Kung Pao

Claudia approached me holding a box of kung pao chicken.

“Since when do I eat kung pao chicken,” I asked, holding a salad from Bernfield’s and an umbrella to shield my new hairdo from the rain.

Claudia lightly scooped her arm through mine with a kind of grace the version of myself I currently am has none of whatsoever, and she guided me into an alley behind a lingerie store.

“You need to quit your job,” Other Claudia informed me, as though she were telling me to find a new dentist or replace one of the lightbulbs in my many lava lamps.

“Claudia,” I said, “I appreciate that you come here from another dimension to give me advice you think will improve my life, but I adore my job, and I’m not quitting.”

Her hair looked so much better than mine. It was irritating, but I wasn’t going to say anything. I was on my third stylist and none of them could get the cut just right. I had asked Other Claudia about her hair before, and she gave me the name of a stylist who doesn’t exist in this dimension. My resentment over that grew larger by the day, but I tried not to let it show.

“If you don’t quit your job,” she said, “You’re going to wind up implicated in a horrible scheme that will cause an ecological catastrophe.”

Then, she took a pair of chopsticks from the pocket of her very modern poncho, and began to eat the kung pao right in front of me. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I would enjoy kung pao chicken if I ever gave it a real chance, but who has the time to develop new appetites?

“What kind of ecological catastrophe,” I asked.

The rain was coming down harder, and there wasn’t much room under the umbrella for the two of us. The alley provided no awning to shelter under, so I began to walk and she followed, pressed up against me so that anyone passing us on the street would think we were conjoined twins. It was becoming more common for doppelgangers from other versions of this reality to pay their other sides a visit, but it was still disconcerting when you saw two of the same at the laundromat folding clothes or playing a game of tennis against each other. Some tried to say that it was no different than coming across siblings or, as I said, twins, but there was something about the other versions that was different somehow. It wasn’t really something you could see, but something you would feel when you were in their presence.

Whenever Other Claudia was around, for example, I always felt a sharp pain in my left elbow that wouldn’t go away until she did.

I took her to a nearby axe-throwing bar. We each were assigned an axe and told that we’d have to leave our kung pao and kale salad up at the front. Other Claudia was going to argue with the woman about leaving our food behind, but I’m more agreeable. I smiled at the hostess and made a mental note to complain to her manager at some point for not allowing two identical women to eat a simple meal while ax-throwing when one had traveled all the way from another dimension.

“Your job is currently running experiments out at sea,” Other Claudia stated just before hurling an ax across the room and placing it squarely in the bullseye, “At some point, they’re going to set off a sonic wave that will kill every squid for a thousand miles.”

When I threw my axe, it landed smack dab in the middle of the cotton candy machine across the room. I waved and mouthed the words “So sorry, I’ll pay for that. Put it on my tab.” A small child began to cry. Who brings a small child to an axe-throwing bar? You should never feed a child cotton candy anyway. Far too much sugar.

“I don’t like squid,” I said to Other Claudia, “You should know that. Besides, the experiments are necessary. We’re trying to turn ocean water into Diet Jusu.”

While most scientists would tell you that ocean water into freshwater would be more advantageous to mankind, my company’s projects were funded by Jusu--America’s Leading Beverage Company. They had done a study that suggested most people would much prefer to drink Jusu than freshwater, and my employer was working on conversion. We also determined that Americans, as a whole, were overweight and so it was decided after consulting with Jusu (and their marketing team) that Diet Jusu would be the best final outcome, especially since the Diet wasn’t selling as well, and having oceans full of it might force people to consume it in larger quantities when no other water was available.

“So you knew about this,” Other Claudia asked me, the shock in her beady little eyes that were nowhere near as beady as mine, however impossible that might seem, “You’re going to let them destroy the oceans?”

She was so dramatic. The last time she visited, she told me that in high school she had played Brick in an all-girl version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. When I was in high school, I dropped out so I could backpack around the United Towns of Idaho sampling different kinds of potato dishes and falling in love with a man named Grasshopper.

