She, it? She, though awake, was awake only in the sense her eyes were open. Dressed in a hospital gown, she sat there in the chair, drooling from her big lupine mouth. Shockingly enough, she did seem to display some cognition, in the form of raising her head just a bit as her bored, amber’y eyes surveyed the surroundings, like drunken cctv cameras.
She also was… visibly a bit moist. The dregs of that amniotic honey stuck to her fur like a glue, making her look quite smooth, sticky even. “Oh no, she’s gross.” Josephine sighed, bringing her hands to where her mouth would be, save for her helmet.
Laboriously, Labcoat lively leveraged the leads of the laden wheelchair so heavy it’s like its lead, in a laughably lean league of his own languid limpness. Laughing, almost listlessly he left the wheelchair at the base of D’Lupu’s lithe legs.
Looking down on her clone, she couldn’t help but feel a kind of pity, and disgust. Motherlessly brought into the world, not even her own real person. Sad.
Labcoat huffed and puffed, wiping a debatably real head of sweat from his brow. “Enjoy.” He said sarcastically, attempting to send off the wheelchair dwelling clone by giving her a righteous shove. She didn’t go far enough to have this effect. “…Okay?” Josephine cocked her head, the sarcasm sliding off her, leaving only anger in its place, before he strutted away, back into the elevator.
This left only the secretary to watch the next events unfold. Josephine was very glad this was the case. “Alright, come on, let’s go.” She declared unto The Clone, who was still half asleep in the chair, licking her chops free of the drool lazily.
God, she was gross. Like a grub, just sitting there. Fat and stupid. The pity escalated.
“Cmon!” Josephine snapped, both literally and figuratively, her long fingers clicking with impatience, to no avail. The Clone still sat there, unmoving, barely blinking. “Alright, well, you don’t really have a choice. Stand up!” She clapped her hands, “Wake up!” It was finally this that got The Clone to raise a brow, her dozing eyes previously glazed over with indolence, finally coming to even a modicum of attention.
As if her arms weighed a million and one pounds, she exhaustedly raised them to grasp the sides of the wheelchair, pushing herself up with the strength of Arthurian legends ripping the sword from the stone. She managed to almost get herself up, but, when even the littlest bit of weight hit her feet, she became wobbly.
It was horrifying, she managed to take almost half a step outside of the confines of the wheelchair before she faltered, collapsing forth atop Josephine prime, sending the wheelchair crashing across the room as she desperately clutched her “mother’s” shoulders. Of course, this reaction was not anticipated, and, most righteously the both of them came crumbling to the ground in a pile of blue-grey.
“God DAMNIT.” Josephine prime roared from beneath the absolute unit that was her clone, the secretary snorting across the room, trying to stifle her laughter as she watched Josephine shove out from underneath her own inept flesh. Springing up with acrobatic grace, she scratched her head, again being frustratedly stopped by her helmet. She could hear The Clone, gently sobbing as best she could, though, not actually doing anything to improve her situation.
“Aight, come on. You can do it.” She encouraged, tapping The Clone —who was yet face down on the floor, crying— upon the shoulder with her foot. Mustering all the strength her newborn body could, she weakly entered a position one could describe as “nascent push-up.” Engaging her factory-new biceps, she could hardly get her chest off the ground, slamming face first back into the tile, sobbing just a little bit louder.
Loudly groaning, Josephine squat down to the utterly distraught clone, hooking her arms underneath The Clone’s shoulders and LIIIIIFTING with all her might. All her might, thankfully, was quite enough for her to get the anemic clone up to her feet, Josephine yet propping her up, like a corpse.
As if struck with a fear of heights, The Clone wobbled and swayed and shifted on shaking legs, like a fawn, or a foal, or some other baby animal whose name starts with the letter F. Yet, valiantly, and huffing and puffing with her lungs, yet sticky with the preserving resin, she managed to stand.
Thus ensued the highly awkward dance of Josephine, basically hugging The Clone from behind, following her each awkward step closer to the door. Tripping over each other's feet, so close to the door, “C’mon. You’re so close!” Pridefully, cried Josephine, the door’s steely handle was just within grasp.
