This week I decided to focus on a short story that I’ve been thinking about for a while now. The ones that stick around in my head this long tend to be worth writing and this one is a long time coming. It sure is a tricky one though. The premise involves a man whose personality is split across two bodies. He uses a computer to take the memories he accrues from both bodies and insert them back into both minds, turning both bodies into identical people. One body is living his dream life, working his dream job and doing great things. Meanwhile the other body completes his legally mandated labor quotas at a nearby factory, working long, hard days all the time. At the end of the day, he always experiences both perspectives. So if he’s really only one person, why is it he’s been feeling such a schism lately?

Writing two diverse perspectives as the same character has been a real challenge. The longer I spend working on it, the more it seems impossible for these two bodies to be the same person, which is ultimately what I was going for but I have to keep the illusion up for a while. As always, I’m not sure how to end it, but I’m getting there! Just got finish with the middle first.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley