Take Heart
In the movies clones always wake up thinking they are the original, and then are shocked when informed they are not. Well, no one informed me of anything. Which isn't to say I thought I was the original either, since I couldn't remember a thing prior to waking up in that room.
My first few weeks consisted of sterile off-white rooms connected by quite sterile off-white hallways, through which I'd be ushered gently. It was always slightly chilly -- 72 degrees is a bit crisp when all you're wearing is a hospital gown! People in white coats constantly checking on my health, jotting down notes, whispering to eachother.
They'd ask me how I felt, --in a cold clinical manner that conveyed they weren't inquiring to be polite-- they'd ask me to put a thermometer under my tongue, they'd ask me if it hurt when they pricked my arm in a particular place, but they never asked how my day was going or if there was something I'd rather be doing. Which was fine with me. I didn't feel like getting to know them either.
So I passed my time in a world of cold sterile rooms and hallways. Never alone, yet always alone. They kept me occupied enough not to be bored -- all kinds of tests, from math to history to logic to ethics. While I didn't remember anything specific from prior to waking up on the table, I seemed to remember all kinds of general knowledge.
I felt relatively ambivalent about my life, it was all I knew, after all. In fact I felt pretty ambivalent about everything. For all I knew they were just planning on harvesting my heart for the original or something. Some of their tests involved having me read things or watch things and tell them how I felt. They tried not to skew my perfectly blank slate by letting on their opinions of my test results, but they also often forgot I was in the room. I could tell they were vaguely concerned that nothing seemed to have an emotional effect on me. But when your life isn't really your life you feel a bit like a tin man.
Earlier today they led me to a small room and sat me at a table, and instead of someone in a white coat coming in with another test for me, the door opened and a man in a brown suit came in. He smiled enthusiastically, set his briefcase down and reached forward to shake my hand saying "Hi, I'm Mr Brunswick."
"Hi I'm.... well I don't have a name" I said shaking his hand uncertainly. This was highly unusual. He looked slighly disconcerted himself for a minute but quickly recovered. "I'm from the Action Committee For the Rights of Clones, and recently we've won a major victory ... according to the Supreme Court you now have rights!"
He looked at me like I should be overjoyed. Frankly I didn't really have an opinion on the matter.
Some bewildering paperwork, sour looking scientists and a few hours later, I find myself standing outside in the "fresh air" for the first time. They were kind enough to give me a pair of scrubs to wear, which I gather are more socially acceptable in the outside world that a hospital gown. But here I am, no possessions, no name, no identity. I'm not entirely sure I share Mr Brunswick's enthusiasm for my release. A road with a yellow line in the middle of it leads away through the open gate towards a city, I start walking.