Releasing one of her hands, the life-giving supports, from the plush shoulder of her clone, Josephine reached forth, desperately clawing, barely able to grasp it with the tippy tip of her fingers, attempting to open it. Unfortunately, The Clone did not actually seem to have the concept for a door opening, and rather than move out of the way, she let the door smack her right on the nose, not even trying to turn her head up to avoid it. The secretary could not even remotely handle herself anymore, the schadenfreude was really just too potent.
Like venom flowing into a blood stream, it only got worse. The bump sent The Clone reeling, stumbling back, and nearly, just nearly falling over. They teetered, leaning, leaning, leaning, Josephine grimacing, fearing that again she was to be entombed under the bulk of The Clone, before, thankfully, the two managed to recover. The laughing of the secretary made for an excellent backdrop to this horrible scene, at least until she managed to collect herself, chortling out a “Have a good afternoon.” As she watched the two finally, finally manage to stagger out of the building, unto the warm, late day sun.
You know how parents play with their young children by seizing them by the hands, and placing them upon the tops of their feet, “walking” a while? That is, in simplest terms, what happened. All the way to Josephine’s bike, where the next massive problem presented itself. Motorcycles are not exactly conducive to success when you can barely stand up straight.
“Huh.” This thought too struck Josephine, glancing upwards in thought as to the logistics of moving this thing from point A to point B.
Meanwhile, The Clone was quite busy trying to catch a glimpse of literally anything at all. The sun. It battered her eyes into submission, each little candela of light ripped her mind apart as a seam ripper undoes thread. The air was filled with the growling and groaning and moaning of this poor thing, as she tossed her head about, shutting her eyes as tight as she could. It wasn’t quite enough, the sun still prying its fingers through her eyelids. The groaning and squirming escalated yet more, almost to the point she wrenched free of Josephine’s grasp.
“Quit!” Her mother —at least if you subscribe to the belief that Josephine is the parent of her clone— scolded, only kind of trying to console the positively distraught clone as they continued forth across the parking lot, where her junk heap bike sit.
Aw, she felt bad, this thing was not worthy of scorn, only pity. Finally arriving at the side of the bike, Josephine could not suffer the poor thing’s distress any longer. “Okay, okay. Fine. Girly, hey.” She comforted, slipping on a gentler voice like a soft robe. “It’s just the sun. In the sky. It’s there every day. It’s a real bitch.” She nodded, “Don’t worry. It’s okay. I have an idea.”
With a bit of an effort, and shimmying of shoulders and wriggling and loopholing, Josephine managed to take her athletic jacket off from beneath all the holsters and straps and sheaths keeping her sword to her back, before tossing it over The Clone’s head like an executioner drapes a bag over their victim.
Oh what a consoling effect this had, to be put back in the dark, like what she has “lived” her whole life in up to this point. She hunched over, pulling the jacket so deeply over her head, coping. “See? Better, right?” Comely, reinforced Josephine, and, beneath the blue and white cowl, one could see weak nodding.
“Alright. I am gonna let go of you now, okay? And we are gonna climb on this bike together and go home, you got it?” This time, more nodding came, but Josephine knew herself better than anybody. Carefully, Josephine released herself from the clone, who now miraculously stood on wobbly legs, like a house by the sea wobbled in the wind. Coming around to the front of the pathetic Clone, Josephine invaded the sanctity of the jacket, which she clung to her head as if she would die. Prying it open, she beheld a small glimpse of a confused and frightened face.
“Are you sure you understood what I just said?” Inquired Josephine, cocking her head to the side. The Clone paused a second, as if she considered lying, there is no way she could have known how to lie however. Such, she just weakly shook her head, Josephine’s faced immediately pickling to disapproval.
“Fuckin’ knew it.” Josephine grumbled, clicking her teeth, holding her head pridefully high, as she left the clone standing there, shakily. Cockily, she stride over to her bike, swinging a leg over the duct-taped seat, rocking herself into place atop the Junk-Heap, before turning to The Clone. “Did you catch that?” She asked, The Clone hesitantly removing her blinders, drawing open the jacket like a curtain, peering at her counterpart with a single, big eye.
