Written by Jess Sutich
Photo: © Depositphotos.com/konstantynov

 

I.

I’ve never been to a therapist before, it’s a nice office. Did you paint those peacocks? Sorry. You’re right. I’m stalling. Okay here it goes. So Harrison, my husband, and I live in Philadelphia which has a real issue with super humans. Oh right, you know. You live here. I feel like some clear legislation regarding super human rights and legality of power usage would be a huge help, but you know…government. So Harrison and I met at a support group for people with powers. He was really pushing to change the group name to People of Power because the acronym would be better, POP as opposed to PWP, and to be honest at the time he seemed like a real jerk. I mean sure, the group has a lousy acronym but is that really the worst of our problems? I pretty much decided that night that I would never be returning to that meeting, but then afterwards everyone went to this Indian place on Chestnut Street and my sister is always giving me a hard time about not giving stuff a chance, so I said yes for once. So I went out with the group. It turned out that Harrison and I had very similar powers and once we got talking he loosened up and stopped sounding like a crazy person and made me laugh. We shared a dosa and it was a really nice time. One thing led to another and eventually we got married.

By day I’m an accountant for a small ad firm and Harrison is a Spanish teacher. By night we fight crime. It’s pretty common in the super human world. PWPs fight perps. I don’t know if it started when super humans were truly at the edge of society and feared by regulars or it’s because we believed in comic books and movies as much as anyone else. Who doesn’t want to feel like they were singled out because of some higher plan, right? Anyway, I know you want to ask so here’s the answer. And yes, when you meet a super human, it is considered rude to ask them what their power is, but at the same time, I get it. I always want to ask too. We’re growers, not showers. Pause for laughs. I mean, that’s our power. Harrison can double in size to become twice as strong and twice as big. Kind of like the Hulk, minus the rage and the green. I split in two. But that’s the thing. I mean this is exactly the issue. Not two identical sized versions of myself. I split into two and one is the size of me and the second me is about fifty per cent the size of me. So my power is becoming one and a half versions of me.

I earn more than Harrison, you know? I make more money as an accountant and he’s cool with that. So I should be cool with this, right? But even the job. He sometimes refers to being a teacher as “his other super power.” It should be charming but you know, damn it. Accounting is so boring and when I found out I was a super human it was kind of awesome. I didn’t question my power that deeply. It was just something I could do that other people couldn’t. But now? Now it just feels so dumb. Why not two full-sized humans? Would that be so hard? We could do all of these twins tricks. We could fight crime by tricking criminals and maybe doing mirror stuff? I don’t know. I yelled at my half-me the other day for being too small and it felt really weird. She wouldn’t join back in with me for the whole day after. I get it. I was a real jerk. I’m losing Harrison and I’m losing half-me. We were fighting this car thief and we’re chasing him, and I did my thing and he laughed when he saw it. That’s how we caught him. Why can’t I just be happy that we won, you know? My hour is up? Okay. I bet half me would be great with kids. But what if the kids have something even dumber, like they can make their hair shorter or longer at will. I just wish I had Harrison’s outlook. That big dumb guy probably thinks knowing Spanish is a power.

 

II.

Dear Dr. Pinbacher,

I am contacting you to express concern regarding my cloning experience with Clonaid Human Cloning Services. I understand that I signed a release form indicating that I was aware of the risks however, most of the risks seemed to to revolve around the rate of growth of my human clone. I have been quite happy with that. My human clone has reached my current age quite nicely using the Clonaid Human Growth Acceleration SerumTM included in my cloning package. We now seem to show all outward signs of being completely in sync in regards to aging. My issue comes down to the size of my clone. Not to put too fine a point on it, but she is only half my size.  It has caused some distress for both of us.

My clone, who named herself Joan, feels doubly alienated. First, as a clone with unclear rights as outlined in the current laws of our society, and second as a freakishly miniature person who draws unwanted attention and finger-pointing every time she goes out. My distress is that I had hoped that this would be a really great way to have a threesome with my husband without feeling like I was being cheated on and now, quite frankly he is not interested at all. He says, “her tiny fingers gross him out.” This is not making Joan feel any more secure.

I am wondering if there is any recourse for action. Can we use the Clonaid Human Growth Acceleration DrugTM to make her “regular” sized without causing her to advance in age? This would be ideal as it would allow Joan to feel more as though she is a part of normal society and can live her life, find happiness, gain employment, and possibly love. For my husband and I, it would possibly allow us to have that threesome experience that I mentioned above.

 

Sincerely,

Linda Johnson and Joan

 

III.

Worried about the end of the world? Who isn’t? Don’t be left without a plan! Oh, you have a plan, you say? Well, any Tom, Dick, or Harrison can dig a bomb shelter, and any Mary, Rachel, or Joan can keep a zombie axe, water bottles, and protein bars in a go-bag, but don’t you want to be different? Set yourself apart? Of course you do!

Welcome to the MULTIVERSE!! What’s the multiverse you say? Why it’s just a little theory that there are a set of infinite or perhaps finite possible universes that comprise the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. That’s right. I’m talking parallel universes bucko, and boy are you in luck. Because now, for a limited time, for just $300, you can purchase a ticket to access the Portal to beautiful and lovely Earth Two! That’s right. Earth Two! And if you act now, you can call it home when Earth One has been ruined by one or all of the following: disease, famine, water shortage, climate change, meteor, earthquake, or zombies! Yes, the zombies could be on their way this very moment! When that happens just pull out your shiny golden J.I.C. ticket to Earth Two and you’ll be on your way!

