Copies of Clara The
first one was
truly a marvel. My mother’s boyish frame, my father’s pale skin on top,
and
very few muscles between them. Eyes the same undiagnosed color – blue
in the
passport, grey in the ID card. Narrow feet. A constellation of
freckles, the
one resembling a fish, or a unicorn, across her right shoulder.
Freakish index
fingers. Hundred-sixty-four and a half centimeters of height. Angular
fingernails. The hair the colour of dust specks in the sun, reminding
us of
what was lost to my sister’s obsession with change and her
hairdresser’s
compliance. A perfect Clara.
The following ones were the same and
the novelty soon wore off. Clara herself was more and more embarrassed.
Each
morning another copy stepped out of her bedroom, she blushed a little
more. She
apologized for more things, too. For the cereals they would eat. For
the bath
water they would use. For the energy we would need to hide nine,
eleven,
sixteen Claras from the neighbours. For having no excuse and not
knowing how.
The only reason we even distinguished the freshest copy from the rest
was that
they always revealed themselves naked. Due to that, we all knew my
sister’s
body so well it felt like a shared commodity. That must have bothered
her
too.
To Clara’s content, the copies
remained mute in their early life. Remembering some of the most
disturbing
moments of our childhood, I must admit that I opened their pale mouths
multiple
times to ensure their tongues were in the right place. They were. In
fact, all
the copies did start to speak once they’d gotten comfortable around the
house
and its original inhabitants. The scope of their mental capacities,
however,
seemed rather limited. There was a copy for each one of my sister’s
diverse
interests. One danced salsa. One knitted. One would speak of nothing
but
functional programming. Another – geology. Their sharp focus proved
useful.
Some sat for Clara’s exams and did groceries. Some we sent to dinner
with our
least favourite grandparents. They didn’t seem to mind and remained
mostly
passive. Only once a copy left the house on its own accord to help a
neighbour
with a satellite dish. We admittedly got carried away on that occasion,
but the
copies had short life spans anyway.
That was somewhat problematic. Copies
functioned like humans and decayed like humans, meaning forever. I
remember
watching the first one with childish excitement, expecting it to
disintegrate
as suddenly as it had once materialized. It didn’t. It made the house
stink.
It’s only that often and in so many
places you can inconspicuously bury a body. We used our backyard to its
maximum; the dog park nearby was due for demolition. Even though, at
this
point, it has been due for three years, it still felt too risky. So we
drove to
the forest upstate, our trunk soon permanently stained and stinky. A
couple we
buried at the riverbank. The trick was not to get caught in the act
itself. Two
of the dead copies were found, but it caused us no issues – there were
no
personal possessions to identify them, no matching missing person
profiles. Only
once an attractive police officer found his way to our door where he
encountered Clara - hungover but generally unharmed. He didn’t stay
very long.
The death of each copy brought out yet
another one of Clara’s interests – that of biology. She asked once and
again to
be allowed to cut them open, even if just for a peek. It made me
shiver. I did
not enjoy the vision of my sister over her own dead body, handling her
own
insides with her usual carelessness.
We grew sick of the effort after the
thirteenth trip to the national park. Screw the demolition, we said. We
buried
nineteen more bodies in that dog park. Seven years later, it’s still
standing.
All in all, the copies weren’t very
problematic. The only real setback was my having to give up drinking.
Because
when I did drink, I had those thoughts that it was my very own original
sister
being buried, over and over, in that dog park overdue for a demolition. A.C. has published fiction and poetry in spots such as Litro, Maudlin House, Sideways Poetry, and Pulp Poet Press. She can be serious and lawyerly but hardly ever wears black when nobody's dead.
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