The other Terrence Oblong

It was Nick Clegg who made the announcement. There still wasn’t enough competition in society he said. He said that he’d so enjoyed watching the comedy programme on TV the previous night about ten desperately ill eighty year old women fighting each other for the one life-saving operation the GP Consortia could afford that year. He wanted to encourage more of this.

The lefties in the BBC attacked him, saying that the programme wasn’t a comedy, it was a heart-wrenching documentary about the impact of government cuts, but he didn’t listen. His new policy was part of the same new radicalism that had allowed prisoners to buy their own prisons.

He proposed cloning every single person in the country, each person would then have to compete with their clone for the right to live. This would ensure that the most hard working, social, helpful and superior version of every single person would survive, making for a vastly superior society. It was the very opposite of what the French had done.

His proposal was applauded in parliament. The Lib Dem MPs realised that within no time a substantial portion of the population would be clones, who would owe their existence to their great leader. The Tories loved it simply because it was barking mad and made them think warm thoughts about the Thatcher days when any piece of idiocy would get nodded through parliament.

Not everyone could be cloned at once, that would just cause mayhem. People were chosen in ballots, I was the very first selected. One month, I was told, the other Terrence would be here for, after which point a special committee would decide which of us should live.

“You can’t have your normal chair,” Phil told me when I arrived at work the next day, “it’s taken.”

“Who by?”, I asked.

“By you. You arrived an hour ago, I’ve never known you here that early.”

“Well where am I going to sit then. I need a desk, I’ve got that important report to write.”

“That’s okay, you’re working on that now. Doing an excellent job if I may say so. You can go and clean out the goats today, the other Terrence has got the report covered.”

Cleaning out the goats was the worst part of the job. Why we even had goats was a mystery to me, we were a health charity, there to provide advice and support to people with horrible illnesses and disabilities. We provided counselling, advice, information, local support and a herd of goats.

I was late home. The neighbouring charity’s sheep-goat-hybrids had broken in and were running amok amongst our flock of geep. It was chaos that took hours to sort out. Who can even tell a sheep-goat-hybrid from a geep?

When I got home my wife told me that I’d already eaten my tea, so I had to make my own supper. As I was cooking some spaghetti I notices some roses in the vase.

“Flowers, who bought you flowers.”

“You did.”

“I never buy flowers.”

“I know,” she said in an accusatorial manner.

“We can’t afford luxuries like flowers, we’ve got Radiohead to support.”

Radiohead had been an expensive mistake. I was surfing e-bay late one night and in a drink-fuelled sleep deprived state thought I was buying tickets for a forthcoming concert, but I actually bought the band by mistake.

Radiohead had been going through a bad time, their ‘donate what you think it’s worth’ approach for their free download album had raised a total of £7 and 22 pence. It had cost £175,000 to make. The only way to get out of the financial mess was to offer themselves for sale on e-bay. They cost me £13.72 to buy and a fortune to keep in tea, toast and drugs.

Keeping Radiohead is a full-time job. In a creative lull, they moped around the house, watching daytime TV, only rising from the sofa to make tea or toast. I try to encourage them to write new material, by playing some of their old hits on my acoustic guitar, but they just grumbled that they’ve lost it and stared out there, into the void. Sometimes a tune by one of their rival bands is played on the television and they switch it off, and just sit there in total silence, with nothing going on but gloom and despondency.

Imagine my surprise then, when I walked into the Radiohead Area and found them sitting with chairs in a circle, singing along to Creep with the other Terrence on acoustic guitar.

“Hi,” said the other Terrence, “you’ve missed a great jam, we’ve been working on some new songs.”

I went upstairs to look at my account on ABC tales. I’d not written anything recently, but I was hoping for a few new hits at least, maybe even a nice comment on one of my old pieces. It happens occasionally.

Yes, I was delighted, one new comment. I clicked on the story, Liberty Prison. The comment was from a new member called ‘The Other Terrence Oblong’. His comment was short and to the point. “Five stories in a row without a cherry. I think you’re losing it Terrence.” I looked at his account, he had a story up already. Where did he find the time to write? He had a full time job, a wife and Radiohead to support. The bastard.

The month passed with misery piled atop misery. He was promoted at work, while I was demoted to full-time goat boy. I was moved into the spare room as the new Terrence was apparently “more romantic” and Radiohead were getting more confident by the day, no longer slouching miserably in front of the sofa but enthusiastically trying out new ideas and original sounds. By the end of the month they’d started work on a new album.

When the month was up it was time to come before the panel. It looked bad. They read out statements from work, from my wife, from Radiohead and compared the comments and cherry-count of our respective stories on ABC tales.

The Chairman of the committee summed up. “The clone Terrence Oblong demonstrates the benefits of competition. He works harder, makes more effort in sustaining his family, he is even a better writer. However, we have to balance this against the fact that he is directly responsible for encouraging Radiohead to release a new album and it is for this reason alone that the panel has decided to delete the clone.

I returned home to a disappointed wife. Work was even worse, I was forever to face negative comparisons with ‘the other Terrence’.

My tale is, of course, just the first of 60 million that will follow over the coming months and years, including the coming of your own clone. I hope you fare better than I did.