Cat Faux is a Cornish writer currently based in London. Having previously studied in Norwich, she was selected for UEA’s first creative writing internship alongside her degree, focusing on how writing connects to the world of visual art. Mainly a poet, her work deals with the slipperiness of form, and the boundaries between disciplines such as art, maths and poetry. Recently, she has moved to the form of the short story in order to extend this creative exploration. Her work has been featured at TOAST poetry, as well as longlisted for the Bristol Poetry Prize.  

Email – cathollyfaux@gmail.com 

 

THE BOSTON EXPERIMENT  

 

They had arrived only flickering, so I spent a few days laughing at the different objects I could pass through my one – stress balls and kitchen knives and unsent letters. When its shoulders shook in the draught that made a joke of my kitchen window, I took pity and draped my heavy quilt over its body, just to watch the patterns sink sheepishly to the floor. Occasionally, I would make it follow me into the bathroom and stand in front of the mirror, so that I could  stand on the exact same spot and line us up like printer ink, trying to bring the picture to life.   

I tried to call you twice through all of this. Once, when they first came because I thought it was you in my bed that morning. I was hungover. The night before had drifted from me, and I had to concentrate to drag it back in. Saturday. With Paul, at The Old Maid, after pint six it got hazy. There were shots. What were they called? Car bombs or kamikazes or another explosive, and then red, or was it white, or sangria, and then whisky, there must have been a whisky at some point because I was with Paul, even though I don’t like whisky or Paul, and then out to another pub, and another. 

My phone was flashing 05:47, too bright, no missed calls. There was a new crack on the screen, across the bottom half, and I cursed my carelessness. I’d have to go back to the shop. Maybe this time, I’d take them up on their offer of a stamp card.  

I turned around. It was still staring at me with eyes that weren’t yours and skin  made of static. I closed my eyes and groaned.  

You didn’t answer my call.  

The second time I tried to call you was when they became solid. A couple of weeks before that shooting down in Surrey. 

We were advised to go to work still, but I had opted to stay on the sofa. My thing sat with me. I had become used to its presence the same way one gets used to a new oven. The first week I found myself in constant confusion, reaching for my old life like a wrongly placed dial. Gradually, I stopped jolting when I spied it lurking in the corners of my flat. 

They didn’t speak or eat. They didn’t really do anything, other than appear next  to their original that Sunday, vacant and needy with no obvious purpose. They could wear light clothes but couldn’t touch anything with intent.  Mine had an interest in colour. It flickered mostly by the orange lamp in my living room and was as entertained as I was by the quilt dropping through its body.   

You bought me that quilt. And when my thing became solid, I watched as it pulled at the corners joyfully, wrapping itself in an array of green, red, and  cream. There were eighty patches neatly sewn together with white thread. Botanicals and farm animals and sunny pictures, all different, as if a children’s  book had thrown up on a duvet set. But I loved it, and apparently it loved it too, and I wondered briefly if it would love you, or love your version of it. 

Paul rang to tell me how work was going. He would be okay without me for a few more days, though it was picking up again now. Nobody knew whether to stay in or go out, another question on the ever-growing list, sandwiched between ‘can we teach them to talk’, and ‘do they have the same life span as us’, which was a poorly hidden anxiety about when they would leave.  

But they were solid now, and the questions were finally being answered as well as asked. A curious surgeon just south of Boston was desperate to find out if they had the same organs as us, for donation, and had instead uncovered something else, almost bleeding out within the hour.  

The other shoe was in flight, but if it hadn’t been for Dr. Miller nearly dying for the cause, I would have made the same discovery he did, sat in my kitchen a few hours later.  

I was born with long limbs, even as a baby my parents knew I would be tall. For a long time, I wore jeans that chafed above the ankle. My arms swung around  when I walked. In my teenage mind, it felt as if they dragged, gibbon-like, on the ground. I stood in corners, sat at the back of most classrooms, never joined the girls’ basketball team, despite the incessant requests from our two P.E leaders who didn’t understand that height and hand-eye coordination  were different things. In fact, my garish arm length and wobbly legs meant the  exact opposite: I never knew where I was, how much space I took up, or how quickly to move when a ball was flying at my head.   

As an adult I grew to love them, which is different from growing into them. I dated people who liked them or liked to laugh at them. I wore contrasting colours, often dark greens or bright oranges. I even bought platforms once, but tripped over four times on the way to the off-license and banished them forever to the cobwebbed cupboard.  

