Narcissus

By Michael Pockley

According to myth, Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection. Unable to possess the object of his desire, he fell into despair.

Pavel seeks to resolve this problem by cloning himself in female form.

The perfect romance?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Pockley
• Release date: Nov 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201734923

Book preview

About the author

Michael lives in Prague,

where he divides his time between teaching children,

helping theologians and philosophers write books,

and painting predictably crepuscular landscapes.

By the same author:

novels

The Merchant’s Tale

The Teaching Assistant

Mr Dalloway

short stories

Devon

You

Angel

Cleanseth Away Evil

Ticket 811

Lady Emily’s Noose

11 p.m., Wednesday 27th June, 2390:

the wrong end of Prague

For a young, corporate lawyer, by day it was the wrong end of Prague; by night, even the gypsies were hiding behind locked doors. Scattered moonlight showed rain sluicing off Hapsburg townhouses not renovated in four hundred years.

It was June, yet still the April monsoon added to the concrete canker rotting the last rubble of socialist apartments, still the rain hissed on the rods of a dozen rooftop power plants. Pavel raised his collar and lowered his hood. Certainly he did not want to be seen but, in truth, he was hiding from the damp, only from the damp, for in such a place the police cameras had long ago been stripped for parts.

He wondered how close he was to the thirty or so Žižkov residents who served his firm. As the statutory Social Care Director he had instructed HR to employ them, real cleaners, normal cross-bred humans, bringing the firm a tax rebate for charitable employment, hard currency from selling the cleaning bots, a 100% subsidy for hiring through Social Services, and for him, a huge Christmas bonus.

Somewhere out there, in the slum where they belonged, were men and women he contractually obliged to shower upon arrival. Yet for absurd legal reasons, here he was in person, standing in their rain in their street, not inside the spacious Hradčany flat where he belonged. Just when he needed him most, his vast, uniformed doorman was the other side of Prague.

He scurried from one shadow to the next, and then the next, hoping for a street sign, terrified lest armed loiterers wander his way.

Still, she would be worth it. A female clone of oneself: how good could romance get?

11.05 p.m., Wednesday 27th June, 2390:

still the wrong end of Prague

Again Pavel checked his screen. Of course it was still black – he could feel the battery in his pocket. Anyone employed under standard anti-blackmail clauses would do the same.  Every HR department preferred a dead phone to a live one tracked to Žižkov. Certainly, bright young men from Mergers and Acquisitions did, from time to time, go to a street corner somewhere nice, pick up the kind of girl who lived in Žižkov, and take her to a room rented by the hour. On