“Nah, Nah.” Josephine shook her head, before beckoning The Clone close, “C’mere, I’m not telling you again.” And so, closer The Clone came, standing right next to the bike, curiously looking at all of the shiny, crusty and interesting colors of such a craft. The sheen of the gasoline dripping upon the concrete fascinated her. Shimmering, not like anything she could describe. “I’ll hold your hand, but I won't do anything else.” She stoutly decreed, extending a clawed paw, one The Clone took without hesitation.
“So, heads up, if you fall over and knock down the bike I will be very sad. So what you do, you just gotta raise your leg, throw it over the bike, and sit down on the seat behind me, okay?” She glared at the languorous Clone, who nodded again, though more genuinely. She understood the instruction, for the most part, it was just a matter of execution. That and using muscle groups that have never been used before, though she didn't exactly know what a muscle was, so she couldn’t be much bothered by that.
Taking a deep, rattling breath, she took her final step closer to the bike courage welling in her flabby body. She was starting to spool up, like an old power plant grumbling to life. Her balance felt good, her legs felt less jello-like with each passing second. Keeping one hand in charge of keeping that jacket wrapped around her nyctophilic head, she reached out her other hand to the seat, feeling the tacky, crumbly vinyl.
Thus, she embarked on the biggest motion in her whole 45 minutes of life, she actually managed to do it in a mostly normal fashion. Legs and hips and core, all harmoniously exploding to action! She leapt up onto the bike seat, the whole thing squeaking and squealing with the newfound load. Though she did it with so much zeal she nearly overcorrected, rather than landing on the bike, she almost just tossed herself off the other side like a garbage bag into a dumpster. Other than that, it really truly was a 7/10 mounting.
Looking over her shoulder, Josephine couldn’t believe it, not even 20 minutes ago did she watch this clone fall ass over ankles, tripping over her own feet. Maybe, just maybe this was gonna be easier than she thought it was going to be. “Alright, now be careful my jacket doesn’t fly away. Grab my waist.” A great pause followed, The Clone didn’t know what a waist was. “The middle part. Where you can see my fur. Cmon.” This only barely provided enough info for The Clone to tentatively, not truly knowing if she was doing the right thing, reach out, wrapping her arms around The Biker.
She scoot closer, laying her head over Josephine’s shoulder, while Josephine shivered from just how odd she felt. Sticky, and cold still. Blech. The Clone meanwhile, was having the time of her life, feeling the breeze on her skin, Josephine smelled nice, and felt warm as any blanket, though she knew not.
“Alright.” To top-dead-center, The Biker’s black stained shoe gripped the kickstarter like the dead clutch their weapons. “Hold on. Don’t ever let go.” With the click of mechanics, and a backfire like artillery ringing across a trench line, the bike blasted to life, in spite of its best efforts, letting out a cloud of blue smoke, smoke they quickly left behind with the lurch and might of torque and the whip crack of great speed!
They peeled off into the city, diving and winding and weaving through the endless arteries of the city. Winding through the streets, her curiosity is starting to kill her, the prayer of the wind is forcing herself out of the darkness, blowing that jacket in the breeze.
So she squinted, squinted. Curiosity is the natural enemy of reticence, and she will do everything in her power to cut it down. Off in the distance, between a gap in the buildings, where surely something once stood, now demolished, she saw something so wonderful. For only the briefest of moments as they passed, she beheld a viridian ocean of trees, painted with the warmth of the late afternoon.
Her eyes widened. It’s so beautiful. To think, she chooses to be in the darkness. She didn’t have the words to explain it, but this conviction… it sickened her. There’s no way she could ever keep up with this! She ripped the fearful shroud from her head, the safety blanket gone, she let it flow and flap in the strong winds like the flag of some incandescent nation.
Oh the weird and wonderful sights. The shiny, pretty cars, the neon that has yet to flick on, lying dead and waiting for the jolt of electric life. The swerving of the bike as they race along the highways and side streets, yet, never once did it threaten to throw her off, despite Josephine’s best efforts. The wind in her fresh fur, like a thousand fingers of a thousand hands offering a thousand warm, comforting strokes. She didn’t know how to smile, not in a way that one would consider normal, but she did anyway.
