Strange Musings

We Are Eric

"Check mate," proclaimed Eric as he successfully cornered his opponent's king.

The man in question was at least three times Eric's twenty-three years. Yet, he still gapped as openly as all the others he had defeated in his young life.

Used to this sort of reaction, Eric calmly got out of his seat, tucked in his chair and went to collect his winnings for the night. He could never remember the faces of the people behind these things. To him, they just seemed to have the same formal uniform and same bored expression. Though he always wondered why they looked like that. Compared to thousands of other struggling for work, they had it easy: working for the upper class in some airship. They were at least lucky that despite over a thousand years of research, humans had never successfully created a machine capable of the same level of intelligence and creativity as a human. It also helped that an airship this nice could afford to hire so many people instead of relying on tech to do the work for them.

Shaking his head from his thoughts, Eric blandly asked, "Where's the bar?"

After handing him his winnings, the man pointed to the right and answered, "If you go down that hall and turn a left, sir."

"Thanks," Eric replied offhandedly as he made his way through the crowded gaming center to the bar.

Eric placed his thump in the scanner beside the door while pushing back memories of a boy whom, by miracle, shared his exact same prints. The sleek iron doors slid open to reveal a typical airship bar with an actual DJ and live bartenders rather than having some preprogrammed tech serve the drinks and play the music. It was, after all, a commercial liner headed to London. Not that he cared much. To Eric, it was just another city in another country in this fucked up world.

Sitting on a stool, Eric ordered a shot of whiskey and was about to drown himself in alcohol. It normally helped him forget his miserable excuse for a life. Unfortunately, he overheard a conversation of two women sitting next to him. Like everyone else, they were nameless and faceless. The only reason his attention was caught was because of the nature of their conversation.

"Have you heard about that family that was arrested?" asked one.

"No, what happened?" responded the other as she took a shot of her drink.

"The parents had three kids and were hiding the other two," exclaimed the first one.

"No Way! What selfish pigs! This is the fucking thirty-first century! Don't they know that our resources can barely cover one kid per family?! If our resources weren't so limited, there would be no need for the One Child Act!" responded the second woman.

"I know! I hope they all rot for their selfishness," replied the first woman.

"Ugh...Now I'm depressed. Let's dance. I need something to take my mind off of those assholes," complained the second woman.

Her companion giggled and said, "At least they were arrested, but yeah. Let's go."

By the time they had left, Eric had unconsciously reached his sixth shot. Or was it his seventh? He didn't even care anymore. All that mattered was keeping his memories at bay.

Despite his wishes, each shot he downed seemed to have the opposite effect. With each drop of whiskey that slid down his throat, Eric remembered things he wished were buried: He remembered his brother.

*************

"Once upon a time there was an era where having a brother wasn't a crime. Once upon a time twins were not seen as abominations. Once upon a time you both would not have shared a name. But we do not live in that age and humanity has not for half a millennium so you must never let anyone know that you both aren't the same person," said Eric's mom.