This is my foray into the absurd. Doppelganger does not follow any literary rules and is the ramblings of a shadow projecting his shadow. Doppelganger is the only kind of fiction where I find inspiration is necessary to write. Different from any other writing I do, Doppelganger must start with an idea, and it is ‘fast fiction’; flash fiction written quickly to capture the absurdity of the moment.
#03 - The Engineer of Life as We Might Have Known it
I tiptoed into the room with righteous ingenuity. “I,” said I, “have cracked the code of our existence!” “Please don’t tell me you’ve gotten into the young chemist’s set again. Your last blunder caused the spontaneous combustion of every telephone pole on the block. I think you should consider taking a night class if you want to learn about science.” Did my friend state that I needed direction? Moi? An inquisitive investigator of incompressible insight? My genius had no need for instructions. “I have created new life!” “I’m afraid to ask. What did you make?” What had my friend to fear other than my brainy brilliance itself? He was clearly as demented as he was a doddy degenerate. “A shrlove.” “A what? How do you even pronounce that? Anyway, would you care to elaborate on the creature?” My pea-sized brain friend was no match for my imperious intellect. I would have to spell it out for him in lower case letters, except for my ‘I’. “I spliced a shark with a rubber glove.” “But why?” “Kitchen chores were becoming bothersome. Society needed my technical telefacsimiles.” “But I do the chores for you! What bother was it that you had to violate the sanctity of nature?” My friend was lacking in vision, especially the blurry-eyed, boozy kind. Rhyme! “I still was subjected to your scullery scrubbing on a nightly basis while I was trying to drink my cognac in tranquillity.” “I thought we agreed to limit your post-dinner drinking. You still haven’t explained how the shrlove, however you pronounce it, has improved society.” “The bustling buoyant janitor made short work of the pots and pans.” “Do I have any cookware left?” “No. This is the advantage of having a single belligerent beast that can handle the entire cleanup in one, fell swoop.” “If you wanted to obliterate my cookhouse in one fell swoop, why didn’t you splice a peregrine falcon with a mop? At least I would still have my utensils.” Was my friend collaborating on a future genomic gentrification? It was difficult for me to imagine improving upon the shrlove, but I was open to new schemes. “Do you need me to fabricate a perefop?” “No! I want my pots and pans back!” “You really should be thanking me for ridding you of that rusty rubbish.” “I see a distinct disadvantage in preparing our next meal without them.” My friend was plainly a lopsided stick in the mud in desperate need of gene editing. “You seem chemically unbalanced. Why don’t you just lie back and I’ll prepare the thermal cycler.” “You aren’t going anywhere near me with that chemistry set!” The truncated troglodyte couldn’t grasp the fact that you can’t make an omelette without disrupting DNA. A generous gemlike genius will never be appreciated by a prattling pessimistic peon. “Perhaps I could scramble your scrubber.” “That’s it! I’m heading to the kitchenware shop to resupply.”
#02 - Curriculum Vitae
I stepped into the room with effable efficiency. “I,” said I, “have quilled my curriculum vitae!” “I will withhold snarky comments. Let’s have a look.” My friend wouldn’t know tacit talent from a bottlenose beagle. Perhaps a thumbtack to the brain would disentangle his noodle. “Be careful, it’s sharp.” “Well, it’s interesting, that’s for sure. But it’s full of lies.” Did my friend say ‘lies’? Fibs, from moi? A man whose veracity could put Sweden to shame? My friend was likely senile and probably near-sighted. Or far-sighted. I can never remember which is which. “Have you gone bonkers? My curriculum vitae is chock full of enabling endeavours swimming in a soup bowl of telling truthfulness. My scroll of struggles threatened to tilt our droning domain as I quilled it.” “Uh-huh. Among your many talents, you state that you’re a dragon slayer.” “It’s a treacherous task but someone has to do it. It also makes me very popular with the ladies.” “There is no such thing as a dragon.” “Did you not summon one the other morn on your prattle-box?” “I did a fantasy search online, that’s not proof of dragons! And if they do exist, why are they nowhere to be seen?” “I think my effectiveness speaks for itself.” “That’s specious reasoning! Shouldn’t there be a carcass lying around somewhere as proof?” My friend was in need of an exhaled roasting that only my inventiveness could provide. “Have you seen my extended incendiary contraption?” “Absolutely not! You’re not going anywhere near the flamethrower! I’m still apologizing to the neighbourhood after your last fiasco! And you are getting off topic. Where are these dragons of yours?” “Haven’t you ever been to Komodo Indonesia?” “Of course I have. Twice, in fact. Wait, that doesn’t count!” “A dragon is a dragon.” “Fine. I wonder what the park rangers will think of your butchery.” “They already thanked me for the population control.” “Moving on, your CV says that you wrote the Bible.” “The most perilous history had to be written.” “The bible was written by dozens of hands over the course of thousands of years. Exactly how can you prove you wrote it?” I thought my friend grasped my generational genius but I was sorely mistaken. It stings like a paper wasp to be misunderstood and underappreciated. “Have you seen my tarantula hawk?” “It’s safe in the aquarium. Now stop stalling! How did you write the Bible?” “Time travel.” “I see. Well, yes, under the section ‘inventions and creations’ you do in fact claim to have invented the time machine.” “It made the whole scripture quilling process go much smoother.” “Which language did you write it in?” Wall of Mars! I may have gone a flake far with my statement about the sacred vademecum. I hadn’t fibbed per se, but perhaps I had stretched the truth around the space time continuum. “I quilled the conclusive creed in all tongues.” “Even in Kawishana?” Great Jupiter, I had forgotten about that one! Was that lone soul still alive and kicking? Maybe if I waited long enough nature would take care of things for me. “I’m still working on the punctuation.” “I assume you included all the vowels?” My friend couldn’t grasp the difficulty of quilling dots and squiggles on parchment. On my first draft I had neglected them. “They are all snugly in place.” “Alright. The next talent on the list is a big one even for you. It says you discovered the sun.” “Total darkness was rather inconvenient.” “Did you use time travel for that one?” My friend had clearly confused slick scheduling with tedious technology. “It was just a matter of rising promptly before astronomical twilight.” “And no one beat you to it?” “Nowadays people have their noses buried in their prattle-boxes and leave the dirty discovery work to me.” “The last line says ‘author’. I think you should take your skewed sheet of veracity and head over to the unemployment office.”
