Mirror-image

Steve drove all night long through the desert. When he reached the city, sun was rising. Rita knew he was coming; he called her last night when he stopped at a gas station.

Steve saw her waiting at the front-porch. Rita, his high-school sweetheart, still so pure, so fresh, so loving! Rita came forward when he parked and got down from his car. Steve smelled jasmine when she embraced him.

“Such a long time! Did you miss me?” she said.

“I missed you.I missed you every day, every moment I was away.” he said.

Rita laughed and kissed him.

Steve went to take shower while Rita was preparing breakfast. Steve felt fresh after a good shower in fragrant warm water. Only a little doubt, like a thin thorn, pricked his heart.

Last night when he was driving through the desert, he stopped for half an hour. He felt lost. He couldn’t remember anything during an interval of time just before his getting up and encountering a storm. A total dark patch in his memory.

After the hole in the continuum of his memory, the first thing he could recall was that he got up as if from a deep sleep. It was all dark and stormy. The whole lab complex was out of power! Why? Power line must have been damaged severely.

Then how come he hadn’t been concerned! Such a strange feeling! Everything was mingled so badly that Steve couldn’t put the pieces together in right place. It was very puzzling! On desert, after thinking hard for half an hour or so, he couldn’t get any clue to solve that puzzle.

Then he decided not to think anymore and to reach Rita as soon as possible. He first searched for his cell-phone, it wasn’t with him! He stopped at a gas-station and used the pay phone to call Rita in the middle of the night. He was much relieved when Rita responded. At least, that part of his life was intact!

In the morning, after her warm welcome, he was more relieved. While taking shower, that strange helplessness came back for a moment. Steve, with all his mental strength, refused to accept it and came out refreshed.

Rita and Steve got married next day and then they went to their honeymoon to an island. Rita switched off her cell-phone( Steve didn't have his with him) for the whole honeymoon time, they didn’t want to be interrupted.



*******

Real Steve woke up in the clinic of the lab complex where the cloning project was being done. He had internal hemorrhage at that night of disaster when the lab complex had power failure for a whole night.

The high-security chamber where the jar containing the clone was kept, got struck by lightning. Steve happened to be there at that time and he fell unconscious. Several hours later, security guards rescued him and transported him to the clinic.

They found the broken container lying on the wet ground with the chemicals but they didn’t find the clone Steve. Research team knew that time was almost ripe for clone Steve, an adult fully grown man with all the memories of real Steve up to his twenty-seventh birthday mapped to his brain, to come out of that jar and start to live like a twin of real Steve. But disaster did strike.

Steve recovered from coma several days later. Then slowly he gained strength and remembered what happened. But he also had no clue of what happened to his clone.

After several days, he called Rita. Nobody answered, Rita wasn’t home.



*******

Rita and Steve just got back from their two weeks honeymoon. Now, they were the happiest couple in town. A call came very early in the morning. Rita received the call while her husband was still asleep by her side.

“Hello, Rita, I’m Steve here. How’re you doing?”

“Who? Steve? Steve who? What’s your full name? ”

“What? Rita, what happened to you? Are you mad at me? ”

“Look, I don't know who you are but please don’t call us in such early morning, we just came from our honeymoon and we’re quite tired.”

“Rita, Rita, please don’t hang up. Did you say honeymoon? ”

“What is it? Why are you asking such weird questions in such an odd hour? See, I don’t know who you are, but listen, I’m married to Dr. Steven Winfield, and we just got back from honeymoon.” Rita switched off the cell phone.



**********

Steve arrived to Rita after four days. His therapist, Dr. Christina Weber drove him. Steve was nearly dead. He couldn’t sleep or eat for two days, had a fever and delusion. His weak body which was recovering from illness couldn’t bear that sudden shock.

Rita and her husband welcomed Steve and Christina at the main-gate. Previous night, Christina called Rita and told everything about Steve and his crisis. Though very shocked, but Rita was prepared.

Clone Steve approached original Steve, his hands were shaking, nobody knew or could imagine what he had gone through. Only a dark shade on his face was showing a glimpse of his agony. A mere copy of a man, carrying all the memory of his life, illegally enjoyed the pleasure and happiness stored for the rightful man.

Clone Steve knelt down before real Steve and looked at his eyes. With a shaking,faint voice he said,“I beg you to kill me right now. I’m a mistake, a big mistake. My existence is wrong. Free me from all these agony.”

Real Steve stared at his copy for several moments. His copy, his clone! Another man with the same identity! As if he looked at his image in mirror. So similar but still so different! Two different people from the same original code. After some breathless moments, Steve placed his hand gently on his clone’s shoulder and smiled.

“Get up. Don’t be so sorry. From now on, we’ll be different persons. We’ll have different experiences and different memories. Together we’ll be rich.”

Slowly, clone Steve got up, his eyes got bigger in surprise when real Steve took his hands and joined those with Rita’s hands.

Real Steve said,“Rita and Steve, I wish you a very happy life together.”



___________