I recently attended a writing session, which served as a break from my current project and a chance to just write… here’s one of the outcomes. It’s a weird, dark little tale, but aint it always?
Many years ago, I read a news article about a dentist who intended to clone John Lennon. My first reaction was an inevitable ‘why?’
What did the dentist intend to do with Lennon 2.0? Was he hoping to re-launch the solo career that was tragically cut short in 1980? Would he conspire to clone George, Paul and Ringo and get the band back together? Would their new songs be artificial, same-but-different re-treads of their classics; pandering to our expectations while attempting to trick our senses that the synthetic was authentic?
Or would John Lennon’s clone follow in his creator’s footsteps and become a dentist?
According to the dentist, Lennon’s clone would be his exact duplicate, but this time round he would keep John away from the drugs.
So you could say it would be just like starting over.
I’ve always been a doubting Thomas. Since my teens, I thought it was prudent to always be questioning, always be searching with my magic eye to spot the lie which everyone else was falling for. Not because it made me the cleverest person in the room. Because it was who I was. Programmed by my parents. They never trusted anyone or anything. Life was a trap to be navigated, and if you got caught… well, more fool you.
But then came my time. And I fell willingly.
I can hear them now, telling me how foolish I was, how I should have listened to them… But I’d gone my entire life evading the perils of stupidity and the wreckless, all the while getting older. Avoiding mistakes had kept me alive, but I might as well have been dead. I had nothing. No one. Offered nor accepted. Nothing to show, nothing to say. A blank, useless suit of armour which had never experienced battle.
The notion of clones had always been the filling in pulp sci-fi until it wasn’t. I had lived my life and found myself at a point where my hopes and dreams were still just that, and this lack of fulfilment had begun to eat me alive like an undiagnosed illness. The weight of missed opportunities due to my unavailability had driven me to a dead end.
This was my only chance at redemption. To start again but like the dentist said, avoiding the same mistakes.
My fears would no longer call the shots. I even supposed my plan could turn my life around. In giving to another I would heal myself, make myself anew.
I was determined not to make the same mistakes.
Things would be different. You would be different.
All those experiences that had shaped me would not harm you. When troubles would come I would provide the support I never had, because I would know best. I would know inherently what you needed.
You would be free to know joy. Free to know love and be loved.
Your being would bring a realisation that I never truly understood unconditional love, not until you entered my life. To see me in you, living a life that was never mine would refocus my mind. No longer would I think about my pain, but do all I could to protect you from the unpredictable which would dare to cause you harm.
I was the malfunction and you... perfection. All it took was a sample of my blood.
When you came home from the lab, you were a blank page, but now I suspected the things we shared were always there in our DNA, ingrained in our shared spirit. The shared similarities could not be explained by first-hand experience, because you had none. My childhood was the opposite of yours, yet still, I detected unexplainable patterns of thought and behaviour which mirrored my childhood existence, troubling me that our destiny would be identical.
Try all I might, you would still grow up to be me.
Your insecurities required management, should they grow wild and ruinous.
I tended to you as a delicate orchid, assured you would grow into a strong, happy, contented man, full of empathy and consideration. In return, you would catch me speaking ill of myself when I made a simple mistake, correcting me as a reminder to love myself as much as I loved you.
At bedtime, you would tell me you would miss me, even though we would both be asleep. Can you miss someone in your sleep? You said you couldn’t wait until the morning, til you would see me again.
You were always happy to see me. A look and a smile that was only for me. You liked what I liked. We would sit together on the sofa, your warm hand in mine. Your skin so soft and perfect, unlike my wrinkled hands.
I was told I would not live to see your tenth birthday.
Who would or could care for you as I did? What would become of you without my love and care? What would be the point of it all?
I had to create a distance between us to instil self-reliance and independence. Not because I grew irritable with you, but because life is often loneliness. I was the mother duck nudging you into the cold waters. You had to be strong because nobody else was going to rescue you.
And I hated myself for this because I needed you with me. That’s why I made you. You’ll often hear that there’s a big difference between want and need, and I needed you. You made my life worthwhile. You were the crowning achievement, the one thing I did that meant anything.
I never feared for myself in my final days. All I could focus on was what would become of you until that day I closed my eyes forever.
... and opened them once more to see you; like fading into reality from a vivid dream, struggling to determine the difference.
My eyesight was blurred, but instinctively I recognised your smiling eyes. I knew you, didn’t I? Uncertainty welled into confusion and rattled panic until you spoke.
“I cared for you. I always cared.”
You leaned back, broadly and softly smiling down at me as a proud parent.
My limbs were determined to kick out and reach up for you, swaddled and restricted. And you hushed me, rhythmically hushing until my eyes grew heavy and I drifted off to bliss.
Copyright © 2023 Andrew Wright
(Image courtesy of Bady Abbas)