In this installment of Page 69,
we put Stephen Kozeniewski's Billy and the Cloneasaurus to the test!
Set up page 69 for us (what are we about to read):
William 790-6, a clone just like everyone else on planet Earth,
has discovered a mysterious windmill which may contain the secrets to how such
a bizarre society came to pass.
What’s Billy and the Cloneasaurus about?
Did you ever feel like you were just a face in the crowd, an
interchangeable cog at work, a drab clone of all your contemporaries?
Imagine if that were literally the case.
Do you think this page gives our readers an accurate sense of what
the book is about? Does it align itself with the books overall theme?
Sure, it covers some of the scary realities of a weird, dystopian
universe that seems (if not literally, then metaphorically) to becoming true.
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PAGE 69
BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS
“At the pub,” 790 said, a bit plaintively, he could even
hear it in his own voice, betrayed by his own ears which should have been
hearing him as heroic and undaunted, not small and cowardly and mouse-like.
“At the
pub, yes,” Wilson said, “Very typical.
You know, I suppose, where the beef comes from?”
“From
the freezer bank, of course,” 790 said, “Same as us.”
“So,
that is to say that something not unlike you is decanted in the freezer bank,
killed, exsanguinated, slaughtered, processed, and served to you as food?”
790’s
eyes widened in horror.
“No,
that’s…that’s grotesque! What are you
talking about? They just grow the beef
in the vats. It just grows like a plant.”
Wilson
took off his makeshift glasses, folded them up, and used them to stir ever-widening
circles in his ever-diminishing cup of coffee.
790 looked almost as shocked by this bizarre action as by the odd
beliefs about the source of a clone’s food.
"There
was a time, you must confess, when there were no vats. No freezer bank. No Williams, even.”
790
waggled his finger in the air at Wilson, as though trying to connect a variety
of spark plugs in a dying car.
“You
know, I’ve been thinking that same thing lately, just idly trying to make sense
of it. But it doesn’t make sense, does
it? How could there have been something
before? Where would it have come from?”
“Ah,
but the axlotl tanks had to come from somewhere, didn’t they? They had to be built. A man couldn’t have been originally decanted
from something man-made.”
790 was
profoundly quiet; quieter than he had been staring at the stars last
night. Quieter than he ever had been in
his life. If he had been familiar with
the primitive Buddhist concept of a koan, he would have realized that he had,
just in that instant, for the first time achieved the state of enlightened
blissful ignorance which was the purpose of ancient man’s philosophy. The tree fell in the forest, one hand
clapped, and it suddenly became very clear to 790 that man must have built the
first tank, and not vice versa.
“A cow
is an animal…you’re familiar with the concept?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stephen Kozeniewski lives in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the
modern zombie. During his time as a Field Artillery officer he served for three
years in Oklahoma and one in Iraq, where, due to what he assumes was a clerical
error, he was awarded the Bronze Star. He is also a classically trained linguist,
which sounds much more impressive than saying his bachelor’s is in German.
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