Work Text:
Dislikes [Duncan, Rachel]
hates, displays aversion to Sarah Manning also incompetence, chipping nail polish, birds, chamomile tea also Alison Hendrix, Ania Kaminska, Aryanna Giordano also tears, laughter, screaming, shaking, vomit also being touched also scientists also Marion Bowles also dreadlocks, ponytails, mullets, curls, long hair, brown hair also being laughed at, being tested, getting blood drawn also fear, feelings of inadequacy also stupidity, except when it can be used also nightmares also Ethan Duncan, Father, the scientist in charge of Project Leda, Daddy also forgetting, feeling, failing, falling, following also losing
Unknown [Duncan, Rachel]
in the form of twenty questions Who are you? Are you 779H41? Are you your mother’s eyes? (You are not your mother’s eyes.) Are you the miniscule pieces of DNA separating you from the others? Are you the others? Are you what someone else could have been? Are you what you could have been? Are you a little girl on a video tape? Are you the woman watching the little girl? Are you the space between them? Are you nothing but empty space, surrounded by skin? Are you a mirror? Are you a broken one? Are you happy?
Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? Will you ever be happy? Does happiness matter? What matters, if happiness does not matter? What is happiness? Is happiness the sound of laughter on a video tape? Is happiness the smile you put on in the morning along with your dress and your blazer and your lipstick? Is happiness the way Aldous Leekie grins at you? Is happiness the way Daniel Rosen grimaces at you? Is happiness the way Susan Duncan smiled at you? Is happiness a smile at all? What is the question you should be asking?
What is the question you should be asking? How are you ever going to figure it out? Is there a question to figure out? Sometimes it seems like there is no question, and there is no answer. If that’s true, what’s the point? Even if it’s not true, who would you ask anyways – the people who look at you like you are a god, or the people who look at you like they are your gods? Could you ask yourself? When are you ever alone to ask yourself? What is “yourself”? Who are you?
Need [Duncan, Rachel]
___ 1. Rachel Duncan needed help.
___ 2. Rachel Duncan needed someone to talk to.
___ 3. Rachel Duncan needed to stop needing.
___ 4. Rachel Duncan needed a drink, but the meeting was continuing for the next few hours. Instead she smiled, and laughed at a joke that someone thought was funny, a polite small unfeeling sound.
___ 5. Rachel Duncan needed to shove her pen into the man’s eye. His joke wasn’t funny.
___ 6. Rachel Duncan needed Sarah Manning to come to heel.
___ 7. Rachel Duncan needed Sarah Manning’s help.
___ 8. Rachel Duncan needed to talk to Sarah Manning.
___ 9. Rachel Duncan needed her father to stop pretending she was still his little girl.
___ 10. Rachel Duncan needed to cry.
___ 11. Rachel Duncan needed her father to tell her that everything was going to be alright, so that they could both pretend she was still his little girl. Instead he quoted a book at her, and said he was glad her other father was dead.
___ 12. Rachel Duncan needed to shove a pen in her father’s eye. How dare he ask her to forgive him.
___ 13. Rachel Duncan needed her loved ones to stop dying, over and over again.
___ 14. Rachel Duncan needed nothing.
1 = totally acceptable 2 = partially acceptable 3 = unacceptable 4 = totally unacceptable 5 = don’t know
Cold [Duncan, Rachel]
1. her smile a. cold and unfeeling
2. her father’s corpse b. cold and comforting
3. the point of the pencil c. cold and pointed as cut glass
4. her father’s corpse d. cold and frozen and dead
5. the vials of bone marrow e. just cold
6. her martini glass f. cool but warming quickly
7. her soul g. not as cold as one would expect
8. her gaze h. unknown, unseen
9. her hands i. not as cold as one would expect
10. her reputation j. not cold at all
Alternatives [Duncan, Rachel]
___ 1. “We’ll get Kira back,” Rachel gasps, “together,” and Sarah looks at her and lowers the gun.
___ 2. “Come along now, my dear,” Ethan says, grabbing Rachel’s hand and running, running, running. They manage to keep hidden for three weeks – three long weeks, where Rachel’s stomach empties and her hair gets dirtier and dirtier. Then they are found, and Rachel’s hair is washed, and her parents are dead.
___ 3. Rachel hurls the remote at the television. The glass cracks. Everything is ruined.
___ 4. The fire extinguisher malfunctions – it was made, after all, by a scientist on trembling limbs and a graduate student who has never been afraid, not really. Sarah Manning has nowhere to run. Rachel has everything she wanted. Everything. Everything.
___ 5. Amelia gives birth to twins in a hospital room. Rachel Duncan is never born.
___ 6. She is happy.
___ 7. Rachel carries Kira out of the hospital room, careful and quiet. She is stopped by Sarah Manning at the door, wearing the same jacket, wearing the same face.
