The night passed with them gathered in the living room, playing board games and telling stories. Malcolm still wasn’t happy his sister was there, but he looked at her in a whole new light. Rather than being an object of scorn, he looked upon her with pity. She wasn’t a perfect girl after all…No, far from it, she was a marionette who’d been trapped by the strings of reputation and expectation that their parents controlled. Even hundreds of miles away, she still couldn’t fail them…She still had to do what they wanted…Still lived with their desires hanging over her head…A puppet, dangling by its strings.
Dance puppet, dance.
If anything, this realization made Malcolm feel worse. His family no longer consisted of three perfect people, but instead two people who were slowly torturing the third.
…And he had to watch. Never before had his sister’s smiles seemed so strained, never before had her laughter felt so forced…
As a puppet she knew exactly what to do and what to say and where to be and when to do it all…But she was still trapped by perfection. A perfect puppet.
His phone buzzed several times throughout the evening, signaling he’d received numerous text messages, but he ignored them until he was alone in his room.
‘Not poisonous. Put it in his food.’
‘Shit, I think he suspects something.’
‘Fuck he’s outside my door. Climbing out the window and heading your way.’
‘Never mind that last text. Figured it out. Everything here is great. Have a good weekend!’
These messages made him feel nervous. He’d seen Jericho’s dad go on a drunken rampage before and only the sobering rays of the morning Sun could pierce through his alcohol-fueled anger.
“Everything here is great.” Malcolm read aloud. “Everything here is great.”
His friend had never used the word ‘great’ when referring to his home-life.
“Figured it out.” What had he figured out?
“Everything here is great.”
He continued reading and rereading the text, hoping to divine some sense from it but failing at each turn. Despite his curiosity, he felt sleepy and decided to wait until the next day to give his friend a call.
…
“Hello?”
“Malcolm? Hey, what’s going on?”
“You uh…You alright?”
“Me? Yeah, perfectly fine. Everything’s great!”
“You sound pretty happy.”
“Oh yeah, no, things are good here. Listen, I gotta go, but I’ll explain everything on Monday.”
Before Malcolm could probe any further, his friend had hung up.
…
Jericho left his house with unexpected enthusiasm, and Malcolm watched suspiciously as his friend happily bounced onto the bus.
“Good morning.” Jericho smiled.
“Good morning.” Malcolm repeated in a hesitant tone. “What happened to you this weekend?”
“Hmmm? Oh, nothing.”
But of course Malcolm wasn’t convinced. He was about to interject when he saw slime on his friend’s hands.
Slime on his hands. Unusually high energy.
A cold shiver ran down Malcolm’s spine.
His friend had been cloned.
He stared straight forward and tried not to let out any signs that he knew. Could the clones smell his fear? Were they able to read pheromones?
“How was your weekend?” Jericho asked. “I know you hate your sister.”
Malcolm was surprised to find himself putting aside his fear to defend his sibling. “I don’t hate her, I just…It was fine. She was good. We bonded.”
Jericho gave a wicked grin. “So did dad and I.”
Malcolm cocked a curious eyebrow, and his friend nodded.
“Drunk asshole caught me sneaking slime into his food…I guess I shouldn’t have tried putting it in his chips, huh? Got ’em all soggy. Anyway, he thought I was trying to fuck with him, so he chased me up to my room and started trying to beat down my door.”
Jericho fell silent as a kid passed by them and took a seat further in the back of the bus.
“Yeah?” Malcolm asked in a hushed voice.
“Well I texted you.” Jericho went on, far quieter. “I legit thought he was going to kill me so I planned to head your way, but when I got out onto the roof and slid down onto the lawn, I started thinking about how I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life running, and how the world would be better off without…Better off if some things were different.”
“What did you do?” Malcolm’s words barely escaped his mouth. He wasn’t sure if his friend was about to admit to murder, or admit to being a clone, or what.
“Nothing. I simply went back inside, shouted up at him, then ran into my brother’s room and hid.”
By now Jericho’s grin was downright devious.
“You didn’t.” Malcolm gaped, realizing what had happened.
Jericho shrugged. “I didn’t do anything. I simply made my presence known. If that drunk asshole wanted to follow me, that’s on him. If he wanted to search James’s closet for me, that was on him too. Maybe I gave him a little push, but it’s nothing compared to how hard that prick’s been pushing me my whole life, is it?”
“So he fell? Did he die? What happened?”
Jericho shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe the real version’s still alive down there with broken legs and a cracked spine and barely clinging to life. Suffering. Pure agony. I sure hope so. That’d be great, wouldn’t it?”
Malcolm remained silent.
