What To Do About Tommy-Two
A Very Short Story
Sophie and I had Tommy-One the old-fashioned way which I know is unusual and dangerous and something only ignorant people do nowadays — not to mention being illegal like most everything else around here — but the fact is Sophie is so big on getting back to nature she actually has a real living bonsai tree growing in our rec room.
In any case — as I was saying — Tommy-One is a completely natural-born human being.
Tommy-Two on the other hand is a duplicant.
Now I’m sure you know already — unless of course you just got here from some other planet — that cloning people is illegal like most everything else nowadays — unless of course you want to make a replacement body for somebody that will soon be dead or for somebody that’s already dead because of some accident or something.
In any case — whoever came up with the one-mind-one-body rule must have had their one head up their one ass because Tommy-Two’s mind is just as different from Tommy-One’s mind as my mind is from yours.
What I mean is that from the moment he opened his beautiful eyes Tommy-Two was one of a kind like everybody else because everybody has always known that no two people see the world exactly the same way — and even the same person doesn’t see the world the same way from moment to moment. So someone who opens their eyes is not the same as the one who closed them. And even if two people start out with identical memories they will soon understand them in different ways. Everybody thinks you can’t change the past but if you change the way you understand the past then you’ve changed everything about it that matters.
In any case — the law never made it okay to murder anybody so relax if you’re thinking Sophie will have to make the CHOICE because that’s not where this story is going.
Everybody’s always known that uncertainty is built into the fabric of the universe and that means accidents are bound to happen. Tommy-One’s routine DNA deposit which of course included the epigenetic stuff where his memories are — in other words HIM — got accidentally switched for the deposit of some other kid who died in a rare Inter-Dimensional Transport failure.
IDT is almost as safe as walking nowadays in case you wonder but people taking a walk still fall down every once in a while too if you think about it.
In any case — I’ll spare you the gruesome details. And don’t worry about the kid who got killed because they found his latest DNA deposit eventually and he didn’t lose very much. At least not any more than he would have in a common cryogenic regeneration nap — which as you know — unless of course you just got here from some other planet — nearly everybody has had.
In any case — all I’m saying is we hardly had time to pay attention to one Tommy.
And now we have two.
And regardless of what everybody says — taking the time to pay attention is 99% of love.
Now I don’t know what to do. When I get the time to pay attention to one Tommy I’m afraid the other one’s going to be jealous. And when I try to pay attention to both at once it’s not the same as paying attention to one alone.
In any case — there they go the two of them hand-in-hand to water Sophie’s secret bonsai tree — which as you know I’m sure — unless of course you just got here from some other planet — is illegal too like most everything else around here nowadays.
