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Clones Ryan Somma

I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on my free creative commons e-book Clones, and I was amazed that, while everyone had their own favorite stories from the collection, the one that got best reviews was Ryan’s Clone, where I speculate on what it would be like to spend a day at the mall with my own cloned child. It was the simplest, least thought-provoking story of all, but readers all seemed to agree that it was the most natural of the stories.

I don’t have any more Clones stories in me, but I want to read more of them. So I was wondering if anyone else out there would like to take a turn at the speculative helm and tell everyone about your own clone? It could be a short story, a blog post, or just a comment.

I think this is a thought experiment with a lot of merit. It’s an issue we’re facing in our lifetimes, an exercise in futurism, creative writing, social commentary, and has the potential to wrestle with some very sticky ethical issues.

Here’s some dimensions to consider:

• Suppose you were to have a clone made of yourself. Why might you do it? To get things right? Raise yourself better than your parents did? Raise yourself with the wisdom you have of yourself now? Maybe it’s just plain old curiosity? Or maybe you need a kidney?
• How old is your clone? Think about what you were like at that age, or ask your parents. Are there surprises? Insights into who you are today gleaned from seeing who you were then? There’s no reason your story cannot play out as a series of vignettes visiting with you and your clone growing up over the years.
• What parenting activity are you engaged in with your clone? Are you helping your clone with their homework? Are you grocery shopping with a four-year-old version of yourself having a temper-tantrum? What would playing with dolls or action figures be like with your child-self?
• How much of you is nature and how much is nurture? How do you feel about yourself, and how will that affect your interactions with your clone
• Surprise me and everyone else by thinking outside these parameters.

Now please Write something. It doesn’t even need to be a short story, just some speculation in a blog post will do. The only request I have is that you begin your speculation with, “My clone was…” How you fill out the rest is entirely up to you.

Post it to Oort-Cloud, post it to your blog, post it to the comments section, as a letter to the editor of your local paper, or wherever. Notify me, and I’ll link to them. Or e-mail them to me with a creative commons attribution license (preferably the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license), and I’ll post them to Oort-Cloud crediting you.

You might learn something about yourself. : )

Note: This is for online collaboration only, a speculative exercise. I will only provide links and Oort-Cloud posts. If this idea gets a lot of good responses, I’ll see about contacting everyone to measure interest in collaborating on a vanity-press anthology or something along those lines.

I’m at a restaurant last night, and there are leftovers. Not much in the way of leftovers, but enough to make me feel guilty about wasting food.

However, I’m not too keen on asking for a doggie bag because I know this restaurant uses non-biodegradable Styrofoam containers.

It’s better to send the food to the dump and let it compost than send the Styrofoam out into the world where some poor sea-turtle will mistake it for a jellyfish and choke to death, right?

But then I start thinking about all those people starving all over the world due to incredible food shortages, and then I’m feeling guilty about eating in a restaurant at all while they’re eating mud to stave off hunger, and my driving to the restaurant doesn’t help as the ethanol craze drives food prices through the roof.

And here I am, breathing and massacring millions of bacteria with each breath!!! Aaaagh!!!

Why did I even get out of bed this morning?

Note: Felt a little better after donating to Food for the Poor