Alter Egos

I don't know what woke me, but I realised I was standing by my bed, feeling cold and shaking in the dark. There was a singing in my ears like wind in telephone wires. Pale light flitted through the room as clouds raced past, turning the moon on and off, and in a brief bright moment I saw that I was still in bed.

"There are two of me!" I exclaimed, staring at the darkened pillow where I still lay sleeping in shadow as the clouds obscured the moon again.

"I don't want to cause alarm," said a voice to my right, and it did just that, "but there are somewhat more than two of us."

I turned, staring at the dimness of the bedroom door, and as another ray of moonlight flared up like a lighthouse beam, saw that it was I, standing there, looking at me. And, as I glanced back to the pillow in the final flicker before the clouds snapped shut across the silver face outside, I saw that I was also still asleep, oblivious to the shock that I was now encountering.

"I can't put this any other way," I said from the doorway, "but we are in a lot of trouble."

"We?" I asked. "Because there's more than one of us? How so, will the government triple our tax bill?"

"Don't be quite so frivolous" I said dryly, motioning me to follow. "Money is the least of our worries at the moment. But government?" I laughed ironically, "Well, that, in a way, is all of our worries."

I was going to move to the doorway, but stopped, feeling my lip. It felt wet and sticky, and when I took my hand away and the moonlight re-appeared, I saw a dark stain on it. I tasted it.

"My nose is bleeding," I said, and looked at myself.

"We've just been punched in the face," I said. "Come on, before it gets worse."

"Who punched me?" I asked, moving now, following myself out into the darkened corridor.

"One of us," I answered, not looking back. At a determined pace, we passed through the open doorway into the large room. I moved out from behind myself just as the moonlight arrived, and stared at myself, huddled on the floor clutching my nose. Standing over me, snorting noisily like a horse beyond the finishing post, was myself, wild-eyed, manic-faced, waving my arms wildly.

I looked at myself, beside me, then at myself moaning on the floor, and said to myself "Why did you hit me?"

"I am in command here," I said, "I'll decide what questions are asked and what answers are given."

"I'm not like this!" I turned to myself beside me. "How did this happen?"

"I didn't say anything wrong," I moaned from the floor, "I didn't deserve that. I was trying to help."

"I will not be disobeyed," I screamed, waving my arms again, "and I will not be questioned. What is decided is decided, it doesn't need reviewing or approval by a committee. One word, one will, one war!"

"For my benefit," I said, trying to prevent the situation from rising to the boil again, "what exactly is the problem?"

"I think the problem is quite evident," I said beside me, "it is the solution that requires debate."

"Am I surrounded by talkative idiots?" I screamed, stamping the ground in a fury. "Must I repeat myself for every inattentive poltroon? There is only one solution, and I have the formula! Act, and act now! Prepare the Thousand-year Rite! "

I looked at myself as a fresh wave of moonlight rushed into the room, and saw that I had a small black moustache.

"But I shave," I said in bewilderment, feeling my upper lip. It was smooth and hairless. "And I do not comb my hair like that!"

I stared in horror as I recognised myself. I was Adolph Hitler.

I turned to myself and exclaimed "but Hitler has been dead for sixty years, has he not?"

"Did anyone see my body?" I shouted in excitement. "Did they? No, they did not! They saw a charred corpse. It could have been anybody, the city was full of charred corpses. The world wanted me dead, and when they were given a body and a plausible tale they swallowed it, pickled cabbage and all!"

I turned to myself where I lay on the floor, but I had recovered from the earlier beating and scampered quickly up and came to join me where I stood in the doorway beside myself.

"I think this is what is known as a cataclysmic schism," I said beside me. "It is rare, but not unknown. What I am not certain about, is what can be done about it. I need to look at some parts of a book I read some time ago."

"The book is not a book, it is a pamphlet called 'Spontaneous Cathartic Regression Technique," I said from the other side of me. "I was just describing how relevant it was to the current situation when I was brutally attacked."

"I do not need any quack-doctor hypotheses," I screamed, wagging a finger at the shivering self beside me. "I have Hans Horbiger's advice, and Himmler will have the Holy Quail. Marmite Tax Three!"

I turned to myself and said "How would this pamphlet help, if I were able to find it?"

"It would possibly describe what to do if the subject reacts inappropriately," I began to say but was interrupted as I screamed "I am not a subject! I am the new ruler of the age! All will bow to my command! I will rise again, and this time I will not go to Moscow, or let Goering loose with the medicine!"

I turned and went back into the corridor, lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves. The moon did not penetrate here, and I was forced to feel along the shelves one by one, searching with my fingertips for a slim pamphlet in a plain card cover, that I remembered seeing a few months ago when I chased a butterfly though the house. It came to me assertively, it seemed, the narrow spine projecting just a fraction further than the other books.

I hurried back into the room, into the moonlight, and said to myself "I have it, see!"

I took it from myself and examined it, reading out loud the title, and then the author, "Doctor Abraham Isaacs of the University of Zion, Fellow of the Institute of Uncommon Science, Philosopher at Arms to the Emperor Joshua Norton Foundation."

"A Jew!" I screamed, lunging forwards in a fit of rage and wresting the pamphlet from myself. "I will not be insulted by this loathsome arse-wipe of semitic lies! Where there's a Will there's a Whale! I will..."

And before my eyes, I suddenly writhed and contorted, twisting and thrusting the hand which gripped the pamphlet away from myself as I fell to the floor, splayed out in the moonlight like a drunken sailor. I started forwards, but I reached out and stopped me, saying hurriedly, "No, no, it is enough, just watch, and do not touch, on any account."

I turned to myself and saw that I was calm, almost triumphant, as I watched myself squirming on the floor like a slug that has blundered into salt. My outstretched hand was trying to distance the pamphlet from me, but as I curled up into a fetal position the paper and card came closer still, and as I folded into a smaller ball, so it seemed to grow around me.

There was a sudden cloud above, and when it moved away and let the moonlight in once more the floor was empty. I looked around the room, and then to myself, seeking an explanation, but as I looked, I faded with the moonlight's departure, and as I turned quickly back to myself, I too had gone.

The clouds raced past outside, the moonlight flickered beacon-like, and I waited for a long time, watching, breathing, listening, but I was quite alone.

This tale owes much to Stanislaw Lem. I could have kept quiet and dared you all to recognise it, but I must pay him the respect he is due; he was one of those writers who helped me see what a fascinating thing the mind can be. I would like to dedicate this story to the Society for Happy Endings, whom I understand are campaigning to have all children's books that do not have a happy ending burnt. Happy Kristalnacht to them.