#01 - I Am Writing a Short Story
I swept into the room like a witch on a broom (rhyme!). “I”, said I, “am writing a short story!” “You don’t know how to write.” Did my friend claim I was an illiterate bumkin? Moi? An author of unknown knowing renown? “You cannot appreciate my literary superiority because of your reliance on the piddling prattle-box.” “It’s called a laptop, and my reliance on it pays our bills.” “My writing will fill our coffers full of golden goldilocks goodness.” “How do you plan on getting rich if you’ve never written anything in your life?” My friend was clearly ten kits short of a kaboodle. “I will demonstrate with my quill so as not to sully my fingers on your contemptuous contraption.” “That’s your story? All you did was write your name!” “I did more than that. I thoroughly disproved your contrived contention.” “All you proved is that you can spell your name.” My friend could not appreciate his better. Perhaps a few hours with thumbscrews would refresh his je ne sais quoi. “You babble on because you don’t recognise talent.” “I didn’t babble, I made a statement. Let me make it simpler; one word does not a short story maketh.” This was veracious. Ancient erudition about succinct stories required several runes to be scratched together to form a whimsical whole. I would vex him with verbosity! “You don’t understand powerfully proficient prose. And you haven’t even asked me what the short story is about.” “What is the short story about?” “A short story.” “You wrote a short story about how to write a short story?” “Most certainly not. I wrote a short story about a short story.” “That doesn’t make any sense.” Where was the executioner when you needed him? Surely my friend could manage without his noggin stitched to his torso. “It makes perfect sense to a man who has the undeniable understanding to recognise reciprocation.” “Did that sentence have any meaning? Anyway, you can’t write a short story about a short story. There is no plot. There is no theme. What about dialogue?” “Aren’t we having dialogue?” “Yes, but we aren’t a short story.” “How can you be certain?” “Because you are not some omnipotent third person.” I was snookered. Or was I? It was time for venerable enigmas. “Perhaps I am, or maybe I’m not.” “Now what does that mean? Look, I’ll humour you. Tell me about your short story.” It would be like explaining chocolate covered mints to a gnat. I would have to purchase my friend a new brain pan from the tinsmith. “I am writing a short story about a short story. And you are in it.” “But what is the plot?” “I am plotting my omnipotence.” “You’re incompressible!” “I can read your mind.” “Wait, you’re recording our conversation so it will look like you could read my mind in the short story!” When you feel snookered, speak in sacred enigmas. “Perhaps I am, maybe I’m not.” “I really need to get back to work.” “But you weren’t working, you were only clacking on your prattle-box.” “My work entails writing emails on my laptop.” This was not acceptable short story material. How could I move the plot forward with a friend who prattles out clickety-post for sustenance? I could feel my story flagging. “You must do better than that.” “Better than what? You haven’t even read my emails.” “Better than clattering about your prattle-box. There is no plot with a prattler. Your kind will need to be scrapped and replaced. I will draft an edict regarding your demise.” “No one reads your edicts!” Where was the blind assassin when you needed him? “Pass the horn-blower, I need to reach the blind assassin.” “Don’t even think about calling that madman again! Get out!” “You haven’t even asked me when I plan on publishing my short story.” “That’s because you haven’t written a short story! Fine. When are you publishing your short story?” “I haven’t decided yet. I’m still considering publishers.” “Shouldn’t you be looking for an agent, first?” Was that how prose publication was performed? I confess, I did even less research about publishing than I did about writing. Could my enigma rescue my perceptive person? “Perhaps I am, maybe I’m not.” “Even you can’t make sense of what you just said.” He was right, my enigma had been pummelled to a pulpy porridge. “I will publish my oeuvre personally the day after I have composed it.” “How?” My friend was becoming a nuisance. How would the Lord High Judge have dealt with him? Perhaps a trial by ordeal would fix his wit. “How do you think you would fare in a pot of boiling oil?” “Instead of plotting summary justice, why don’t you think about publishing your non-existent short story. How many words will it be?” This was getting prickly. I had commanded the prattle-box to investigate ‘how many words is a short story?’ The contrivance claimed between one thousand to five thousand words. I wasn’t sure how to summon the prattle-box bulletin calculator for a scrupulous scrutiny of my masterpiece. “Just long enough to swaddle my readers in a tepid tapestry of prose.” “I think you’re going to fall short.” Evidently the prattle-box had failed me. No matter, my acumen would craft fast fiction!