“What I do know is that moments later a cloned version of him came flying out of the hole, just like the frogs did. At first I was worried it was the real version, but when he looked at me I saw humanity in his eyes…A humanity I’d never seen before. He thanked me for being a good son, then went upstairs and started dumping his alcohol down the sink. I was so astonished I cried…I actually cried! Can you imagine? All these years of abuse and I never shed a tear, but an act of kindness has me bawling like a baby.”
“Yeahhhh.” Malcolm said. “So your dad’s a clone now?”
Jericho nodded. “He has to be. It’s better this way.”
Malcolm breathed a small sigh of relief. “I’ll admit when you got on the bus, I thought it might’ve been you who was cloned. You seem so much different than you were.”
“Because I no longer need to live in fear!” He laughed. “I think for the first time in my life I can go home and not have to spend the night worrying. I can simply have fun and relax, just like you do!”
Malcolm thought of his home life and the immense pressures placed upon him.
“I wouldn’t say I relax, exactly…But yeah, I getcha.” Then nodding to his friend’s hands, asked “What’s with the slime?”
“Oh, that. Look.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small cell phone. It, too, was covered in slime. “Dad said I could use his phone today. Again, it’s so hard to imagine him being like this…He said I could use his phone so I went to the pit and I filmed it.”
“And? What’s down there?”
“Not sure. I just pulled it up before the bus arrived. Let’s watch it together.”
Even covered in slime the device still worked perfectly. Jericho opened a video then pressed play.
It was surprisingly dull.
The phone had been lowered into the pit with an accompanying flashlight. As it descended, it rotated slightly so that they saw every direction, yet every direction looked the same; completely uniform walls made of pink flesh. After about eight minutes the video recorded the end of the phone’s descent. It hung in midair, rotating slightly, then began rising once more.
“That’s it?” Malcolm asked, throwing himself back into his seat.
The phone’s ascent looked just as boring.
Jericho frowned. “Yeah…I guess it is.”
“We didn’t learn anything!”
“We learned the pit’s deep.”
“We already knew that!”
Jericho nodded. “Yeah…I guess we did.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what else we can do.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking…” Jericho started. “And…Well, what if we were able to get a firsthand account of what’s down there?”
“I’m not going down there.” Malcolm stated flatly. “Never in a million years would I-”
“No, not like that, you misunderstand. We don’t need to go down there, because there are already two people at my house who’ve already been down there.”
Malcolm frowned. “You mean your clone-family? What, you expect to just tie one of them up and interrogate them?”
“Why not? What’s the worst that could happen?”
There were many worst-case possibilities that came to Malcolm’s mind, but he shuffled these aside to hear out his friend.
“You think they’d even tell us anything?”
“Maybe.” He said. “I mean, I know it sounds dumb because they’re obviously evil clones…But well, I don’t know if they really are that evil. My brother’s now pulling in more money than dad ever did, and my dad…Well…You know.”
“Yeah.” Malcolm agreed. There were certainly a lot of complex emotions his friend would have to deal with in the coming months.
Jericho sighed. “Point is, they seem decent enough. Maybe if we let them know we’re okay with them living here, they’ll tell us their secrets.”
“And what if they get mad and throw us in the pit?”
Jericho shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll still find out what’s down there.”
…
Malcolm promised he’d be there when Jericho interrogated his brother, but the reality was far more difficult to swing. A weekend of being in his sister’s shining-star presence had made him look even worse in his mother’s eyes, and she insisted he spend every spare second trying to better himself.
“I don’t want you hanging out with that Sanders boy. His mom’s a whore and his dad’s an alcoholic.”
“His dad stopped drinking.” Malcolm said.
He wanted to tell his mom that studying was irrelevant…He was too dumb to understand anything advanced anyway.
He wanted to be honest about his test grade.
He wanted to listen to his teacher and live a good life, even if it wasn’t a financially or socially successful one.
…But he knew the emotional abuse he’d suffer if even a single syllable of resistance escaped his lips.
“Yes mom.” He said obediently.
On Monday afternoon he was trapped in his room.
‘Dude you coming over?’
He stared at his phone. The clock showed it was already past 8. Sunlight was already beginning to wane.
‘Can’t Mom’s got me studying.’
‘More of that shit? It won’t matter.’
Malcolm let his head fall onto the pile of books in front of him. A dull thud rang out.
‘I know. Be there sometime this week. Promise.’
‘Well hurry. It’s kinda weird living here.’
The next day Malcolm asked what Jericho meant by that statement.
“Well think about how long I’ve lived with a lay-about brother and a drunken father. Now both of them are just…It’s like I’m living with your family! Everyone’s just so perfect!”
“Ugh, sorry to hear that.” Malcolm gave a sarcastic cringe. “No one should have to live like that.”