In every building that drowns the highway in their giant shadows. In the drones soaring in the skies. Every beautiful car they passed. The person whose waist she so desperately clutches. A thought, maybe the first one she had free of the chemicals, and preservatives, and sedatives her brain is so bathed in. All of the people, everywhere, all alive, like her. She smiled more.
All good things must come to an end. All the beautiful sunlight, and the beautiful cars, and the beautiful buildings, were swallowed, and sealed away, as they passed into the dark, brutalist depths of the parking lot of Josephine’s apartment building. What wasn’t cloaked in dank shadow was instead bathed in sickening fluorescent lights, she vastly preferred the sun…
Even the cars were sadder. Tons and tons of them, some clearly get driven every day, some were blanketed in soft, carcinogenic dust, finger paintings drawn into it. There’s a certain moistness to it, despite the relative aridity of the outside climate.
Josephine pulled them into her own spot, she paid a monthly rent for it. It effectively was a micro garage of her very own. Amongst a wall of dusty old metal garage doors, of varying sizes, was Josephine’s door, door number 34. A camera read her license plate, letting the steely garage door open. For how fancy it looks, you would expect a different method of opening and closing, alas, no.
Beautiful pink light flowed out of the garage as the door peeled open, beamed down upon the two by a neon wall clock. Loathsomely, the overhead lights kicked on, stuffing the pink light away, and killing the visions of colorful drinks on distant, unreachable beaches.
One could see the very exact place she parked the bike based on the blackened, exhaustive scorch marks left on the concrete. The bike dying, they coasted right up this spot, before Josephine threw up the kickstand, the whole adventure coming to a close. Well, at least for her, The Clone was still having fun enjoying looking at things.
She sees: A great big tool box against the back wall, covered in stickers from all over. She sees a pile of broken carburetors on top of this tool box. She sees a gash in the concrete wall of where Josephine threw said carburetors when they were revealed to be broken. She sees also on top of the toolbox a picture of a youngish man, with a thin beard. He’s leaning against the hood of a sporty, if borderline antique looking coupe, it’s white, pearly, creamy white. This photo was taken a long time ago.
Stolen novel; please report.
Josephine, with her typical springyness, hopped off the bike, depositing her helmet where she sat, giving her big fluffy head a shake, every strand of hair aligning to where it was exactly supposed to be. The Clone, being a creature of much mimicry, and very little knowledge, attempted to recreate this maneuver, only to find that, unfortunately, she lacked the je ne seis quoi to do more than wiggle around on the seat, the suspension of the bike protesting with every half- attempt at movement.
Josephine was en route out, with pep in her step and assumption in her head, the lunatic notion that her clone was able to exist at a basic level. Looking over her should to in fact confirm that this was true, she instead found The Clone yet trapped on the seat of the bike, face warped to distress, tears beginning to stream down her face as she silently begged Josephine for help.
“Fuckin’ really?” Josephine puffed, turning around to stare down The Clone like some kind of drill sergeant. The Clone frenziedly nodded. This is the saddest she has ever been in her life and by god she was not taking it well. Sighing, and running a hand through her hair, Josephine stomped back into the garage, right up to the bike, stubbornly grabbing her daughter’s wrist.
“1, 2…” She started chanting, The Clone trying to amp herself up through the wall of tears. Of course, she wasn’t offered much time to prepare. Josephine wrested her right off the bike, it was a clumsy motion, entirely facilitated by the bike’s kickstand, as Josephine, not quite estimating her strength properly, basically threw The Clone across the garage, sending her slamming into the opposite wall. She didn’t even count to three, how fucked up is that?
An object in motion must remain in motion, and the great garage wall did most passionately reject The Clone, sending her stumbling and staggering right back the other way, right back into Josephine’s “loving” arms. Had she taken even one more step she surely would’ve clattered right to the floor like a broken carburetor, god she was so glad to have her.
