Cloning Myself

I was able to make clones of myself. I made the first clone one evening in my apartment, a version of my apartment at 36 Hicks. We sat in the middle of the couch and watched TV together, leaning against on another (me on the right, he on the left). He got sleepy and fell asleep. I got up and thought about this. “He’s mine. I could do anything I want with him. I didn’t mean sexually, though that’s what a phrase like that would make anyone assume. I meant odd little things like this, just having someone to lean against while watching TV. It’s kind of nice to lean against someone on the couch.” I was talking it out with myself, trying to sift through the complex emotions of what I’d gotten myself into, what I now had to do. Because I couldn’t keep another person permanently—it would be a lifetime of responsibility and trouble. It was time to dissolve this person.

I tried to wake him, but could not, so I got him to sleepily stand and then helped him sink softly to the floor. I myself would not be unwakeable like that, so there was indeed something different about him, some kind of weakness or lack of self-interest. And then I uncreated him, although I did it offscreen, between scenes you could say—perhaps it was too awful for my sleeping mind to imagine in detail.

Next day I was at college. I needed to talk to someone about this ability to clone myself, so I conjured up a clone to be a member of the counseling staff. He met me on the campus grounds and we walked together, me talking and him listening. He looked exactly like me but was wearing different clothes: still, people were looking at us with interest, noticing. He was a kind listener, letting me do all the talking, and he seemed to have no anxiety himself, even though he knew his existence was to be very brief, just these few minutes between my classes. We didn’t have time to solve anything, and I had even less time with him than I had expected, because we were being seen by too many people. There would be questions to answer later—Where’s your twin? Who was the dead-ringer you were talking to? I could not have people learning of my clone-making power. There was something deeply shameful about such a power, though I didn’t know exactly what that shamefulness was. So I unmade my second clone.

Later, I was in a hard programming class and I was feeling worried about my lack of interest in a subject I needed very much to learn. So I got up and left the classroom, as if I needed to use the john. But I went out onto the campus and walked, trying to clear my head, realizing too late that I was walking where anyone in the classroom would be able to see me from the windows. Well, the damage was done. I plugged in my phone’s earphones and began recording a voice memo, talking to myself about my worries, hearing my own voice speaking amplified into my ears. It has been a helpful technique for years (in reality), but this time it wasn’t helping. Some physical activity might do the trick—I would just steal more time from my programming class and do what needed to be done. I went to the gym and was changing into my workout clothes when I realized the person near me, also getting ready to work out, was another clone.

I had conjured this one without realizing it. We saw one another at the same time, and we both realized at once how noticeable we were, how obvious our clone nature was without differing clothes to minimize our sameness. He saw the problem this presented for me and began getting back into his street clothes. I did not have to ask him. Each of these clones had been selfless towards me, without anxiety or concern about themselves.

I was so shaken that I got back into street clothes myself. The clone nodded and uttered a low goodbye and hastened away before anyone could notice our clone nature. I waited half a minute so there would be distance between us, then picked up my shoulder bag and left the gym. But as I walked I realized the clone had taken my shoulder bag, and I now had his—and I had his phone. It was opened to the voice memo app. I now had his thoughts to listen to, his anxieties to know about. Would I invade his privacy and listen to his secrets? What anxieties had this temporary duplicate of me gone walking-and-talking to get relief from?