Mes’ house was a mess. It
holds the appearance of a recent human-tornado-party going through it. Food
wrappings littered the floor. Unwashed dishes piled the sink, and a thick layer
of dirt covered the windows. “What happened here?” I asked him.
“Nothing,” was his only
reply.
“You mean, it’s like this
every day”.
“You’ll see,” he said
smirking as he led me through the back and down the stairs into the basement.
There, at the end of the dark narrow corridor, lay a single huge oak door, reminding
me off those eerie mad-scientist movies. As if to confirm my thoughts, it
creaked heavily as he slowly opened it and bade me enter. Warily, I stepped in,
unsure of what I was to see.
At first I held no
expression, as dumb as a doornail I stood there and stared with half-closed
eyes, not convinced of the sight before me. It would have been less shocking to
view the monsters that haunted my childhood, the kind that wets your eyes and
wets your bed. Yet I just stood there, unblinking.
The room was quite large,
spanning the whole of the house and more, yet it was so cramped. It was
littered with all sorts, from furniture and library shelves to file cabinets
and electrical equipment. It was lit by a multitude of fluorescent lamps,
patterned randomly across the roof, giving it a sort of bright-white laboratory
appearance. The real clincher though, the sight that shocked me, was the fact
that there were a number of people in there, all in the exact shape and form of
Mes, down to the last hair! Each was busy at some task or the other, and paid
not the least attention to me, as if they were expecting me.
Mes (the original one, I
think), took me by the arm and led me deeper into the room, shutting the oak
door behind him with a bang. The sudden noise awoke me from my hypnotized
trance and I stared wildly around, unable to grasp this new information all at
once. Mes awaited no prompting from me, and began his tale.
“I was suffering just
like you in the older days; No time for work, play, whatever. I felt suffocated
and overloaded; a drop of a pin would break me. As I lay one night,
contemplating giving it all up and starting fresh, a revelation hit me. I need
to create copies. With more of me, I could split my workload and have time for
things I always wanted to do. So that night I dreamt of another me, one that
enjoys work unconditionally, and the next day there he is, lying beside me.
Don’t ask me how he came to be, I prefer to see it as a miracle and leave it at
that. This Mes-2 goes to my office job by day, and then to my graveyard shift
by night. He cares little for anything else, and loves to work! He’s perfect.
He isn’t here right now because he’s working. That’s all he does! “
“Now for a while I was
content to avoid work, and could have left it at that. But then I thought,
wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had a third Mes to go to college for me. And
thus, lo and behold a third me the next morning! Mes-3 takes ten courses a
semester. He loves studying and learning new things. He’s almost a machine.
There he is, the one crouched at that desk with all the books, he has five
midterms next week to study for.” As if on cue, Mes-3 glanced up for a second
with a quick wave, then dived back into his avalanche of education.
I found the composure to
finally say a few words. “Don’t you, I mean them, ever get tired. And why have
Mes-3 studying when ultimately you won’t learn anything.”
“I thought you might ask
that, very perceptive of you,” he replied merrily. “See, I would never have
made Mes-3 if I didn’t know about my connection with Mes-2. Everything Mes-2
sees, hears, feels, whatever, so do I. You remember the ‘Borg” in Star Trek;
The alien race that had a single universal mind. Well it’s the same thing with
me and all of…me. I have this connection
with all of them, as they do with each other. One mind. I know what you’re thinking, that it sounds like an
overload, but it’s not as bad as you think. Humans use very little of their
brain…so...well…my brain adapted to this…situation. The rest of the brain is
being used for all this extra processing. It’s like watching many television
sets at the same time and understanding them all. That way, we all share the
same experiences, the same feelings, as if we’re still one and the same.
Conveniently, this meant the creation of Mes-4, to do one thing, and one thing
only. Sleep! For all his lifetime he sleeps for the rest of us, occasionally
getting up to eat and erm…relieve bodily functions.” Following the pointing
finger of Mes I spotted a large king-size bed in a corner, with a single
blanketed figure curled up on it, sleeping soundly. “He sleeps like a baby,
nothing short of an earthquake would wake him.”
We made our way across
the left wall, where there was standing yet another Mes, peering intensely at a
photo. “Who’s he?” I asked. “I mean…what does he do?” I corrected my mistake.
“That’s Mes-6. He’s a bit
on the soft-side if you ask me. You see, even with my jobs and my college
studies out of the way, I still had another problem. My friends complained that
I spent too much time with my girlfriend, and my girlfriend complained that I
spend too much time with my friends. Naturally, I took a giant leap and created
Mes-5 and Mes-6. Right now, Mes-5 is snow-boarding with my friends in the Alps,
a much needed holiday. Great fun. Mes-6 here is seeking inspiration for his
latest love-poem, by gazing intensely into my girlfriend’s photo. He spends
every waking moment thinking of her and only her. The perfect boyfriend,
catering to her every need and satisfaction. Off course he also makes sure he
doesn’t smother her, and that no other man steals her away from him. A bit of a
psycho if you ask me.” Mes-6 smiled at this comment, for he knew it was to be
said before it even left Mes-1 s’ mouth. There are no hard feelings between
them though. How could you harbor hard feelings from your own insults?
“Inspiration is a funny
thing,” Mes-1 continued. “It comes and goes and is never there when you need
it. I have all these ideas I want to place in reality, yet I never found the
inspiration convenient. It’s always put off for another time. I considered,
what the hell, and made two more Mes. Mes-7 is sitting there on the computer.
He is the creator of words, a beauty unappeased in this world. His creativity
spans the written art, from literature to languages to poetry. If he’s not
reading some poem or another by Poe or Blake, he’s scribing one of his own.
He’s got four books under his belt so far, and many more to come. Mes-8 is also
the creative artist, but in all things beyond words. Painting, crafting, sculpting,
you name it. Such a peaceful hobby he has. I envy him sometimes…” Mes-1 said
jokingly. We stood for a while behind Mes-8, peering at his latest work, a
miniature Roman chariot, fixed to the last detail with artistic fervor.
Whatever their tasks, the Mes-clones seemed to enjoy it heartily, as if they
were created for that reason and that reason only. There is no monotony when
all their minds are linked together.
“I hatched Mes-9 to care
for family functions. He’s out at the moment, on some picnic with my uncles
bunch. He spends quality time with my parents, goes on outings with relatives,
plays with my nieces and nephews, and even remembers all their birthdays. He’s
especially busy during the holidays. Can you envision all those gifts and cards
to send? I don’t envy him! That’s for sure. Yet he takes pleasure in it, it’s
his life’s work so to say.”
“And there you have it,
nine mes if you include me, one for this and one for that, a marvel to perceive
I am sure, yet as ideal for the ideal life, the one, one sees only in dreams.”
he concluded poetically, parking himself comfortably in the middle of an
outsized couch, a large grin on his face as he awaited my long overdue reaction
to his wondrous wonders.
After such a lengthy and
tiresome tale I had but one thing to ask.
“So what do you do?”
Following which his great
grin vanished and he replied crossly,
“What do you think I do?!
I clean up after my Mes !!!”
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