And so, clinging onto her mother’s hand, the two strolled, rather one of them strolled, the other haggardly stumbled, off into the garage, the loud metallic clacking of the garage door behind them sending fear dancing up their backs. They were, of course, the same person in the end. It is odd, holding your own hand.
After a brief few moments of dungeon-crawling, the two came upon an elevator, Josephine jamming the touch screen, her heart sinking in her chest as she saw the floor the elevator was actually currently at: floor 11. Such, they would stand there in this suffocating parking garage for just a bit longer. She really didn’t know what to do, ordinarily she’d maybe make a bit of small talk, or explain to the person next to her why she looked like that. “Experimental modifications.” She would always say, only a half truth, the best kind of lie.
But Clone… she didn’t know what small talk was. Is this what being a mother is like? Just sitting there, holding the hand of some inferior lifeform, who was more content to stare at the stenciled “Level 3” sign on the wall than make any other proper observation, or conversation. She thought again, did she really consider children inferior life forms? Why the word choice “life form.”
Luckily for her, she wouldn’t have to face this demon, the pleasant, if artificial bell of the bell chimed, heralding the arrival of the elevator. Sudden jerk of movement snapping The Clone back awake, nearly pulling her to the ground again, a terrible belief, this adoration of the floor. Nevertheless, she managed to catch up to Josephine, the two passing into the, truthfully, disgusting elevator.
Jamming the 14 “button” on the elevator’s touch pad, the two shot off. With great speed, the dissonant sound of the elevator's engine humming overtook all, a mind numbing tinnitus, broken only by the anxious tapping of her keeper’s foot.
The air hung thick with a poison you only see in pseudo-public elevators, the never ending war between three different factions of inhalants versus the Holy Empire of Bleach. The Druid Kingdom of Mary-Juana had a strong advantage against The Empire, reared by the Papacy of Vape and the Bastion of Cigarette.
It sickened her to her stomach, truthfully. So, she caught a bubble, cheeks puffing as she held her breath, before she mournfully brought her eyes to the elevator’s control panel. They were only on floor 7, and by jove did she not realize just how much effort holding your breath was.
Josephine watched The Clone become increasingly exasperate, staring the elevator display down with greater and greater intensity as her face went red with suffocation, she was trembling, fighting ever instinct in her body telling her to take a breath. “Dude, breathe.” She wouldn’t, she couldn’t! She shan’t! She… is lightheaded. The world fades and her head pulses, she might, she could, she shall…Ding! Floor 14!
With the kind of glee you only see in miners who have been unearthed from cave-ins, The Clone watched the elevator doors part open, before rushing out into the hall with such zeal she just straight ran into the wall, letting out a gasp so ferocious you’d think she would’ve sucked down all the oxygen in the entire building. “What is your problem?” Asked Josephine, much more leisurely strolling out of the Dominion of the Holy Empire of Bleach, too into that hall.
Twas another bland place, with short, off yellow carpet you could not quite tell if it was originally a different color or not. The insectoid buzzing of the fluorescent lights above painted the dim hallway with a certain cataclysm, though just like the apartment building Josephine had visited earlier today, some people decorated their doors with all kinds of things.
Her favorite, personally, belonged to Mr. Anatolios, a welder that lived just a few doors down from her. He had decorated his doorframe with a bunch of wrenches, bent and twisted and turned into little flowers, steely little roses. It humanized the sickening place, it made her belong.
Finally a big enough girl to walk without holding her hand, The Clone followed behind Josephine, her ears twitching with every sound behind every door, every smell in the stale, unclean air conditioning, and every pot of curry bubbling on every stove. Despite being such a crippling environment, it had a kind of overstimulating nature to it.
Door number 1461: It was unceremonious, and hewn from strong looking plastic. A peephole seers its indiscriminate observation into the two of them, Josephine fumbling through her pockets for her keys. Luckily, she managed to come upon them quite quickly, extracting a veritably monstrous chain of several dozen keys, attached to an emerald green fuzzy dice keychain. There was only one dice, the other one was but a ghost, invisibly hanging on to the frayed and ruined loop that once held it.
