Back outside, Carl was just about ready to head home. The night was getting colder and he'd finished his beer. He could always indulge in more back at his apparent. As he lit up another cigarette and began walking off however, he heard a voice call out to him.
“Hey, wait up!”
Spinning around, it was the cashier running toward him with a bag.
“I think you'll want to take this too!”
Handing Carl the bag, he was amazed to find it stuffed with dollar bills and a few more packs of cigarettes - good ones, not the cheap stuff.
“What the heck?!” Carl exclaimed.
“Why… why are you…”
“Dude, I know this is gonna sound crazy but… I'm you! Or at least, I'm some kind of copy of you, now in this kid's body!”
The clerk almost sounded convincing, but all Carl could do is laugh at the absurd notion.
“Ha ha, very funny. Is this some kind of prank? Because if so, I don't consent” Carl scoffed, as he took another drag.
“No, dude listen. I'm being deadly serious. I am you. You've gotta believe me” the clerk pleaded.
Carl decided to play ball, particularly with the loot he now held. He could just run for it when he wanted. Outsmart the guy.
“Ok, if you say so” he mocked.
“Why don't you, oh I don't know, tell me something only I'd know”.
“Shit OK, erm… Melissa! I know about Melissa. How we met in that bar off Goven Boulevard. How we… took her to the movies to watch that crappy Nightmare on Elm Street remake. How she'd… make really good French toast in the morning. Sometimes in just an apron if she was in ‘the mood’. That was pretty sweet…”
Everything the guy had said was true. He’d even told the story the way Carl would have.
“Wait, hold the fuck up. How do you know all that?” Carl asked.
“Because I told you dude, I am you! I think you put me in here when you looked at him through the window” the clerk tried to answer.
“But… I don't get it, how…”
Suddenly it dawned on him. It dawned on them.
“The fucking rock!”
“Shit so wait, I've… got some kind of power? To do, whatever this is?!”
“Looks like it man. Crazy right?!” The clerk replied.
“And I don’t think that’s it either. Don’t ask me how I know, but I think you can do this to people as well. Like, leave your own body and take over someone else”.
“Well, damn. That is something…” the perplexed Carl replied.
“So, how do I… well, do that?”
The clerk just shrugged his shoulders.
“Beats me. This shit don’t exactly come with an instruction manual!”
“Damn, figures there’d be groundwork” Carl lamented. After a short silence, he noticed his ‘copy’ still checking himself over.
“So, how does it feel? To be someone else?”
“Fucking weird” the copy replied in his new voice.
“But good weird, you know? I feel healthier in this guy, that’s for sure. Strange looking at different hands though, especially when they are a different shade. And it’s weird, like, I don’t know how, but I can almost read this guy's mind. I’m still Carl, but I can see into his memories when I concentrate”.
A forbidding grin spread across Carl’s face as he heard this. If this guy wasn’t pranking him (and the bag of loot seemed testament to that), then he had truly stumbled on something incredible that could turn his fortunes around and help him get what he craved.
“Well, thanks for the loot, me. Looks like you’ve got work to be getting back on with though” Carl noted as he watched a customer enter the store over the clerks shoulder. He was about to walk away when he felt a hand desperately grab his arm.
“Woah, wait! You can’t just leave me here to be this fucking random kid” the ‘copy’ protested.
“Well, I don’t know how to bring you back? Answer me that and I might consider it” Carl smirked as he blew some more smoke. The clerk huffed at what was essentially his own behaviour.
“I don’t know, it’s hard to explain… it’s like, there’s a tether between us. If you focus, I think you can pull me out. Focus, and try dude. I don’t want to be left in here forever!”
“Ok, ok! Let me see”.
Carl began to focus. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was meant to be focusing on, but he took a breath and closed his eyes. That’s when he felt it. The tether-like feeling the clerk described. Slowly, he clenched his fist and felt it yank towards him.
It all happened in an instant. Suddenly, he felt whole again. Like something had reconnected with him. Opening his eyes, he saw the clerk hit the floor as he was knocked out cold from the action.
“Holy shit!” Carl exclaimed.
Looking at the bag in his hand again, then down at the clerk, he realised everything he had said was true. That’s because, in a flash, he saw everything the clone had seen in his mind, like it was a memory, but through a different set of eyes. Breathing heavily, Carl began to regain his composure. And he laughed.
Fleeing into the night before anyone noticed the unconscious clerk, he headed for home to find out more about what just happened.
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