Short Story Saturday: Special Guest Author Xanxa Symanah with 'Cloned'

photo of Xanxa Symanah

CLONED

by Xanxa Symanah

I looked around me, wondering what kind of strange place I had ended up in. It appeared to be some sort of canteen or cafeteria. There was a line of people shuffling along, carrying trays, helping themselves from the food counter. At first, I didn't really notice what was odd about them, but then after a few minutes' observance, I realised ...

They were all the same. Exactly the same. Hundreds of them. All elderly men, tall and skeletally thin, wearing bedraggled, dirty grey robes, with long, grey matted hair and beards, their skin having that translucent pallor of those not long for this mortal plane of existence, their pale greyish eyes staring vacantly ahead. They seemed barely aware of each other, let alone of me, this stranger in their midst, female, short, plump, dark-haired and with brown eyes. I watched them a while longer, fascinated yet at the same time feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

Yeh, sure I've seen twins before, when I was at school there were two sets of twins in my year, at first I couldn't tell them apart, but then after a while, I began to notice minute differences between them, then when I got to know their personalities, I realised that they weren't so alike as I'd first thought. But these drab, grey men were all exactly alike. There were no differences visible to my eyes.

I began to ponder, if I could take samples of their DNA, perhaps if I were to grab a strand of the long, straggly grey hair that hung down their backs, would the lab analysis reveal that they were all total carbon copies? Were they born to mothers in the natural way, or were they created in a lab somewhere? Why were they all here in this place?

Something told me that this was a place of detention, an institution of some kind, perhaps a prison or a hospital. So, bearing out that theory, they were here for the purposes of rehabilitation or treatment, possibly both. They did not seem to be violent or disturbed, apathetic is the key word here. No conversation, no animation, just soft, slow, semi-conscious shuffling in their slippered feet, holding their trays, helping themselves to the food at the counter, collecting their plastic cutlery and their condiments from the stand at the end, then going to take their places at the long rows of tables.

Even as they sat down, each one took the next vacant place, filling up the row, then the next, then when that table was full, the next one would be filled. In any canteen or cafeteria that I've ever been in, people don't fill up the spaces in such an ordered way, they usually go and sit with someone they know, or find a vacant table, or politely ask if they could join a group or individual at a table.

The longer I stayed there, the more uncomfortable I felt. Then I wondered, would they notice if I queued up at the counter, helped myself to food, then took the next vacant place in line. I found myself moving, slowly and uncertainly, to the end of the queue, close enough to reach out and touch the long, straggly hair of the man in front of me.

As I got nearer to the food counter, there was a mirror beside the entrance to the kitchens. I found myself looking in the mirror, and to my horror, I could not see myself among the sea of grey haired shuffling clones. My reflection simply was not there!

Panicked, I left my place in the queue and ran, choking on nothing, struggling to breathe in this depressing atmosphere. As I tried to run, I tripped on the unravelling hem of my dirty grey robe, one slippered foot crashing into the other, and sending me tumbling to the floor ...