“You used to be against this kind of thing,” she said, throwing her axe once again and once again landing it right on target, “You were a woman of the earth! I still am a woman of the earth. How did we grow so far apart simply by existing in different Universes?”

I wanted to tell her that being a woman of the earth also meant being a woman behind on her rent, but I knew she wouldn’t understand. Other Claudia had chosen to live in a yurt on some sort of commune outside what, in her dimension, was known as Sort of Old New York. Everybody farmed what little fertile soil was left and mainly grew radishes and a strange vegetable that resembled a cabbage, but tasted like fresh crayons.

Her life was never going to be my life.

“Other Claudia,” I said, knowing she hates that name, “Quitting won’t do anything. I can create more change from the inside than I can from the outside.”

With that, I threw my axe and it landed in the middle of the popcorn machine next to the cotton candy machine. The tab for tonight was going to be high. Luckily, the company had just given me a raise after we found a sonic wave that could carbonate the ocean water after only killing a few hundred orcas.

“You mean you can sabotage them internally,” Other Claudia asked, prompting me to laugh.

“No,” I replied, “It means I can make sure that once all the squid are dead, we write up a lovely press release about it so that the public doesn’t feel so bad. I’ll say that the squid were caught eating children, or something. Ooooh, maybe eating dolphins. People love dolphins.”

Other Claudia had retrieved her ax and was now brandishing it at me.

“The dolphins will eventually die too if your company doesn’t stop its insane shenanigans.”

It would upset me to lose the dolphins, but then again, the dolphins weren’t making the payments on my brand new nine-wheeler with six different fuel tanks for optimum speed since I usually needed to burn rubber through all the bad neighborhoods surrounding my apartment tower.

“Listen,” I said, raising my voice to overpower the multiple crying children who were now unable to eat cotton candy and popcorn, “I don’t tell you how to be when you’re in your dimension. I’d appreciate that same consideration.”

I could see that Other Claudia was upset. Luckily, I happened to be the one person I was okay with disappointing. Anyone else, even a stranger, and I’d fixate on their perception of me. The nice thing about having another version of yourself visit you is that it’s still you. How much can you really care about what you think of yourself? Despite all the videos I was shown as a child about how loving yourself is so important, I found as I got older that other people loving me felt so much better.

I paid the exorbitant tab, and the two of us exited the bar. Other Claudia didn’t even offer to pitch in, but I knew that even if her money was good in this Universe, she wouldn’t have all that much of it to offer. The rain had stopped, but her kung pao chicken was now dry. My salad looked sad in its little plastic container, but it looked that way when I purchased it.

“So,” Other Claudia said, “You won’t quit and become a whistleblower?”

“Nobody likes the sound of a whistle,” I replied.

“The point isn’t to like the sound. It’s to pay attention.”

“That must be why earplugs are selling out everywhere.”

We parted with a promise to get brunch in her Universe at some point in the near future. I’d pick the place this time since the last time she planned an outing for us, we wound up at this Liquid Only Brunch place where the Eggs Benedict came in the form of a milkshake.

Back at my apartment tower, I laid out my uniform for the next day. Everyone at work was going to make a trip to Sea Port #72 to witness the first conversion attempt somewhere in the middle of the Greater Atlantic. If the conversion worked (it wouldn’t) we would ask Jusu to double our funding. Failure shouldn’t result in greater funding, but somehow, it always did. If by some miracle we turned ocean water into diet soda (we wouldn’t), there would be a huge party right there on the Sea Port and I would get drunk and fall asleep in the lower level mini-aquarium where a stuffed orca was kept behind a glass case as a reminder that every action has a reaction and (usually) an extinction.

That scenario would never play out, but it was interesting to think about as I placed my head upon my medicinal pillow covered in all the antibodies I would need to survive the following day out in the world.

I thought about Other Claudia and her sad little life of community gardens and righteous morals and caring about squid, and I said a prayer of thanks that I never wound up like her.

As I drifted off to sleep, the Diet Jusu jingle was playing in my head, and that night I dreamt of a cotton candy tree being torn down by a very large axe.