 

IV.

“Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.”

Sarah placed a worn copy of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” down on her night stand next to her bed and looked across the room where there was another bed. Smaller and yet still incredibly present. Also, incredibly empty. Night after night he came in and chose her. The other wife.

Elder Twill Bloom had been so charismatic when he found Sarah. She and the other giants had been refugees fleeing their ruined Earth. They found themselves in this parallel universe and had been ostracized. They couldn’t find jobs or homes and they were given shoddy thrown together tents out in an encampment area where they would not “stomp around and ruin things.” Sarah had been so lonely. Then she met Twill. He said that he was blind to her size unlike all of the others. He said that he loved her no matter what. She was beautiful to him. He saw her as she had once seen herself. Normal. Feminine. Human sized. He saw her as even prettier than the women in this universe because she was more unique. Twill Bloom said all of the right things and whisked her away from the encampment.

At first when Twill announced that she would be living in the same room as her half-sized doppelganger, named Sarat in this universe, she had felt sorry for her diminutive double. Elder Twill Bloom had called Sarah into his room each night. He had asked Sarah for council when he was worried. He wanted Sarah to help pick a design for their high Tuesday dinner dresses. Sarat glared at her with beady little eyes when Sarah chose a plain long beige material for the dresses, saying smugly, “When one is special, there is no need to dress up like a peacock.” She felt such a fool! They didn’t even know what peacocks were. This damn world where everything is the same except it’s a little bit smaller and they don’t have peacocks! How stupid she was! She burned about it now as she glared at the empty bed. Twill had tricked her! Now he asked Sarat to be with him and she was just a giantess relegated to getting things that were out of reach, lifting big things…she was just a big maid. She missed her Earth where she would never have been lured into a doppelganger cult. Her dreams of having medium-sized babies to equalize this world now just seemed like wispy daydreams.

She pulled her suitcase out from under her bed and began to pack. Sarat padded in on tiny feet, “Where do you think you’re going?”

Sarah hated the pitch of her voice, a helium-affected version of her own voice, “I’m leaving here. I’m tired of being discarded for some half wife!”

“You know that if you go out into the world everyone will just see you as the monster you are!” Now Sarat looked satisfied and triumphant.

“Well, then maybe I’ll just go out and be a monster. It’s better than sitting here alone. Also, these are ugly dresses!”

With that Sarah snapped her suitcase shut, ducked and walked through the door. She called off behind her, “I put all of the food on the really high shelves, good luck!!”

 

V.

Doreen sat at her desk staring at the blank page. She had writer’s block just as her deadline was approaching. Her first book had been a great success. It was about one woman’s quest to find happiness in life without either a husband or a baby. She had hopped on a motorcycle and taken a journey through India and during her travel experience she had learned everything that there was to learn about making yogurt. Cultured had done great. Flew off the shelves. Now her publisher wanted another book and she had nothing. She wrote, “kefir?” in the middle of the page and then scratched it out and put her head down on her desk. The little voice in her head told her that she was a hack. A phony. Everyone was going to find her out.

And then the little voice in her head emerged from the mouth of a little person. A very solid and corporeal half-sized version of herself sitting now in the middle of her desk. “You are a poser. You’ll never amount to anything Doreen!”

“What in the hell are you?” Now Doreen was sure she was cracking up. This was probably because Clark, a writer friend had once convinced her that it was a great idea to do mushrooms at a public zoo in Amsterdam. “I told him that drugs were not my thing.”

“I’m the little voice in your head!” It was gleeful and clapped its hands together. A mocking homunculus sitting now on her very blank pages. “You’re not creative! Yogurt is dumb! Write a book about IBS! Chick lit!!”

“I’m just having some kind of hallucination. You’re not real. My kombucha was probably bad. If I just go to sleep, you’ll be gone in the morning.” She felt queasy.

“Maybe I’m your doppelganger from an alternate universe! Maybe you just developed a super power and now you can split into one and a half people! Maybe cloning is real!! I’m your clone!!”

Doreen had had all of these dreams and now this irritating aberration was yelling it all out to her. It was all too much. She backed away, “No, you aren’t real. You aren’t! You aren’t!!!” She screamed at it now and then something small popped behind her eyeball. An aneurysm that had been sitting in her body in wait all along ruptured in the middle of her screaming and now the world slipped quickly before her eyes as she fell and landed heavily, dead, on the ground next to her sheet of paper that read, “kefir.”

The homunculus then proceeded to gobble her up and grow finally to full-size. It propped it’s feet up on Doreen’s desk and texted Doreen’s agent, “I need two weeks extension. I’ve got a great idea.” At that moment, while she smiled at the agent’s response, without her knowing, another little version of herself leapt from her head and tucked itself into her collar. “Are you sure you can get it done in two weeks?”

 

***

Jess Sutich lives in LA and is working on making the perfect bagel so that she can get dense bread into the people. She knows it will make them happier. She is a writer (Ellen, UCB, various sketch adventures), a storyteller (the Moth et al.), and she does stand-up in LA and NY. You can follow her at @jess_sutich on twitter and other various social media sites.