Moments before it turned solid, I could already see those features clearer. I watched as it reclined in my armchair, struggling to settle the TV remote in one hand, before reaching with a finger to push the on button. Its brow clenched as its nail passed through the plastic. It tried again. The hand passed through again. It looked at me. I shrugged.  

They couldn’t talk but it understood my body language, had been watching me  since the day it arrived. There were various attempts to copy what I was doing,  it liked to sit in my spot on the sofa and lie down in my bed at night. It tried to eat my cornflakes most mornings, sometimes managing just enough contact to  spill milk all over the counter. No doubt this is why it was trying to use the remote. It reminded me of being young, sitting next to my brother when he read, pretending over his shoulder that I could understand the words in his book.   

I stood up. The sun was setting and the entertainment of watching it struggle  had dwindled. My fridge had been empty for a couple of weeks, except for some  now sour milk and a can of Stella. Ice scattered over the floor as I broke open  the freezer. Garlic bread and peas; a balanced meal.  

It took five tries to get the gas to light on my dying hob, but eventually it  sparked, and I placed a pan of water over it. Shoving the trayless garlic bread in the oven, I opened the fridge to grab the beer.  

One of the best sounds in the world is a can opening. It’s a starting pistol that  tells you the glass isn’t half full; it’s all full. And it’s sunny or it’s Friday or you’re on the beach, or it’s a cold can of coke in the trench of a sugar low. I  didn’t drink anything from plastic bottles anymore, I was one of those taste  snobs who hid their pickiness under the guise of caring about the environment. It was just convenient, that my love for canned drinks aligned with something positive, it was like being allergic to red meat or spray on deodorant.   

But I didn’t get to hear the pop as it opened, or the following fizz, because this time all I could hear was the TV turning on as I pulled up the metal tab.   

I spun around fast. Too fast. And my long limbs betrayed me for the millionth time, throwing me top-heavy into the corner of the kitchen cabinets. I felt the  sharp plastic dig into my hip, burrowing for the bone underneath. “Fuck!”   

Unbuttoning the top button of my trousers, I shimmied them down slightly to assess the damage. Nothing. I ran my hand over the skin, pressing in my  fingertips hard to feel the pain. It never came. I pulled my trousers past the  other hip, just in case I’d hit that one instead, but there was nothing there  either. I stared at the kitchen cabinet for what must have been a minute.   

I was crazy. It had been long understood. Shaking off the feeling, I took a swig  of the beer, let the alcohol foam down my throat and settle in my stomach.  Better. I turned, slowly this time, to see what had happened across the room.   

The TV was on, playing an old Harrison Ford movie. I watched the screen as  Harrison walked into his home, scarf tied around his neck, Honey I’m home, oblivious to the drama happening upstairs, the music building and building and- 

It tumbled off the sofa with a low groan and a crash.  

I could suddenly feel every inch of my skin under my jumper. It was crouched on the floor in a ball, rocking back and forth. It groaned again.  

I trudged back over to our living room. It looked up at me and I felt a rush of air press through my lips. My face, undeniably. Asymmetrical as ever, one cheekbone slightly higher than the other, the skin no longer a dodgy lightbulb but instead a pale tan. I grimaced; winter was never kind to me. My eyes were always the centrepiece of my face, a light blue that nearly matched against the whites and here they were, glistening wet with tears.  

Real tears. I watched as one fell onto my coffee table.  

My hand trembled slightly as I reached over to it, knowing exactly what was about to happen. Sure enough, it met the solid t shirt, the heat from its shoulder as I beckoned it to stand up.   

It straightened shakily, as shocked as I was. “Ugghhhhh.” It gargled. The spare pyjama trousers I had let it borrow were two years old at least, the elastic around the waistband completely gone, and they slipped below the hipbone as it stood, revealing a quickly spreading blue.  

“Ah.” It said again, placing a hand over it.  

I couldn’t speak. I could only watch as blood collected between its clasped fingers.   

In attempting to dissect his double, Dr. Miller had inadvertently discovered a very important piece of information. A piece of information that had nearly cost  him his life, exactly five minutes after the scalpel attempted to slice through the skin that mirrored his own.   

