Exercises
“They Say the Original is Best”
They say the original is best.
So even though all the other girls have, shall we say, updated, I’ve decided to stick with what I was born with. I’ll admit that it has limited my job options, but I’ve discovered there’s a certain respect in the market place for people like me. I might be a little more vulnerable but that’s kind of appealing to certain types.
So you can imagine it would take a pretty special offer for me to consider other options. That’s when MacNamara walked through the door.
by Pil Lee
They say the original is best. The anti-cloners say so, anyway. Personally, I don’t feel comfortable until I have at least five other copies loaded with 48 hour timer backups scattered through major capitals. But then I’m in a somewhat high pressure job, and it’s important to be able to switch to a safe clone when the need arises.
It’s funny I should be thinking about this, because I just got slipped into a new body this morning, and there’s something vaguely strange about this one. Something doesn’t feel quite right. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but it’s a little like coming out of the shower on a really hot day and suddenly feeling dirty again. Right now I was heading back to the containment facility in San Jose, to have this clone body checked out, and I’m feeling like there’s something I’ve forgotten to do that I really have to finish. Maybe it’s got something to do with that house I just passed. I think I’ll turn around and walk up to the front door and introduce myself, and then I’ll walk right inside and make myself at home. Yeah, that feels like the right thing to do.
by Peter Gifford
They say the original is best. It’s not true. Ralph’s New Improved Holy Bible was considerably better. And shorter, which was one of the features of which he was most proud. His old family Bible was as heavy as a brick and as thick as a telephone book, whilst the Ralph Bible Mark II™ was a nicely sized convenient pocket book with a tasteful powder blue cover. Best of all it included a synopsized Old Testament with bullet-pointed chapters in the form of pithy quotable sayings. He had saved a great deal of space by converting the text into Text, that is, the kind of text that mobile phone users like to use.
by Peter Miller
‘Name plus Descriptive Word’
Maxine La Mer drew the curtains back slowly, giving herself time to adjust to the bright noon sunlight that thrust aggressively into the room. She squinted in agony. Down below on the vast and immaculate lawn a uniformed figure skipped, hopping in an ungainly way from foot to foot. It was the chauffeur, Kevin. Maxine swirled the last swallow of a Sea Breeze around in the cocktail glass she held in her right hand while she watched this interesting display. He looked rather acrobatic. Her pink fluffy negligee swirled lazily around her thighs.
“Oh Kevin!” she shouted.
by Peter Gifford
Caspar clicked his tongue in annoyance and called a halt. “It’s fallen off again,” he yelled at the rider in front of him.
“Oh for god’s sake,” said Melchior as he swung down to retrieve the purse of putrescent oils. He tied it to his saddle with a stronger knot then drew out his water bottle for a quick swig.
“Melchior!” called Caspar over the howling of the desert winds. “We can’t keep having all these delays. We’ll never make it in time.”
“OK, OK,” Melchior grumbled as he remounted and urged his horse on towards the rise.
They approached the leading horseman, already silhouetted against the setting sun across the plain.
Balthazar lowered his sextant and turned as the others joined him.
“Now where’s that bloody stable!”
by Pil Lee
Big John dug all night. It takes a long time to dig a grave. In the movies people spend ten minutes to get a hole six feet deep but it is really a lot harder than that. Big John’s head was like a pallid bobbing bladder in the light from the setting moon. He knew the hole needed to be deep, else the dogs would sniff the body out. He was covered in sweat and he knew he smelled bad.
He dragged the body from his car and heaved it into the hole like a sack of potatoes.
“Ha! Potatoes!” he thought. Just like potatoes.