Tag Archives: clone

August 30, 2015

Busting out Putin

Note: this story is not political, only silly.

Busting out Putin

What does Vladimir Putin eat? That was the topic of debate after my friend Antonio got his new batch of miniature clones (or mi-clo’s) in the mail from Thailand.

All the others were eating. Antonio squatted over the holding pen’s grated top, rolled up a pancake and pushed it through the bars. Mi-clo Mother Theresa and Pierre Trudeau ran and snatched it up. Putin didn’t move, just shook his Lilliputian fist at us and jabbered away in Thai (a sure sign of a knock-off).

“Do you think he only eats Russian food?” Antonio asked.

“You’d have better luck with pad thai, probably,” I said.

“Well, I only know how to make pancakes,” Antonio said. “He can eat them or starve, I guess. I only got him because he came free with the Freddy Mercury I wanted.”

Over the next few days, Putin still refused to eat. He was getting thinner and his 1-foot tall frame soon looked bony. I was getting worried but Antonio only shrugged.

Finally, I decided to get him out of there. The next day, when Antonio went to the bathroom, I lowered a rope down. Putin grabbed it but was too weak to hold on. I unlatched the door and dropped down into the pen.

Bad move. Tony Blair and Cher jumped at me but I shook them off. I seized Putin and jumped out of danger right before the rest of them swarmed to attack me.

“Let’s go get you some food,” I said. “You like tacos? Burgers?”

He said something I couldn’t understand but it didn’t sound like either tacos or burgers. “Let’s try tacos,” I said and ran for the door.

I didn’t know what we’d eat and I didn’t know how this would end, but I was certain that I was going to save this little guy if I possibly could.

Epilogue: Putin turned out to love Popeye’s spicy chicken sandwiches. He soon returned to health and is now living happily in an abandoned dog house in the woods behind Walmart.

15 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, clone, fiction, flash fiction, funny, science-fiction, Vladimir Putin | posted in Light

September 24, 2013

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Prevails

By David Stewart

For some background (if you wish), read:

The Hieroglyphics Teacher

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Makes a Discovery

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Strikes Back

Ben learned two things that day: 1. Never put Elixir of Life in the refrigerator; and 2. Given the chance, broccoli just wants to watch the world burn.

Ben had opened his fridge to see that everything inside (including the fridge itself) had come to life. He immediately had to stop the eggs from hurling themselves onto the floor in some pointless gesture of bravado. The broccoli threw the empty Elixir of Life bottle at him and the butter burst into heartrending sobs.

It took a while, but he finally figured out what had happened. The Elixir of Life had expanded and burst its seal, dripping onto the broccoli. It had come to life and had started spraying the Elixir onto everything else, out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Now Ben was starving, but he felt bad eating anything that could object vocally to the process.

Luckily, Pizza Pockets were frozen and the food in the freezer was still refreshingly non-living. He took out the box and felt the accusing eyes of the rest of the food on him, as if he were raiding the morgue for a quick snack. He shut the fridge door.

The question now (besides dealing with Ben Two) was what to do with the food. Now that they were living beings, it wasn’t a simple matter of just eating them or throwing them away. This is why the Elixir of Life bottle came with a warning on its side: May cause the endowment of inalienable rights. Use with caution.

He decided to take a count first. He opened the fridge door and caught an egg as it immediately hurled itself out into space, yelling, “Yee-haw!” He corralled the rest of the eggs, shut the egg carton lid and held it down.

In total, the sentient food included six eggs, a stick of butter, a head of broccoli, a half-empty bottle of soy sauce and an ancient box of baking soda that had been pushed into the back. It was lucky that he had not gone grocery shopping in a while.

“You can’t hold us, fascist!” the broccoli yelled at him. “We’ve got rights.”

“I know,” Ben said. “I read the side of the bottle. Where are you going to go, though? You’re all food.”

“So, it’s hopeless?” the butter asked and burst into tears.

“Well . . .” Ben said, thinking of the butter’s chances out on the streets. “Look, I really can’t deal with this right now. I’ve got bigger problems.” Having no other friends to confide in, he sat in front of his fridge and explained his problems with Ben Two to his groceries.

“Egg barrage!” the carton of eggs yelled in unison when he had finished. “We’ll get him good. Just throw us in his general direction.” The broccoli just snorted. The butter was still sniffling to itself and the box of baking soda was apparently asleep. The soy sauce said nothing.

“I don’t know if any of that would help,” Ben said, imagining the cleanup, and the subsequent nightmares.

“I have an idea,” the soy sauce said quietly. It had a smooth voice that made Ben instantly listen and respect its opinion. “Let me speak to this Ben Two, alone. I think I can solve your problem in a mutually beneficially way.”

“Uh, okay,” Ben said, rather nonplussed by such a self-assured condiment. “Whatever you want.”

Ben Two came in at about 5:30, carrying five 24-packs of beer. He seemed to have forgotten about the incident at the school.

“What are those for? Are you having a party?” Ben asked. Ben Two looked up at him.