I looked at it, my double, a term I had so far been trying to avoid but now,  looking into my own face so clearly, seeing the way it’s chest heaved up and down in fear or pain or shock, the same way my chest heaved in anxiety and  anger, the way its feet pointed slightly outwards instead of forwards, the slight  curve in the knees caused by this position, like a retired cowgirl lumbering  around her ranch, the bump in the nose where I’d walked face first into a door when I was fourteen, my history, my scars, my flaws, a perfect imperfect copy.   

“Shit.” I finally breathed.  

“Bah.” She agreed.  

I’d managed to find an ancient first aid kit under the sink, with a couple of okay looking plasters that had withstood the years of neglect and leaky pipes. I’d also  discovered a picture, the frame smashed from where I had tossed it in the  cupboard after you left.   

It was of us, at Mullion Cove last spring, before the tourists arrived. You wanted to see where I grew up and I knew the best time to go. We had jam sandwiches, and in the picture, you’re holding one up to your mouth to hide your smile. There’s jam down the front of my top and on my chin, a complete mess, but happy.  

I thought of the pale imitation in my flat, how she probably didn’t know how to look happy, because she looked like I looked now instead of then.  

Still holding the picture, I returned to her with the plasters. “This might feel a little weird.”  

“Gugh.” She whimpered, shivering as I stuck the final corner down on her hip. We were lucky it wasn’t a more dramatic discovery. I never knew what to do  with a head wound.  

“Sit back down.” I pushed her gently onto the armchair, scooping up the quilt to place on top. She stopped whining, gleefully grabbing at the colours. “Like a big baby.” I muttered, as the pot on the stove began to boil over.  

The garlic bread was burnt but still edible in the middle and the peas were mushy, but it was a decent meal. I looked down at the plate on the countertop, the whole baguette, the mountain of peas, and  sighed, pulling out another plate. If she was solid now that would mean she  would want food, probably.  

When I brought the two plates over, she wasn’t playing with the quilt, but instead was staring intensely at her hands. At the picture in her hands. She pointed at you, “Buh?”  

I grimaced, placing down the plates on the coffee table and taking the picture. I  leaned over to turn on the lamp, illuminating our faces, “I don’t think you’d understand.” I wasn’t in the mood to talk about you or explain you, or to explain the concept of love to an adult sized baby with my face.   

Her ginger eyebrows drew closer. I needed to dye them again. “Look,” I  conceded, “You see, umm,” I gestured between us, “that’s two people, like me and you. But we’re the same. But two.”   

She looked more confused. I didn’t blame her.   

I tried again, pointing at the picture. “See, it’s two. Different people.” I pointed  at me. “This is me, and also you.” I gestured between us, before pointing at you and allowing the sound of your name to slip through my teeth for the first time in months.  

My double blinked slowly, like she understood. She pointed at you and gargled out the syllables of your name.  

“Yes.” I agreed. “And sometimes two people live together. Sort of like us now. But me and you are like siblings.” Weird. “And this is more like… close friends. Best friends!”  

I was sure my double didn’t understand a word I said, but she nodded, just one nod, throwing her head all the way back before ducking it all the way down. She  gargled your name again. I rubbed my temples and swore to teach her some other words tomorrow.   

“Come on then.” I sat, placing the picture face down and handing her one of the plates. Harrison Ford was still on the TV, being chased through a tunnel. I turned it up and watched as her eyes flicked between the food and the screen. Catching her eyeline, I took a bite of the bread, and so she did the same, grunting in approval.  

The next bite she took without me having to take one first. I watched as she folded two bits of bread into a tight ball and shoved it into her mouth. Gross. I made a note to eat slower. As I was staring in disgust, my finger pricked with a sudden pain and began to bleed. I looked at the picture, the smashed frame that she had been holding five minutes before. I was going to have to bubble wrap the entire flat.  

The internet was frantic with Dr. Miller’s discovery; they weren’t just copies of us, they were pincushions, we were pincushions. The conspiracy nuts were going crazy, the alien fanatics had their theories, the ultra-rich had once again achieved immoral immunity by locking their doubles in maximum security  cells. 

There were support groups, doubles on gameshows, TikTok dances, complimentary clothing lines; by the morning it was officially labelled the #MeTwo movement.   

My double was in the kitchen making herself cornflakes more successfully than usual, but there was still milk spilled on the side.  

“That’s sour.” I took the milk out her hands, and she looked at me with betrayal shimmering in her eyes. Our eyes.  

I frowned and pointed my thumb down. “Not good.”   

She copied me, putting her thumb down. “Nah goo.”  

I never wanted children. I put my thumb up and smiled. “This means good!” 

