The Other Self

They had told him it would be simple. Just like taking a photograph, they said. A copy of his mind that would live on. The doctor had explained it sitting across from him at the metal desk in the white room with the window that looked out over the sea.

“You won’t feel a thing, Mr. Harrington,” the doctor said. “The scan is painless.”

“And afterwards?” he asked.

“Afterwards you go home. Your copy goes to the new system.”

“And I will be in both places.”

The doctor hesitated. “Not exactly. You will still be you. The copy will be… the copy.”

He did not like the way the doctor paused, but he signed the papers. The cancer was in his bones now. The pain was constant and the morphine made him foggy. This way, some version would continue.

They used a large machine that hummed. It was cold in the room. There was a technician who spoke little and typed on a keyboard. When it was done, they helped him dress and called a taxi.

“When will I meet him?” he asked.

“Meet who, Mr. Harrington?”

“The other me.”

“Oh, that’s not advisable,” the doctor said. “Studies show it creates psychological distress for both parties.”

But he had never been one to follow advice. He bribed a technician. He learned the access codes. On Tuesday, when the pain was less, he took a cab to the facility where they kept the new bodies with the copied minds.

His copy sat in a garden. It was strange to see himself from the outside. The copy looked healthier. They had built the new body without the cancer. The copy was reading Turgenev, a book he had always meant to finish.

“Hello,” he said.

The copy looked up. There was recognition and then something like disappointment in the copy’s eyes.

“They said you might come,” the copy said.

They sat together on the bench. It was awkward at first, like meeting a twin he had never known. They talked about the books they had read. They remembered the same childhood dog, the same first kiss under the apple tree with Sarah Winters. The copy knew about the night in Madrid when he had been too afraid to swim in the hotel pool after drinking too much wine. They shared the same memories, the same regrets.

But then the copy spoke of new things. Of how the sunrise looked from this garden, of the nurse with the kind eyes who brought tea in the afternoons, of the taste of strawberries that morning.

“I’ve never liked strawberries,” he said.

“I didn’t either,” said the copy. “But they taste different now.”

They met again the next week, and the week after. Each time, the divergence was greater. The copy was learning French. The copy had made friends with an old professor who lived in the next room. The copy was writing poetry.

“I never wrote poetry,” he said.

“I never had time before,” said the copy.

His own pain was worse now. The doctor said it would not be long. The copy knew this without being told.

On his last visit, it was raining. The copy held an umbrella over both of them as they walked the grounds.

“I’m afraid,” he said. It was the first time he had admitted it to anyone.

The copy nodded. “I know.”

“You’ll continue.”

“Yes.”

“But I won’t be there to see it.”

The copy stopped walking. “No. You won’t.”

He had thought having a copy would be like extending his own life. Now he understood the truth. The copy would live on, would see more sunrises, would finish learning French, would perhaps fall in love again. But he would not experience any of it. The divergence was complete.

“I thought it would be me,” he said. “Both of us, me.”

“I thought so too,” said the copy. “At first.”

They stood under the umbrella in the rain. Two men who had once been the same, now facing different directions. One towards more life, one towards none.

When it was time to leave, the copy embraced him. It was like embracing himself and a stranger at the same time.

“Goodbye,” said the copy.

“Goodbye,” he said.

He rode the cab back to his empty flat. He did not go to the facility again.