Of course, she did not know which key was which, do the owners of any keys know? No. She jammed one key, a brassy, corroded thing into the lock, giving it a twist. “Nope.” She thumbed through the keys yet more. Next one, a black iron skeleton key, completely the wrong shape, still fit into the lock. Still no. Josephine grit her teeth.
The next key looked almost right, it was right next to her locker key at work, surely it was important. Slamming that one into the lock, she gave it a twist, the delightful lock smoothly actuating, Josephine proudly grabbing the handle, giving it a twist. The door was locked. “God, fuck me.” She muttered, twisting the key back the other way, finally opening the door. Such, the two passed into the humble apartment of Josephine D’Lupu.
It is a narrow thing, initially, with wavy, low quality popcorn ceilings. Just a few steps out of the foyer and to the left, one could see the thin, galley kitchen, the countertop doubling as a bar and table, space efficient! Deeper into the apartment, a sitting area, chiefly characterized by a great big armchair, accompanied by a loveseat and coffee table, all gazing to the entertainment stand, where a large, if out-of-date tv sat. An ajar door on the same wall the tv was aligned with gave glimpse into a bedroom, the floor piled with more junk.
For now though, Josephine wrenched all her holsters and equipment off her, hanging it on the wall hooks. There is a sizable divot in the wall, one the tip of the sword just perfectly fills, much too long to be hung on a coat rack. “Put my jacket on the hook next to it.” Ordered Josephine, not so much as casting The Clone a glare as she forayed deeper into the apartment. Such, she did, pulling the undersized jacket off her shoulders, before hanging it up, before seeing it was just a little bit off kilter.
So, she carefully took it off the hook, and tossed it up again. Still crooked, again. Again. Again. She never could get it quite right. The world fell away, only her, the jacket, and the coat hook remained, with that damning imperfection. Her heart rate rose. She’d never make it. She never would. Gingerly, she placed the jacket on the hook, watching its polyester body slide slowly to crookedness.
Marching deeper into the apartment, Josephine knelt down, untying the frankly horrid knots she tied her shoes with, kicking them off on the edge of the foyer, just before the vinyl floor of the foyer turned to the carpet of the rest of the apartment. She let out a relieved sigh. The feeling of socks, and shoes against her fur, something about it was disquieting.
“Alright, welcome to our humble-” finally deciding to be a good host, Josephine turned around to face The Clone, only to see her there, sniffling, on the verge of tears, reaching with trembling hand to hang up the jacket yet again, only for it to fail again, crooked. She looked up to her mother, her eyes springing with tears, fearful of reprimand, like a beaten animal.
“What are you crying about?” Oh how she tried to explain, pointing to the jacket, pantomiming the best she could, begging, praying that Josephine would understand. It wasn’t her fault, it just wouldn’t go, she promised! “Yeah. Just leave it there. Cmon.” She shrugged, dismissively nodding, The Clone casting one last melancholy look at that crooked jacket, before shuffling deeper into the apartment, behind her mother.
The kitchen was… mediocre in most of the sense, a calendar with a picture of some scrumptious salmon sushi on it hung on the wall, adjacent to a fancy, mid century, sunburst looking clock. The sink was yet laden with the dirty frying pans used to cook breakfast. The fridge bore many magnets, with pictures of cars, or pictures of Josephine with other people.
Of the 4 seats at the countertop bar, only 3 of them could be considered usable, the seat covered in dirty clothes, the countertop occupied by an assortment of strings, and boxes of beads for making bracelets, as well as a positive mountain of vibrant orange bottles of pills. All of it made it completely inhospitable for guests. Which was okay, solitude was cheap, and Josephine liked that.
The Clone was well interested in that, however, Josephine led her deeper into the apartment, to that sitting area, if one looked, you could see light stretching through “cracks” in the wall. Nay, they were shutters, for great windows, sliding doors even, giving view to Josephine’s balcony. A set of folding chairs, and a little old glass table with an ashtray sat there, eager to serve.
Josephine strolled right up to that armchair in the corner, which much like the both of them, was decked in blue-grey fur, planting her ass in it with a relieved sigh, she kicked up her feet up on the coffee table. The Clone, not knowing much better, attempted to do the same, sitting upon the arm of Josephine’s great, comfy recliner.