She did the same. “Goo!”   

“But the milk,” I pointed at the bottle. “Milk.”   

She picked it up, “Mill.”  

“Mil-K.” I repeated, “Kuh, kuh.”  

“Milka.”  

“Milk is,” I put my thumb down, “Not good.”   

“Milka nah goo.” She agreed.  

It dawned on me that I had to go to the shop at some point, because there were two of  us and I only had peas. I looked at her, hair like unspun candy floss, wrapped still in the quilt with the pyjamas slipped so that they had nearly fallen down completely, putting her finger in the gone off milk and swirling it around. She was stuck between repeating her almost word for milk and your name.   

When this had all first happened, some people opted to take their doubles out  with them everywhere. I left mine in the flat, too unsettled by her uncanny silence to think about bringing her with me. I wondered if the  other doubles, the ones that had been exposed to the world since they first sputtered into it, had picked up on more language and could speak, and I felt a sickly guilt for not bringing her with me. Paul had brought his to work, I bet it could pull a mean pint by now.   

I flicked the feeling away – how was I supposed to know what to do. Either way, I couldn’t leave her alone in the flat at risk of my own injury. I looked at her, with her playful eyes and child smile, and felt warmth tickle under my skin. She reminded me of you, in a way, or maybe I had just begun to love her. The quilt  slipped a little and she pulled at the corners, making sure it covered her. She  would slow me down in the shop. I just needed someone to make sure she didn’t slip and hit her head on any surfaces whilst I was gone.   

That was why I called you the second time. You didn’t answer.  

Teaching her to speak turned out to be easier than I thought. We had been watching a lot of TV to help – mostly reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, some  films here and there, the classics: The Italian Job, The Shining, Pitch Perfect. I couldn’t complain, I liked watching TV and it was nice to have someone to watch it with again. 

Even when the news circulated about the shooting in Surrey, I felt less alone. They had found the bodies in the barn, one barefoot and barely born and the other in black, calf-high boots. The farmer’s shotgun was aimed at his double, but the hole was in his own head. They were both dead, though the double showed no signs of injury.  

The headlines read: DOUBLE EDGED SWORD: Original Attempts to Kill Double in Barn, Both Die, and the articles were in large about selling protective gear. 

People were hard to shock by this point, so instead of inciting mass fear, the incident set off a week of political debates about whether the term ‘Original’ was oppressive. There were talk show guests, public inquiries, protests outside Downing Street, and the slogan Double, Not Nothing broke trending records, it  was #SurreyGate.  

“What the fuck.” I chucked my phone on the sofa. 

“What not good?” My double picked it up to look. “Oh.” She frowned. “Sad.”  

“Yeah.” I lay down on the sofa. My brain was splitting inside my skull. Paul had shut down the pub after #SurreyGate, declaring he was driving up to  Inverness to stay in his brother’s cabin. He’d offered it to me, to run, and though work was the last thing I could think about, I’d briefly jogged around the thought of only having to do half the shifts, and having my double pretend to be me for the other half. 

My double was still scrolling on my phone. “Hey,” I reached out, “Give that back.”  

“Pretty.” She said, showing me the picture. Then she said your name. 

“Hey! How did you get to my camera roll?” I tried to snatch it off her. “Give.”  

How did she remember you? It hadn’t come up again. We had watched so many action movies, detective movies, done so many intense sessions of picture theory and phonetics and plosives. We’d played video games, she had even beat my personal best on Mortal Kombat, yet she still had room for your name.  

The obvious answer was she remembered it because I did. Maybe even a more obvious answer was she was me, same brain, same scars, same holes left by the  same people. I blinked, unsettling the water that had collected in my eyes.  

“Sad.” My double said again, reaching out to touch my cheeks. 

“Yeah.” I repeated.  

My double wrapped her arms around me, “Why?”  

She was squeezing too tight, I wriggled slightly, but she held her grip, oblivious. “People leave, it’s sad. But it happens sometimes.”  

“I won’t leave us.” She smiled.  

“Well, you can’t,” I replied, before pausing, “But thank you.”  

“It’s not our problem.”   

“Not a problem.” I corrected.  

She took her arms off me and leaned back into a kneeling position on the sofa, looking me over, saying nothing. 

I took my phone back out and looked at the screen. We still needed to get it fixed. Since that first shop visit, we had been going outside more. February had given way to a warmer March and small buds were beginning to appear in  all the green parks in the city. We loved to sit so still on the benches that squirrels would sniff up close to us.   

