Saving the World - Part 3
The Story So Far:
I am returning home from work and encounter disembodied humanoid voices. When I ask them (boldly) to appear in front of me, they do. And I scream.
It was me.
No, no. I mean I was standing here and then I was standing there. And I hadn’t even moved. Which meant there were two of me. Here was me and then another me.
Puzzled, confounded, confused, and all the synonyms lent themselves to immediate reference. But none found their way to provide the adequate and corresponding exercise to the tongue. And that was indeed novel for me.
And then I spoke.
Actually the other me spoke.
“Please don’t freak out. This is the best we can do. You are the only subject we have encountered so far. We can only replicate your DNA.”
DNA? Replicate? I did the puzzled-and-its-synonyms act all over again.
“Yes, your DNA.You see, we don’t have a shape of our own. We utilize the basic building block of any sentient being and construct a parallel model based on that building block – which in your case we analyzed and found it to be De-Oxy Ribo-nucleic Acid or DNA. In fact, we are forced to admit, we are a little surprised and confused.”
I (the real me) realized that keeping my mouth shut was actually working.
So I continued to do that.
“Actually, we did not anticipate to create an identical model. We just assumed that there would be mutations automatically. But, it seems that your building blocks are coded quite specifically. Hence we can retain our mental abilities, but we must conform to whatever physical aspects YOUR building blocks dictate.”
Things were getting clearer. I knew I had to take a stand and I had to do it fast.
“Alright, genetics class over. Could you please go back to being humanoids or whatever it was that you were? I am not exactly comfortable with the status-quo, you know?”
I could see puzzlement on my face – I mean – my clone’s face.
(Yeah, what else do I call that thing??)
“But, I thought you wanted to see what we looked like!”
“Hey, humanoid – or whatever it is that you are – we know one thing for sure. You don’t look like me. You CAN’T look like me. Period. I am me, and I am unique.”
“Interesting. You have an ego!”
“Yeah, I also have a fist. And I also have this sudden itch to punch myself squarely in the face and see myself while I do that. And something tells me you will be an unwilling participant…”
“We detect violence and anger.”
“Yeah. And you’ll detect lots of blood too, if you don’t stop the nonsense. Especially the usage of the first person plural! I mean, I know you are from another planet and all, but I don’t see more than one of you. So, use I, not we!!”
I saw a sly smile on my face.
(To Be Concluded)
Yeah, time to finish it off. Am pretty much sure of what the end should be, but I’m waiting to see if I can think of something better.
And I did want to post this earlier, but chose not to do so. (Sorry Navneet…)
Mumbai 26/11 shook me. Quite badly, I must add…
Peace y’all…
PS: The Pune microsite of Radio Mirchi has launched. I write a li’l more regularly (thanks to a corporate dictat) on that blog of mine. But it’s also a lot more pretentious, truth be told.
Beware! You have been warned! :)
Check it out: http://www.radiomirchi.com