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Our Lady of the Foundry
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I met my first clone back in 1991. I didn't know it at the time because, of course, she looked just like me. Dressed just like me. Appeared to be an outsider in just the way I did. I wanted to talk to her, I knew she would appreciate the things that had made me like this. I could see it on her, those things had done the same to her. I realise it now, coldly, that I was already attracted to her, and more. The clone was discreetly and distinctly filthy. I knew this without us even speaking. I don't know whom that indictes more, the clones creators for the inflections they provided her, their thoughts as they created her, or me and my male exagerration. She wore tight black trousers the same way I did. Lke bandages wrapped around the leg, holding in the flesh, turning into slight but protective boots somewhere beneath the knee. I looked like Amleth ready for the end, and about as commanding as a stage hand. I was too shy, I didn't speak to her. I daren't even make eye, contact with her. I stared at her body but I couldn't bring myself to look at her face. Which became something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The clones that I encountered along the way were all beautiful and shamefully compelling, and I couldn't find it in myself to talk with them. So I imagined them to be shy like myself, plotting against the rest of you, over time.The longer it continued, somehow the less like them I became. I was aware of knowing that fact, that I'd changed, as if my appearance and my ego were unfamiliar lovers - you've changed became the doleful plea of one to the other. I used to think that human beings could withstand anything - that we adapted to horrific situations relatively quickly, dealt with unhappiness more than happiness - and being so flexible was our saviour, but I realised through experience that in fact I was living out a slow, shocking and absolute change that separated, rather than tore, my insides apart.
And you know what she said to me?
'The waves here are steady.'
As if she were a European, an enigma, a human or even, feminine. Like it were a metaphor, a great, long awaited truth. About myself. In turn, about all of us. And all of us opposed to just her. A fundamental shift in focus, or a glavanising oath. I was stunned. I am stunned. For just these kinds of moments I am a vampire. I've been an liar, a traveller, an actor. I've played along well and what's even rarer these days, I've glimpsed the darkest reaches of my capabilities and not been on drugs. So I followed her like a puppy dog. For days at a time we were together. I guess, being a clone, she was neither pleased nor displeased to have me around, being a robot she had no inclination to do better for herself. She had acquired me, I imagine that if I wandered off she would attempt to acquire another, but until that time arose, she had no desire to seek a better, a fitter, alternative. We slept rough a number of days. She seemed intent on observation. I think, to a large degree, I was her specimen. The clone was very studious. Very secretive. And then I guess she'd had just enough, since we left the city centre and I followed her back to a large warehouse. The foundry.
I asked her why she'd brought me here, and as she told me - 'I thought you'd forget our conversation, so lets not discuss that question'. So, I asked her what she was doing here - 'You know it. We take care of the dead as the living take care of themselves'. I was shocked.
'All of you?'
'Yes all of us, that's what we do. It is our, well, someone's, raison d'etre.'
So if it wasnt enough that I've been tagged and followed by a robot this last week, she's already started displaying enough ennui to spout French by way of explanation. If that was a bad omen, what she said next was far worse.
'I am yours. Although you asked to be cremated, I'd still watch over you.'
The Foundry was out psat the towns, we took a train to the city and as it rattled, whined and cranked itself up and around bends on it's way I was compelled to think about how we must have solved so many over-population, technological and ethical questions.
The Foundy was a few miles away. We took a train from the town into the city and it rattled, whined and cranked itself up and around the many bends on its' journey. Which made me think about how the future was split up, like this; the past and the future, the town where I lived, and the city where I worked. And how one made the other, which made the present into a journey between them. I must have looked nervous, the drone caught my eye.
'I'm in limbo, and it's a little funky', I said.
She nodded as if my response were of a standard type. Then again, she nodded just like I do when I've lost the thread of a conversation. I was beginning to realise that the clones were not perfect replicas of humans. I was beginning to accept the tantalising fact that they were programmed by humans. The first generation let loose with a remit of benevolence. She reminded me of a doodlebug; all that good intentioned research gone horribly awry, and there I was, in rude health, in the presence of a woman apparently destined to look after me from the moment I passed away.
By the time we reached the Foundry my attraction to her had waned. It was a horrible thought but she seemed embarrased by me. At least, uncomfortable in my presence. So much so that she put me in a cloakroom and told me she'd be back. Inside I met David, though his tag said Darren. He was white as a sheet, couldn't string together a sentence and appeared to be attempting a deal with God.
'I thought they only took the dying,' he said to me. 'But they're making all these mistakes.'
He gestured as if I'd seen the mistakes he meant but I could only imagine what else had gone wrong. The clone came back for me that afternoon.
'What is going on?' I asked her, 'what is this man doing here, and what am I doing here?'
'Your name is David, you are dying. When you're dead I will look after you. There is another girl to look after him and from now on, there'll always be girls to look after the dying, we're made to care for the humans.' She said, contracting verbs like she knew language intimately.
'You mean you're forced to do it, or that you're created to care for us?'
'Don't twist my words, you know very well what I mean. The clones are not to harm you, we are created by humans, but despite that we are not to be talked about, because our presence upsets you so much.'
'Why, because your duty is in death?'
'Maybe,' she shrugged. I think my infant speech was stopped right there, as once again a robot faked disinterest in my opinions. I looked at the three of us. Darren, she said. She called my name but both of us called Darren looked at her. The clone quitened, I think there were fans inside her that sang a country E when it was quiet. Now, even they grew silent.
'You know, after years of research we have discovered that the most effective weapon is this one.' She produced something from a desk drawer.
'A plank of wood with a nail in it, brutal but useful.'
She shrugged, and then she hit me with it.
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