She laconically hit The Clone with a resolute “No.” before gently prodding The Clone on the side, and like a cow tipping, she began to fall. Falling, falling, falling, splat! Right upon her side in the comforting, if vaguely undersized boughs of the loveseat adjacent to the armchair. At first, she doth protest, about to lean up and take the armchair for herself, but then it hit.
The fabric, so old and loved, yet so recently cleaned, bears a specific roughness. The cushions are just a bit too firm, but in reality, this produces the effect of resting against a particularly soft boulder. This was all completely entrancing, she may very well never leave this exact spot.
Watching the Clone melt into the couch cushions, softly groaning in absolute delight like a dog scratched behind the ears, Josephine reached forth to the coffee table with her own, minor struggle. The armchair was much too deep, had to engage that core. More entertaining abdominal exercise than sit-ups, she figured.
Several remotes, of massively varying build quality lay neatly knolled on the coffee table, Josephine snatched the one, a grimy, off white thing; giving the primary button a good ol press. With the whirr of poorly maintained motors, the shutters to their left slowly trudged along their track, to their home, revealing the beauty of the city, and clouds, and tangerine sun beyond. The previously dismal apartment became incandescent, and warm, like Sunday morning.
With the warm light painting her body, Josephine sank deeper into her armchair, before the bolt of lightning that was responsibility struck her. She had made plans for tonight. “Ugh.” Word of the day, it seems. “Okay, Girly.” The Clone hardly looked up at her from her couchbind, like a cat awoken from a nap.
“I’ve got a boy coming over tonight, so we gotta do something about the… this.” She broadly gestured to the clone, yet uncaring of the assless paper gown she did find herself in still. At least all the fur gave her some modicum of modesty.
The Clone shrugged, before burying her face right back into the couch. “Nuh-uh.” Scolded Josephine, laboriously dragging herself out of her chair, “Get up. We got a bit more to do.” She gestured up, The Clone grumbling, before rolling off the couch, landing to the floor with a thud. Pushing herself up, she followed behind Josephine, through a yet undiscovered door opposite the solitary bedroom.
Lo, the bathroom! Terribly uninteresting, as you’d hope a bathroom would be. A toilet half a size too small and half a step too low. A decently sized built in vanity, with a sink half consumed by calcium buildup. The countertop itself was littered, positively, with aerosol cans of dry shampoo, and detangler, a coffee mug with a broken handle held her absolutely ruined toothbrush.
None of this was their object though, the real prize was the small tub shower, the kind that you realistically are only ever going to shower in, given the absolutely pathetic size of the bathtub. At the very least, it is tiled in a pretty flavor of turquoise, almost distracting you from the dirty buildup in the corners, and the strands of fur splattering the interior so fearsomely you’d think somebody detonated a rabbit.
With a rip of paper, Josephine peeled The Clone like a fresh cut of meat, wrapped in its preserving butcher paper. “We are gonna be rinsing all this shit off you.” She didn’t know what this shit was exactly, but, so far, she was down for it. Josephine pushed her just a bit deeper into the bathroom, before rudely shoving ahead of her to access the shower, throwing the water on.
The pipes in the walls knocked and rattled a moment, the two raising brows, awaiting its end, before a trickle of water blasted out of the crusty old showerhead, ringing pleasingly against the tile. “Just wait a sec for it to get warm…” Josephine thought aloud, extending her hand into the rainfall, before nodding, “Aight, get in.” But what if she didn’t want to? It looked gross. And, god forbid, wet. “Go on, what are you waiting for?” She tentatively reached forth, feeling the water run over her fingers, before looking back at Josephine, frowning.
“Yes, really.” Josephine nodded, The Clone letting out an silent sigh, before nervously picking up her leg placing it into that tub. The slickness of the water beneath her paw. The lack of friction, it was frightening, even more frightening was the feeling of the absolute barrage of water as she stepped into the shower proper.
Oh god, it’s so much worse than she imagined, the water is spraying right in her eyes! Logically, one must panic when faced with this situation. Thrashing wildly, she extended her hands to shield herself from the deluge, to little success. Of course, this sent water splattering every which way, Josephine now recoiling, and shielding herself from the spray. “No no no! Just take a step back and it'll hit your chest you dumb bastard!”
