Poem: "The Conditions of Your Selfhood"

This poem came out of the November 17, 2020 Bonus Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from mylittleangel and rix_scaedu. It also fills the "sense of body motion" square in my 11-1-20 card for the Sense-Ation Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the Not Quite Kansas series.


"The Conditions of Your Selfhood"

[Thursday, October 25, 2018]

The lair was quiet as Gideon
sat down on the couch beside
Raymond, putting a file on
top of the glass coffee table.

"Well, I figured out why we
couldn't find your doppel in or
around the police department,"
Gideon said. "It's ... not good."

"Am I dead?" Raymond said.
He'd been suspecting it for a while.

"No, not dead," Gideon said. "I
don't think the transfer would've
worked without a second person."

Raymond opened the file folder
and found a bitterly familiar headline:
Police Rescue Trafficked Children,
Valiant Officer Paralyzed Below Waist.

Only it wasn't Henry's picture, but his own.

Raymond dropped the file like it was on fire.
"Fuck," he said, rubbing his face. "Fuck."

Something soft and heavy thumped into
his lap. Barb wore his cat form again.
The demon curled into a furry donut on
Raymond's thighs and began to purr.

The warmth and the weight and
the sound helped a little, even
without activating demonic healing.

"Why did my doppel fall off our radar
so thoroughly, and how did you ever
locate him?" Raymond wondered.

"Once I had the key piece of information,
I managed to track down what happened
to him," Gideon said. "Apparently he didn't
like the publicity, so when he got married, he
took his wife's name, Miller. I turned up
the official announcement of that."

"I'm married?" Raymond yelped.

"Your doppel is a widower,"
Gideon clarified. "His wife died
a few years after their wedding."

"Fuuuuck," Raymond said.
He stroked the demon in his lap,
trying not to think about how much
his life sucked in both dimensions.

"There's an address," Gideon said.
"If we go now, we can see where
your doppel was living. I don't know
how long the rent will last, though --
we might not have another chance."

"We'd better go see if we can find
anything of use," Raymond said.

Barb flowed onto the floor and
resumed his humanoid form.
"Do you want me to come too?"

"Hell yes, you're our best defense
against demons, cultists, and
whatever else this crazy world
throws at us," Raymond said.

As it turned out, the doppel's house
lay toward the edge of town, its yard
ringed by trees and hedges that
screened from neighboring eyes.

"That's useful," Raymond said.

"Do we really need to keep
three places?" Gideon said.

"This one has the most privacy,"
said Raymond. "Nobody would
notice us doing anything here."

"Good point," said Gideon.
"Can we afford three places?"

"With the money from the cultists,
it'll keep a while," said Raymond.
"Let's see if not-quite-me left
a key under the doormat."

Barb laughed and skipped
over to the French doors.
A touch on the twin handles
made them sparkle and open.

"How did you do that?"
Raymond said, staring.

"His wards think you're him,
and your energy thinks I'm yours,
so they let me in," Barb explained.

Inside, the house smelled musty from
standing empty for several weeks,
but it had very little dust anywhere --
the floors were bare hardwood,
easier to navigate on wheels.

The living room had an easy chair
and an entertainment center, which
held no television, only a music system.
Its shelves held books on coin collecting,
albums of coins, and card game rules.

There were pictures of children scattered
around the room, clearly of different families.

"Oh," Raymond said, picking up the redhead.
He remembered how bright her hair had
been against the ground. Somehow,
she must have survived here. He
hopes his doppel saved her.

His vision blurred, and he turned
away. He couldn't afford to cry now.

Several small folding tables held
the speakers for the music system.

Another table by a back window
held a pair of binoculars and
a book about backyard birds.

Raymond wondered why
this house was full of stuff that
doesn't particularly interest him --
Oh. His doppel would need
sit-down hobbies now.

"What's this?" Gideon said,
holding up a colorful book.

"Forensic Demonology?"
Raymond said, curious.
He flipped through it, then
handed it back to Gideon.
"Police perspective on dealing
with demons. Keep it; that's
bound to come in handy."

"Thanks," Gideon said.

"What happened in here?"
Barb said, exploring the kitchen.

Raymond looked. Someone had
ripped out the cabinet under the sink,
exposing the pipes -- and making
room to fit a wheelchair in there.

"That's a cheap way to make it
so my doppel could use the sink
from his wheelchair," he explained.

Dry goods in the pantry were fine,
and so was the food in the freezer,
but the fridge was a lost cause.

"Well, that's totally gross,"
Gideon said, shutting the door.

"Should I banish it?" Barb said.

"Only the rotten food, and not
the shelves or other equipment
in the fridge," said Raymond.

Barb flicked his fingers, and
the contents vanished, taking
most of the smell as well.