“No, they’re all for me. I heard today that people like drinking alcohol as a way of relaxing. I’m going to try it.”

“But it won’t affect you; you can’t get drunk.”

“Well, at least it’ll make a good story.”

“Uh,” Ben hesitated. “The soy sauce wants to talk to you.” He led Ben Two into the kitchen. The fridge was whistling a blues tune softly to itself. He got out the soy sauce and put it on the table.

“Leave us,” the soy sauce said. Ben instinctively knew it was talking to him, so he went into the living room and pretended to read while straining to hear what the two were saying. After half an hour, Ben Two came in, holding the soy sauce.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll leave and let you teach your classes again. Kikkoman and me here are going to go start a crime spree.”

Ben coughed. “What? You can’t do that? They will think it’s me.”

“He has no fingerprints or DNA,” the soy sauce said, “plus I know exactly how to change his face to fool facial recognition software. And we will never, ever get caught.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have been aged,” the soy sauce said, “to perfection.”

With that, they walked out the door. Ben later found out that they had stolen his boat, but under the circumstances, he considered himself lucky.

And so Ben started on the long road back to somewhat normal life. He bought a kayak and through having to paddle between the different islands to teach his classes, he soon lost the weight he had gained. The food that had come to life soon adjusted to their new existence. The butter cheered up immensely after Ben convinced it that no one was going to eat it. Ben bought more food and the eggs guarded it from the broccoli, who had random fits of destruction at times. They all lived peacefully together, except for the box of baking soda, who expired peacefully one night.

Ben still had to stay at school until the end of the day, even when he had no classes, but such is life.

6 Comments | tags: alchemy, clone, Elixir of Life, fantasy, fiction, funny, groceries, hieroglyphics, police, quirky, simulacrum, teaching | posted in Light

September 20, 2013

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Strikes Back

By David Stewart

For some background (if you wish), read:

The Hieroglyphics Teacher

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Makes a Discovery

This can’t be happening, Ben thought. There was an artificial copy of himself (which he had named Ben Two) out there who was planning on making an army of other magically animated robots to help him take over the world, or at least help him do less work. As Ben Two’s creator, Ben couldn’t help but feel slightly responsible for the situation.

Ben had let Ben Two teach all his classes for him while Ben just sat home and played computer and ate Pizza Pockets. But now he would have to go out and stop Ben Two.

But first he played an hour of World of Warcraft and had a couple Pizza Pockets.

The first place he went was the police station.

“Hi, I’d like to report a . . .” It wasn’t a crime, really. “I’d like to report a situation. There is a simulacrum teaching my classes.”

The police officer on duty gave him an easy-going, if totally uncomprehending, smile.

“It’s a magically-animated robot,” Ben said.

“…who’s teaching your classes for you,” the officer finished. Ben nodded. “And who exactly are you?”

“I’m the hieroglyphics teacher for the archipelago. But I also practice alchemy. I made the simulacrum.” The officer was staring at him in such a way that Ben felt compelled to keep giving information. “Then I told him to teach my classes for me, but now he wants to make more of these robots to replace other people.”

“And…?”

“And I’m worried. There has to be a law against that or something.”

Finally, the officer looked down. “Okay then, so where is this robot-thing now?”

They took the police boat over to the island where Ben’s classes were that day. Ben felt incredibly awkward as he followed the two police officers into the school and into the classroom where Ben Two was teaching. The students were watching a movie with hieroglyphic subtitles. They all gasped to see a copy of their teacher walk into the room, identical except much more disheveled and overweight.

“Excuse me, sir, but this man says you’re a copy of him,” the officer said.

Ben Two stopped the movie. “Actually, I created him,” he said. “Thank you for returning him to me.”

“That’s crazy,” Ben said. “I’m obviously not the simulacrum. Do an X-ray on us and you’ll see.”

“Would you submit to that?” the officer asked Ben Two. Ben Two shook his head. The officer turned and shrugged at Ben. “Sorry, we tried.”

“But who would make an overweight robot?” Ben protested. This all seemed like a bad dream.

“I was curious to see if I could,” Ben Two said. “I also programmed him to believe that he was a human and I was a robot.”

The officers nodded. “Well, you sure did a good job with that part.”

“But why would anyone do that?” Ben asked, becoming almost hysterical.

“My life lacked zest,” Ben Two said in a contemplative tone.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed you, sir,” the officer said. “What should we do with this thing?”

“I’m a human!” Ben screamed. “Quick, watch me eat something.” Then he remembered that he had made Ben Two able to eat as well. “He can’t go to the bathroom though. Come and watch me go the bathroom!”

“Oh dear, its modesty circuits are malfunctioning again,” Ben Two said. “That happens sometimes. Just drop it at home and I’ll fix it when I get home.”

Ben was dragged off by the police, screaming, “I’m not an it. I’m a human being!”

In the police boat, the police officers poked around for Ben’s off-switch for a bit, then just knocked him on the head a few times. They dropped him off at his house and posted a guard outside.