Thus ensued the monstrous effort of trying to bathe somebody who has never encountered water, or soap, or even had a concept of a shower on an abstract level. It was a terrible ordeal, mostly because Josephine realized this bum clone was just a bit taller than her, just enough to notice. She, at the very least seemed to enjoy the blow dryer, oscillating between letting it fluff away the wetness, and trying to bite and snap at the hot air.
Now thoroughly dry, and comically poofed, Josephine led The Clone across the way, to the Fortress of Dreams, her bedroom. It is a dark, dingy place, again, a window on the far wall, shutters drawn loosely over it, only barely illuminating the room. A ceiling fan lazily creaked along. A terribly small place, the bed, unmade and unkept, was smashed into the corner. One could barely make out a small, pink blanket, alongside a stuffed animal of some kind, nestled gently among the pillows.
Unfortunately, bed was not their target, rather, the small wardrobe opposite it. Flicking on the lights, Josephine marched right up to it, Clone in tow, before she began rifling through drawers, the whole construction shaking with the hideously low quality of its make. The top 2 drawers, the littlest ones, were full of treasures. Bottle caps, and beads, and postcards. Pocket knives, and trinkets. The next drawers were full of underwear, then shirts, then the work clothes drawer, and then, at the bottom, her true prize.
Twas the winter drawer, and home to the biggest clothes she owned. Reaching in, she extracted the single largest garment she owned. Her spare fencing academy gym shirt. Her dad bought it in a man’s size accidentally, thus it was massively oversized. Unfurling it, she briefly reminisced, glancing at the logo, a simple thing, nothing more than 2 crossed sabres, encircled by white text, “Konigslund Fencing Academy.”
Giving it a shake, as if that would make it any less wrinkled, Josephine turned to The Clone, who was yet entranced by the stuffed dog on the bed. A raggedy, brownish palish thing, with a black stitched nose, and eyes. The plush fur of its body was much more damaged on one side, rather than the other. And then, darkness, as Josephine plunged that fencing jersey over her.
After only a bit of wiggling, and force, the group project succeeded, and it was a prompt failure. The shirt clung so tightly, so tightly. The Clone did not have just a muffin top, rather the entire cake, more rolls than a DND table during a particularly tense encounter. One could describe it more, but it simply would have been indecent. At the very least, it was long enough to cover her, however inadequate. “Yeah, no, okay.” Josephine shook her head, “Luckily, I have a plan!”
This plan involved the two of them prancing back to the foyer, Josephine rifling through the pockets of her jacket, The Clone casting it a death glare, her mortal enemy… Nevertheless, Josephine extracted her little flip phone, and quickly navigating the menus, she brought it to her ear, a loud chittering sounding out as it rang and rang. Then, it ceased. “Yo!” The Clone watched her mother’s tail eagerly wag a second, before relaxing. “No, yeah. You are still good. I just… have a strange question.” She paused again, before pacing in the narrow foyer.
“You uh… don’t happen to have any spare clothes, do you? Like… the big ones. You are a big guy, wide-” She watched the fear of what she just said sting like a needle, “No, not like that, I’m sorry. Okay. Oh yeah! Cool. I’ll see you tonight!” She decisively snapped the phone shut, “Alright, hopefully I got you some clothes, and I only embarrassed myself once.” She gave The Clone a thumbs up, The Clone gleefully mimicking her, eliciting a smile from her mother.
“Alrighty, now we wait.” She declared, with the same swagger a noble general utilizes when walking in a parade, she marched her two man parade back to the living room, The Clone mimicking this as best she could. Such, they assumed their positions yet again, The Clone conked out on the couch, and Josephine half-absorbed in the arm chair.
She quietly swore, if she ended up having to take care of this thing… She would probably have to pick up some extra shifts. Stupid clone will probably have the same taste in seltzer as she does too. “Damnit…” Josephine quietly growled, staring at the horizon of skyscrapers like jagged hounds teeth, far out the window.
