3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by @ninajo47
He picked at his finger nails, chipping off the black and red polish. On the surface of thee white linoleum floor, flecks were starting to become noticeable.
Usually, these appointments were nothing to worry about but since his last visit he’d been exposed to music.
Every month he was to meet with his Selector, the person managing his life experience as a clone. His original had long since died, and now he was allowed to live a sorta life of his own.
At first he was confined to the compound. As he learned to socialize, comprehend and maneuver complicated social situations, he progressed to excursions. These were day trips with his selector beyond the compound.
He went out to eat, had a drink, watched a movie and went bowling. Then returned home and processed everything through the machine covered in buttons labeled with letters.
He was allowed to leave longer and more often until he reached maximum liberty, as it was called. He could live outside of the compound if he was able to sustain himself with some sort of job and checked in with his selector once a month.
It had been two years, and although he had lived outside of the compound, he stayed within the confines of the life experiences he’d been taught at the cloning facility.
Once, he had caught a glimpse of the manual the selectors used to manage clones.
“Managing the Living Experiences of Like-Humans: A Manual and Practical Application of Puritanical Mores”
None of that meant anything to him but he liked the words.
Now, waiting for his next meeting he was beginning to feel just a hint of an inclination of what the Manual’s title was supposed to mean.
He had been invited to a concert, “the Trashy Cans” was the name of the band, an all female group. The experience changed his life. For two hours it was as if the “application of puritanical mores” were stripped from his being like slow-motion footage of a bomb blast: First burning off the clothes, then melting the skin, peeling back the muscles and tendons and finally disintegrating the bones.
That was rock ‘n’ roll.
Now he was in that all white building of his origins, feeling bad but uncertain as to why. Though he had a hunch that the nail polish, flip flops and beard wouldn’t go over well.
Whilst making a living... 