It really was like a bad dream. He went to get some Pizza Pockets out of the freezer and heard a giggle. He looked up to see the fridge smiling at him.

Fridges are not designed to smile at all, but somehow the blocky, metal appliance gave off the unmistakable impression of smiling.

“Oh, great.” Ben said. “The Elixir of Life…”

“Yep, it spilled,” the fridge said. “The eggs are bouncing around inside me like crazy and I think the butter is crying softly in a corner. Do you want to look?”

Ben was sure that he didn’t want to look, but he opened the fridge door (with another giggle from the fridge). The inside was a sea of activity.

(to be continued…)

5 Comments | tags: alchemy, clone, Elixir of Life, fantasy, fiction, funny, hieroglyphics, police, quirky, simulacrum, teaching | posted in Light

September 17, 2013

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Makes a Discovery

By David Stewart

Here is the first of the Hieroglyphics Teacher stories.

Ben, the resident hieroglyphics teacher for the Costa Meh archipelago, was not adverse to work. However, when he was given the option not to work, he took it. It came the night he created a simulacrum called Ben Two that looked and sounded so much like him that no one noticed when it went in and taught a class for him. Soon it was teaching all his classes for him.

It was about two months later that Ben discovered a very small detail: Ben Two did not know hieroglyphics. Ben discovered this when he was looking through his briefcase and came across a worksheet.

“Hey, these sentences don’t make any sense at all,” he said.

“Yeah, I know,” Ben Two said. “I just make stuff up and tell the kids that it’s right.”

“You can’t do that!”

“No, it’s okay,” Ben Two said. “They totally believe me. It’s not a problem.”

For the first time, Ben began to feel twinges of guilt. These combined with the creeping realizations that his life wasn’t as good as it had been and created the seeds of some Grade-A remorse. He had created Ben Two so that he wouldn’t have to stay after school and could work on his alchemy experiments. But now Ben Two was teaching his classes (and teaching them gibberish) and Ben was just playing computer games and eating Pizza Pockets. Ben Two had also somehow gotten a girlfriend (something Ben had failed to do in several years) and seemed to be taking over.

“I think maybe I should start teaching my classes again,” Ben said. “I can’t have you teaching them nonsense.”

“You can’t yet,” Ben Two said. “You’re about 20 pounds heavier than me by now. People will wonder how you gained all that weight overnight.” He sat down in front of the TV and lit a cigarette.

“You smoke now? How can you smoke? You’re a simulacrum.”

“Well then, I’m the only one who can do it safely,” Ben Two said. “At least I’ll never get cancer.”

“But you can’t even enjoy it.”

“It makes me look cool.”

“But no one’s here to see you.”

“You are. Don’t I look cool?”

“No. Can I at least look at the package that came today?”

Ben Two blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “I’d rather you didn’t. I have my fingers in a lot of pies right now.” He pulled out a stack of bills in a plastic bag and threw them to Ben. “Here. Go buy yourself something nice tomorrow.”

Ben went to his room. There was $500 in the bag. He didn’t know where it came from, but that nagging feeling that things weren’t right kept increasing.

Ben Two did not have to sleep, but he did get restless and usually went out for a swim around 3am. As soon as he was gone, Ben got up and opened the package that was sitting in the hallway. It was full of alchemy equipment and supplies—very much like something he would buy himself. But why would Ben Two want it? As he was looking through it, he realized that these were supplies for making more simulacra; it even included a bottle of the Elixir of Life.

Also, there were guns in the bottom of the package; big guns that looked designed to fit inside a body cavity. Ben took the Elixir of Life and hid it in the safest place he could think of: the fridge.

The next morning, when he came out for breakfast, Ben Two was waiting for him at the kitchen table. He was smoking five cigarettes at once and the air was hazy and thick.

“You opened my package,” he said.

“So what? This is my house, after all, and you bought it with my money.”

“Actually, since I’m the one working now, it’s my money. Where’s the Elixir of Life?”

“I dumped it down the sink,” Ben said, knowing this was an obvious lie. A liquid that turned inanimate objects into living creatures was not something you wanted to put into your average sewer system. “What were you planning to make?”

“I thought I would switch some of the principals at the schools with copies,” Ben Two said. “They’re always making me do things I don’t want to do, like teach. It’d help if they were on my side.”

“And give them guns?”

“Why not? It seems like an obvious upgrade. I’m surprised you didn’t give me guns that could shoot out of my fingertips or something.”

“But how are you going to build them? You don’t know anything about alchemy?”

“Sure I do. I know everything you do.”

“Except hieroglyphics.”

“Yeah, except that. I guess that was a glitch in the process.”

“I’m going to try to stop you, you know.”

“Okay, have fun with that.” Ben Two took the five cigarette butts and threw them into the sink. “Well, I’m off to work. I guess if you don’t give me back the Elixir of Life, I’ll have to order some more. Luckily, I know a guy who can get it to me fast.” He picked up the package and walked out the door.

(to be continued…)