Original (618 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.75 on 18 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by orph (View user info) at 2007-11-06 10:02:37 EST
Edmund was struggling with the concept of originality. Everything he does, or thinks, or sees has already been done or thought or seen countless times before, through time immemorial, by countless other beings, who may or may not have looked and thought as he does.
He often dreams of being the first person ever - ever! How joyous would the world be, knowing you were the first to do everything you were doing? The first to walk, run, laugh, or smile. The first to know pain and despair, and the first to recover, and the first to fall again. The world would be yours to mould and scamper across as you wished - all stories, all ideas were new.
But then again, being the first, you would not know of complacency or of the desperate need for originality. You would live never knowing that all who were to follow would do little more than mimic your existence.
It is difficult to avoid the subtle, yet insidious caress of the cliché. One can ask the question, 'Has this road been travelled before?' and the answer is always yes, simply by the fact that for there to be a road, someone would have built it, and therefore been here before you.
People often go on quests of self discovery, whether temporal or spatial in their dynamic. Many meditate to reach their goals; others push themselves to their physical and mental limits in the pursuit of the same answers, or even the questions. But whatever they do, it has been done before.
We laud and praise those who genuinely are the first to do something - discover a new something or other, or be the first to climb this, swim that, or be there. But, even if they are the first, it is not long before the herd follows, destroying the newness for those to come. Who remembers the fifth person to walk on the moon, or the hours of toil by those standing on the shoulders of intellectual giants?
Edmund is also tortured by the fact that thinking such thoughts condemns him to fall into the same trap.
However, for Edmund, there is a further factor that makes him different from the stereotypical, angst ridden loser. For if Edmund was to look around, he would see something remarkable.
Everything IS the same - all the houses, all the streets, all the buses, all the cars, and all the people are exact copies of their type. There are only brown brick houses with black tile roofs. There are only red buses and all the cars are blue. But it is the people that will wake him up.
He longs to perform the one unique act that will give him purpose; just one would do, just one would make him whole. Before his self inflicted miseries overcome him, he leaves and begins the monotony. He pinches himself as he steps out into the cold autumn air, just to check if he still exists. He does, so it seems; there will be no spontaneous rapture for him today.
The scattered clouds cast their fleeting shadows over the green grass in the park, a dull sun hangs there, lacking the volition to push through and illuminate the grey world.
Edmund walks and walks and walks.
He stops. Then he walks again.
Soon, he is far from home, in an unfamiliar part of the city. His inner yearning for the new is piqued for a moment, and then settles back down to the constant burning hurt that he carries around in his gut.
It is different, yet the same - the houses are not those of his neighbourhood, yet they are constructed as though they were. The people of course are new, yet they are not. There is familiarity in their stances, in the way they move, in the colour of their hair and the shapes of their faces. The sounds they make are comforting, as though he has heard their accents and speech before. Even the clothes they wear are identical and remind him of something...
And it hits him.
Everyone looks like Edmund - even the women. He looks down and stares at his clothes that are their clothes. He cries out, and his voice is their voice. He runs and runs, yet it is everywhere he goes. His life is copied and constructed as far as the eye can see; an endless sprawl of the familiar spread across the city.
When did this happen?
Do the others know?
Are they replicas of me, or me of them, or someone else?
He screams and falls to his knees.
*
"Control Nine, Control Nine, do you copy?"
"This is Nine."
"We have an awakening. Sector B-12B."
![clones[1].jpg (14 kB)](http://stuff.ubersite.com/1194361357187210960/1/clones[1].jpg)
User Reviews
Submitted by TheDoctor (user info) at 2007-11-08 09:15:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2007-11-06 19:52:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-11-06 10:28:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Y'know I reckon in the future they'd be able to track people without having to say
"Sector B12B! That'd put him in Swansea!"
______________________________
HaHaHaHa! Quite an astute observation.
Very good story though. Most entertaining.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-11-06 19:15:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
As always, a very good read. I thought you were headed toward an actual treatise on originality, individuality, and all that "special little snowflake" type of chatter, which I was prepared to debate about, but you turned it around and tricked me.....
sneaky you!
Submitted by triangle_man (user info) at 2007-11-06 16:06:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
tidy
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-11-06 14:56:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2007-11-06 13:31:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ernold same awoke from the same dream in the same bed at the same time
Looked in the same mirror made the same frown
And felt the same way as he did every day
Then ernold same caught the same train at the same station
Sat in the same seat with the same nasty stain next to same old what's his name
On his way to the same place to do the same thing again and again and again
Poor old ernold same
Oh ernold same, his world stays the same
Today will always be tomorrow
Poor ernold same, he's getting that feeling once again
Nothing will change tomorrow
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2007-11-06 13:15:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sexualchocolate1984 (user info) at 2007-11-06 11:45:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is what it's all about, don't you go anywhere! Don't you fucking dare!
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2007-11-06 11:31:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Honestly, I love everything you do.
This is faultless.
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2007-11-06 11:09:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-11-06 10:32:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You took the red pill, didn't you?
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-11-06 10:29:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Dang tab key.
Anyway, REVERSE THE NEUTRON FLOW! HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW IG-88?
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-11-06 10:28:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Y'know I reckon in the future they'd be able to track people without having to say
"Sector B12B! That'd put him in Swansea!"
"... Are you using the national map there?"
"Oh right, sorry, yes er... hold on, let me just get my set s
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-11-06 10:19:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I believe this was partially the plot from the old game Syndicate Wars, only Syndicate Wars had Corporate cyborgs in trenchcoats with miniguns and flying cars.
Anyway, if Edmund had been the first dude to walk the earth he'd probably be wishing for chicks to play with his ding-a-ling rather than contemplating originality. Angsty dudes are always angsty about something.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2007-11-06 10:17:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Liked it a lot.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2007-11-06 10:17:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
How dare anyone not +2 anything this GODLY person posts! They're all fucking gems, you dipshits. All fucking gems...!
Submitted by DCWoody (user info) at 2007-11-06 10:09:56 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
strange, bland though, not funny or interesting or moving or....anything that would make me glad I read it.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-11-06 10:07:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
ok