The bathroom had been
genuinely renovated for
accessibility with grab bars,
a roll-under sink, and a toilet.

The roll-in shower had a seat and
was big enough to fit two people,
maybe even three -- or Barb in
one of his larger shapes.

In fact, the whole room
was tiled, so they could
just wash wherever and
rinse it down the drain.

"That'll come in handy if we
get hurt again," Gideon said,
pointing to the shower seat.

"More like when we get hurt
again," Raymond muttered.

"The bedroom is back here, but
it's mostly empty," said Barb.

Raymond looked. It held a bed,
end tables, and a dresser but
little else -- unless he wanted
to wear some of the clothes.

"Let's try upstairs," Raymond said,
holding the door for the other two.

The finished room included a full bed,
a chair, two end tables, a dresser,
and even a mini-microwave.

"Why would your doppel have
a room he couldn't reach?"
Barb said, clearly confused.

"It's a guest room, Barb,"
said Raymond. "When he
had a friend visiting, he could
offer them a place to sleep."

"Oh. That's nice of him.
It is, isn't it?" Barb said,
clutching his tail again.

"Yes, it's a nice thing to do,
especially since he couldn't
get up here," said Raymond.

Maybe his doppel didn't have
such a sad life, after all.

"There's another door here --
oh, an attic," said Gideon.

That really was dusty,
golden motes dancing in
the autumn sunlight.

Boxes filled most of
the space, but Raymond
could see a set of golf clubs,
campfire tools, a rolled-up tent,
and several picnic baskets --
the remains of an active life,
stashed away in storage.

He missed the sense of
body motion that came with
sports and outdoor activities;
he hadn't been able to do
much of that since he had
arrived in this dimension.

His doppel would never
do those things again.

Raymond realized that
his hands were shaking.

He needed to get out of there.

Raymond hurried downstairs
and out into the back yard.

He took deep, bracing breaths
of the fresh autumn air.

"You okay?" Gideon said,
coming up behind him.

"I'll manage," Raymond said.
"It's just hard, looking at
the life he left behind."

"Yeah, I can imagine,"
said Gideon. "I feel weird,
too, but at least my doppel
was at the same college."

"It's good to have a house
near campus," Raymond said.

"You know, we did discover
something useful here today,"
Gideon said. "We didn't switch
bodies with our doppels. We
moved from our dimension
to this one, as ourselves."

"Okay, that's something,"
Raymond agreed. They had
argued about that one night,
but had no way to prove it
one way or the other.

If not-quite-Raymond
used a wheelchair, though,
that settled the matter.

"We can come back here
another time to explore
the attic," said Gideon. "We
don't have to do it all today."

"Good, because I've had
about as much of this as
I can handle," Raymond said.

"I like it," Barb said softly.
"The trees in the yard are nice."

Then Raymond noticed that
the deck had a birdfeeding station,
its feeders swaying in the wind.

All the feeders were empty, but
a quick search indoors turned up
several different kinds of feed
stored in the pantry bins.

He had to look up what ones
went in which of the feeders,
but he got them all refilled.

Raymond couldn't do anything
for his doppel, but he could
keep the birds fed properly.

"How are you doing?"
Gideon asked, laying
a hand on his shoulder.

"Uncomfortable, but coping,"
Raymond said. "Displacement
results in a tenuous relationship with
the past, with the self that used to exist
and operate in a different place, where
our qualities had no need of negotiation."

"I get it," said Gideon. "Displacement is
an existential crisis because it forces you
to negotiate the conditions of your selfhood
under perpetually changing circumstances."

Raymond could see birds flitting around
the treeline, curious about the food.

"Well, we're here now," he said.
"We have to get familiar with
the world that we're in. I need
that sense of body motion,
need to get out in nature
more than I have been."

"Probably a good idea,"
Gideon said. "I have been
studying my heart out, trying
to figure out what's going on
and hoping to keep up in class.
I'll come with you, though."

"Thank you," said Raymond.
Then he turned to the demon,
who was staring at the birds.
"Barb, will you come with us?
We're going to make time in
the future to explore this world."

"Why me?" Barb said, blinking.

"You know it better than we do,"
Raymond said. "Hopefully
you can keep us safe."

"Also because we like you,"
Gideon added, smiling.

"I will come," Barb said.
"You need someone
to keep you from doing
foolish things." He ducked
his head shyly. "I like you too."

"Then it's settled," Raymond said.
"Please lock the doors, or wards,
or undo whatever you did."

Barb obeyed, and as they
left, he stooped to pick up
a key from under the doormat.

Raymond put it on his keychain
and tried to feel like it belonged there.

* * *

Notes:

This poem is long, so its notes appear elsewhere.