to do this.”
Suddenly the door opened and the doctor entered. I turned to face him. “You…you tricked me!”
“You fooled yourself. A person makes himself a fool, not anyone else.”
“Tricks…tricks…it’s all a bag of tricks!” I said turning to the apparatus clenching my fist wanting to destroy it…yes, how I needed to shatter the machine into tiny pieces-
But the doctor held me back. “She’s only an object to you, only a possession. It was only her beauty you wanted.”
I faced her. “So this is your last word?”
“Not exactly.” She said. “For some people there are second chances.”
Then she unfolded the picture under the apparatus – only my face showing, once innocent and kind. She hit the red switch before I could stop her and the white glow came and I saw my younger flesh take shape...his eyes were marvelous and calm, his body thin and lanky, and he took her hands as she brushed her lips hard into his…the doppelganger of my soul.
“Maybe this time you’ll control yourself,” she said leading my double out the door.
I watched them leave and turned to the Doctor, “You’re right…she never was what I wanted. It was only her beauty…a trophy of the machine. What was inside of her never really crossed my mind.”
 “Ah yes, the insides and outsides to a person are two different things.” Doctor Wilson said. “You’re cured now.”
I slid the payment over and stepped outside his office. The sky was blue and the sun was high. A few rain clouds were rolling in, but I didn’t care, for I no longer saw them as a blemish to the day. I was a new man now, different on the inside than the person I once was…and through the machine I’d learned that.
When the train finally came, I boarded and watched all those beautiful raindrops hit the glass. The woman who sat next to me on the train was pretty, but this time I didn’t want to think or mention that…no, instead I asked how her day was and how she was feeling. It was because of the machine that I knew something more beautiful was lurking inside. On the outside she was perfect, but now I was more interested in what was underneath.  
Doctor Wilson’s machine…
This was a new start for me and one full of second chances.