The City of Many

He refused to make eye contact. Even though a stranger here and not sure of the city’s name, he knew something was different about it. Walking quickly to reach his destination, Karl kept his eyes focused on the sidewalk. Simply looked at the footwear of the people going by gave him an uneasy feeling.
         When a woman passed him wearing a pair of identical red high heels to those worn by six other women he’d seen, Karl finally looked up.
         “What are you staring at, mister?” The stunning brunette glared at him, daring Karl to answer.
         Instead, he shook his head and continued past her, again only looking down. When he saw legs ending in similar shoes coming toward him, he stopped.
         Another brunette, who looked exactly like the previous woman, smiled at him. “Hello, sir, are you lost?”
          “Yes, please. I’m Karl Petersen and need to get to the bank on Wilson Avenue.” Karl started to ask for directions, but noticed a crowd of people crossing the busy street nearby. Again, he felt there was something odd about them, but what happened next made him stare in horror. Coming at breakneck speed toward the people was a large double-decker bus.

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         The blue and yellow vehicle slammed into the crowd, scattering bodies all over the street. To Karl’s shock, the brunette standing in front of him paid no attention to the carnage and simply asked again, “Are you lost? My name is Adara. Can I help you?” She continued smiling, even when the screams of the mangled and dying people reached them.
          “Aren’t you going to help them? What’s the matter with you, lady?” Karl started toward where the bus stopped, but hesitated when he heard the sirens of approaching emergency vehicles.
         Instead of the familiar ambulances and fire engines of his own city, Karl saw huge, black trucks pull up next to the bodies. On the side of each truck, he read the stenciled words “Disposal Unit” in large white letters. One had the word “Female” below it while the other had “Male.” As he silently watched, stunned speechless, uniformed attendants separated the bodies on the ground and placed them into the back of the corresponding vehicle. Most of the bodies were lifeless. One or two, though, still moved and were shoved carelessly into the trucks by the attendants.
         When the trucks with their gruesome contents drove away, all that remained in the middle of the road was the parked bus and streaks of rapidly drying blood. Karl came out of his daze and started back to where the brunette was still standing on the sidewalk. Around her he now saw half a dozen people, all of whom were smiling at him.
         Another brunette woman, an exact replica of the woman he had been talking with earlier, met him at the edge of the sidewalk. “Hello, Karl. I’ll show you the way to Wilson Avenue. Please follow me.” Without waiting, she headed away from the group on the sidewalk and across the street to the other side. Unsure what was going on, Karl slowly followed her, making sure not to step in the congealed blood.
         Two identical-looking men met him halfway across and removed their hats in silent welcome. Again, Karl had the feeling there was something strange about this city. Okay, he thought, when the men continued on their way, there’s nothing odd about meeting twins, is there?” His eyes opened wide when he saw another man running to join the first two. Triplets?
         For the next half hour, Karl and the brunette traveled through the crowded city. At one point when they stood for long minutes waiting for the streetlight to change from “Don’t Walk” to “Walk,” Karl got up the courage to ask, “Those bodies…where are they going?”
         “Why, to the recycle Center, of course.” The woman said this, as if Karl should already know this fact. “Some of them will still be good enough for spare parts.”
         “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Spare parts? Recycle Center?”
         The woman smiled at Karl, now speaking to him as one would to a backwards child. “Of course. We don’t waste parts here since DNA is so limited.” She suddenly stopped to point to a large brick building in front of them. “We’re here.”
         Karl still struggled to figure out what the woman meant by spare parts and wasn’t watching where he was going. He bumped up against her before he could stop. “Sorry. Here? Where’s here?”
         “Why, your bank. You did want this one, didn’t you? It’s the largest one we have and named after our city.” She looked proudly at the bank’s name spread across the front of the building in large letters.
         Karl watched the flashing neon sign that spelled out “The Bank of Dupli-City” in alternating letters of yellow and blue. “Your city’s name is Dupli-City? How strange.”
         The woman appeared surprised. “Why do you say that? It’s a perfect name for our city.” She continued, after seeing Karl didn’t understand her. “When this area was just a wilderness long ago, far away from civilization, a dozen molecular scientists survived a terrible plane crash. They had been on their way to an international conference, but their rescuers never came. Instead, the scientists founded this place and continued their work.”
         “Their work? What were they working on?” Karl asked this, even though the secret of the city was starting to become apparent to him.
         “I thought you knew, Karl,” the woman said, sweeping her arm around to encompass all the people around them. “They created all of us from their own DNA.”
         Karl closed his eyes when she stated what should have been obvious to him.
         “Dupli-City is a city of duplicates...clones!”

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Co-Winner of 08/01/07 daily "The Writer's Cramp - Poetry Week"  contest

J. A. Buxton