“Well not exactly like your family. That’s the thing, neither of them is pushing me to study, or exercise, or do anything, really. It’s almost like they’re happy with me exactly as I am.”
“That’s good though, isn’t it?”
Jericho shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe I always pushed myself to get better because I didn’t want to wind up like my brother or dad, but now that those incentives are gone…” He gave a small laugh. “If I had to be honest, I’m a bit worried it’ll cause me to stagnate.”
“Stagnate from what? I never thought you had any ambitions outside of leaving the city.”
“I didn’t, really.”
“And since everything’s better at home, why bother?”
Malcolm intended the question to be one of relief, yet was surprised when his friend seemed rather hurt by it.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I guess you’re right. There really is no point in leaving, is there?”
He didn’t question the obvious discomfort it had caused…His mind was too focused on its own problems.
…
Mrs. Derrick went around the room handing back college admission packets they’d each filled out.
“We’re still waiting on responses from a few foreign universities, but otherwise most of you should have your answers back.”
Malcolm eagerly tore into his packet, but with each passing second, with each name he read, he fell deeper and deeper into a pit of despair.
Harvard: Rejected.
Yale: Rejected.
Brown: Rejected.
MIT…
UCLA…
Princeton…
A tear crept down his cheek. He flipped the packet over, put it on his desk, and slammed his head on it.
…Perhaps a bit too hard.
“Mr. Ericson, is everything okay?” Mrs. Derrick asked.
“Yeah.” He replied without lifting his head. “Just have a headache.”
He kept his head down as the teacher explained that the responses weren’t set in stone and that a student could always change the minds of those on the admission boards.
He kept his head down when she assigned a small reading assignment from the book.
He almost kept his head down when he felt a light tap on his shoulder, but he couldn’t ignore such an obvious social cue.
With beat-red eyes and a throbbing head, he stared up at his teacher.
“May I have a word with you in the hallway?” She whispered.
He was in trouble…Fine. What did it matter? Maybe they’d kick him out of school. If they did he’d no longer be able to hide his failures. He’d be forced to admit to his mom how dumb he was, and he almost welcomed the relief such a punishment would bring.
He followed her into the hall. His classmates largely ignored him as they excitedly chattered about the universities they’d be attending. Those students had futures…They were smart…They had hope…
She exited the room. He did too. She closed the door.
“Malcolm, I’m very worried about you.”
“I know I’m an idiot.” He hissed. “You don’t need to tell me!”
“You’re not an idiot.” She fired back in a voice so soft and serious that he almost forgot how upset he was. “I will not stand for such abuse.”
“I’m not abusing anyone.”
“You’re abusing yourself.” She stated. “No, scratch that, I think your parents are abusing you, and I think they’ve got you trained to carry on their work when they’re not present.”
“Then that makes me an easily trained simpleton.”
“What will your parents say when you tell them you didn’t get into any of the colleges you applied for?”
He didn’t respond. He couldn’t. Despite his self-loathing nature, he couldn’t imagine telling them something so heinous.”
“Dad will be disappointed.” He settled.
“What about your mom?”
Again, silence. He refused to answer. He refused to even let his mind consider something so horrible. If Mrs. Derrick wanted to instigate a conversation, he’d let her carry the burden. It’d be up to her, and not him, to drag them through horrific hypotheticals.
“Why don’t you apply for a nice state college?” She asked. “Something less academically rigorous. I know that you get decent enough grades in many of your classes that you’ll be accepted to many of them. Wouldn’t it be better to find a college that suits you, rather than trying to force yourself to fit in to a college that’s a bit too…” She trailed off as she tried to find an appropriate word.
“A bit too advanced for me?” He finished.
“I wouldn’t put it like that.” She said. “No one is good at everything, and colleges largely only care about academics. There are so many other skills out there: People skills, art skills, emotional skills. I, for example, was terrible at English and art, but I was great with people, and decent enough at math and science, and so I became a teacher. It’s a good job with many rewards. Wouldn’t you be happier with a job that plays to your strengths?”
In truth he wanted nothing more, but his morale had been so completely shattered that he seriously doubted he had any redeeming factors…Plus the thought of telling his mom that he was pursuing a teaching career sent a small shiver down his spine.
“Sure.” He half-heartedly agreed.
She eyed him skeptically.
His eyes remained glued to the floor.
She opened the door and beckoned him inside.
He didn’t feel any better. He simply navigated the conversation to its conclusion with a string of affirmations, but his words did nothing to boost his mood. He still felt like a miserable failure, and walking back to his desk, the string of rejections reinforced his low self-esteem.
To buy on Amazon, click below.