For the next few days, we planned a weekend outing that would take us past a phone repair shop. We coordinated it with buying a new pair of shoes – I only  had three pairs when she arrived – and an hour in the park. For the next few  days, we organised a picnic shop, checked the weather compulsively, and made sure our raincoats were dried out. For those few days, we hardly thought about calling you.   

It turns out we didn’t need to because there you were, getting your phone repaired.   

My double stopped in the doorway behind me, her mouth hanging open. Your double looked confused, sitting on a chair to the side while you spoke at the  desk. I spun to leave, but my double was blocking the door. “Go.” She whispered, but she hadn’t grasped whispering yet, so it came out at a normal  volume.  

You turned around and saw us, your eyes widening. Then, you titled your head, trying to figure out which one of us was me. “Hi.” I raised my hand. Behind me, my double raised hers.  

“Hey,” You smiled, “Long time no see.”  

“Yeah well, you didn’t answer my calls.”  

Our doubles were watching us speak like it was a boxing match. 

“Sorry,” You shrugged, “My phone broke. And I thought the world was  ending.”  

“You know that’s why I wanted to talk.”  

The man handed you back your phone over the desk. “All done, thanks for being patient.”  

You raised it up into the air above your head to show it off. “Perfect!” As you packed your stuff, your double stood up, dutifully, to wait for you. You looked me in the eye on the way out, “Now it’s fixed, you can text me later. If you like. We can meet to talk?”  

It wasn’t anything. Not a promise or an ointment for my almost healed scar, but it did open something up inside me, something small and breakable, gulping quick breaths between my ribs. “I’d like that.” I replied, automatically, and, with that, you left.  

“Told you so.” Said my double, who had been allowed to watch way too much American TV. 

On the way home, I bounced on my heels, rushing as my double kept up behind me. “Slow.” She huffed. My phone dinged, your text, about a café in the evening.   

“Sorry, sorry.” I stopped hopping.  

“It’s okay.” She caught up, her face betraying her quiet frustration.  

We didn’t talk for the rest of the way home, our feet filling the silence in unison. We lumbered at the same pace, our arms swinging in the rhythm. Our cheeks had grown fuller since she had first stabilised, and, at home, in the lamplight of our living room, she studied me  with pinched lips, as if she couldn’t speak until I did.   

I didn’t want to leave, I realised. I had been stuck dragging my body towards you for too long, and things were different now. She didn’t want me to go either, I could see it in our face. The silence was sticky in the air of our flat.  

It was curiosity that eventually drove me to the bathroom to get ready. I droned to the mirror. My face. It was like she was in here too. My heart stopped its terrible stretching as I leaned forwards, consumed.  

The café I was meeting you at was famous for its croissants. It had all different types of croissants: chocolate, pecan, raspberry swirl, and more. The one I was most excited about was the pistachio, I knew that was your favourite too, and I rehearsed offering you the bigger half in my head, just like before. 

I was applying the last coat of lip gloss when a loud thump made me jolt the brush diagonally across my cheek. “Ah!” I dabbed it with some tissue, before  sticking my head around the door.  

The living room had darkened. My double was standing by the sofa, holding the quilt in its arms. “Sorry, I tripped. I’m okay.” 

“Oh.” I walked out of my bathroom, “Am I going to hurt?”  

“A little.” My double shrugged, “Not too bad.”  

I narrowed my eyes, unconvinced. “Where did you fall?” A sourness started to rise.  She waved one hand noncommittedly, cradling the quilt in the other.  

“Where did you fall?” I repeated, unease weaving between my stomach lining. I marched over, scanning my living room.  Nothing had changed, the picture frame glinted on the table. “Did you hit the table? What  happened?”  

“I didn’t hit the table.” She took a step back. Our new fullness cheated her face, cheeks flushing briefly as it met my question with washed out eyes. I reached out for her, losing my footing and accidentally biting my tongue. Hard.  

The quilt dropped as she flinched from my sudden movement, clanging to the floorboards.  

I calmed my breathing, in and out.  

“It’s dirty now.” My double frowned at the floor, putting her thumb down.  

I started laughing, small laughs at first, hiccupping out of my throat with relieved puffs of air, then bigger laughs, cracking up from my stomach. “Oh, it’s fine,” I gasped, tasting iron, “it needed a clean anyway.”