___ 8. A sniper’s bullet pierces her forehead before she reaches orgasm. She dies without ever being satisfied.
___ 9. Sarah Manning comes to heel.
___ 10. Rachel wins.
___ 11. Rachel dies. Very little changes.
___ 12. Rachel loves her sisters, and fights to protect them. After all, they are her flesh and blood.
___ 13. There is a splatter of blood in her hand, and a scratch in the back of her throat. Everything is ruined.
___ 14. “I love you.”
1 = very likely 2 = somewhat likely 3 = unlikely 4 = very unlikely 5 = don’t know
Nobody [Duncan, Rachel]
see: Sarah Manning
see: Not Rachel
see: The files for the experiment, with Sarah Manning’s noticeably thinner than every other subject, including Rachel Duncan
see: Through only one eye
see: A collection of poems, current location unknown; on the inside cover, in the careful handwriting of a child, is written Rachel Duncan. On page 56 the lines Then there’s a pair of us! / Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know! has been underlined with painstaking steadiness.
see: Who are you? Are you –
Remembering [Duncan, Rachel]
“I love you too, Daddy,” says the little girl standing in the pile of leaves rewind Daddy,” says the little girl with her hair in braids rewind too, Daddy,” says the little girl smiling at the man behind the camera rewind ttle girl smiling at her father, the man behind the camera rewind “What about poor Daddy?” says the woman with the little girl rewind poor Daddy?” says the little girl’s mother rewind says Susan Duncan, the little girl’s mother rewind “What about poor Daddy?” says Susan Duncan, whose lipstick is pink and perfect (Angel by MAC, half-empty tube sitting in a closed plastic box at the top of the closet) “I love you too, Daddy,” says Rachel rewind remember rewind Rachel rewind remember rewind remember
A father is reading his daughter a book rewind is reading his daughter The Island of Doctor Moreau, which is her favorite book rewind which makes her happy, because her father is reading to her rewind happy rewind A little girl is sitting on her bed, and her mother is filming her waiting for her father to come in and read to her rewind she is happy rewind she is feeling anticipation rewind she is feeling rewind feeling rewind happy rewind she is smiling rewind she is happy rewind remember rewind happy rewind remember
splashing through the waves on the edge of the shore, giggling in an irritating rewind ggling in a loud happy sound, smile big enough to stretch the edge of her cheeks rewind “Come along, Daddy,” she says rewind Come-along-Daddy, she is smiling, she is happy rewind y,” she says happily rewind happily rewind remember: happily rewind “Come along, Daddy,” she says happily, leaping in and out of the water, “come in!” but the man behind the camera says “Oh, no, it’s too cold for me, my dear,” rewind too cold rewind “come in!” but she doesn’t seem to mind that he won’t, goes splashing through the waves on the edge of the shore, giggling in rewind her hair is in braids but it isn’t anymore rewind she is smiling but she isn’t anymore rewind she is laughing but she isn’t anymore rewind remember rewind remember rewind the memory is dead rewind the girl is dead rewind remember rewind remember? rewind TIMECODE: 00:00 PLAY?
Alterity [Duncan, Rachel]
the state of being different from Adrian Sheepers: voice Alex Williams: femininity Alison Hendrix: hair Ana Carolina Romero: posture Ana Ferreira: wrinkles Anne Gentleman: eyeliner Ania Kaminska: beliefs Aryanna Giordano: palate Asa Yamato: income Avigail Cherney: social skills Camilla Torres: smell Christie Damphouse: tics Cosima Niehaus: skin Danielle Fournier: moods Effie: health Elizabeth Childs: sexual drive Fay Meijer: physical fitness Femke Meijer: eyebrows Gillian West: diagnosis Helen Assimakopoulos: weight Helena: feelings towards Sarah Manning Hûlya Erôz: laugh Jade: blood Janika Zingler: sleep schedule Jennifer Fitzsimmons: outlook Joanna Moore: hygiene Justyna Buzek: grades Kalista Papadakis: scars Katja Obinger: fashion Kernelia Barret: beverage of choice Krystal Goderitch: nails Leticia Santos: piercings Lily Ng: parental status Lisa Glynn: medication Livia Garcia: marital status Michaela Gomes: smile Miriam Johnson: artistry Monica Smith: teeth Niki Lintula: sexual preference Oksana Petrov: freckles Palmer Baranek: muscles Pamela Watson: shoes Paula Pratt: lungs Sofia Jensen: body image Stephanie Lloyd: lipstick Tamiko Nakamura: oratorical capabilities Tony Sawicki: gender Veera Suominen: face Veronica Giannocari: height Yvonne Gustafson: rhythm Zarin Silva: eyes
Sarah Manning: fertility Sarah Manning: accent Sarah Manning: family Sarah Manning: manners Sarah Manning: intelligence Sarah Manning: everything
Creation [Duncan, Rachel]
1. Rachel Duncan is born.
1. Ethan Duncan dies. Susan Duncan dies. Rachel Duncan sits in a bedroom that is hers in a house that is no longer hers. She is a clone. She is the only one of her kind. She is the only one that remembers: the way her mother would brush her hair at night, the way her father’s hands wrapped around his cup of chamomile tea in the morning. She knows the wrinkles of them in a way she is beginning to sense – eight years old, and beginning to sense – is important. She’s the only one left, of her whole family. She’s the only Duncan that matters.
She curls her knees to her chest and rests her chin on them. She is afraid, but she can’t be, can she? Her daddy wouldn’t be afraid. Her daddy would tip her chin up with the tips of his fingers and tell her to be brave. He’d wink.
She tips her own chin up with her fingers and closes one eye, sits. Half of her vision is dark. When nothing changes, she opens her eye again. Everything is just as it was. Her parents died in a fire, but she doesn’t think anyone cares but her. All the scientists in all the labs will keep working. They will throw all of her parents’ be-long-ings in the trash and they will tell her to start over.
She needs to cry, but she can’t. Her mommy wouldn’t cry. Her daddy wouldn’t cry. She has to be as good as them. She has to be as strong as them, she has to be strong for them, she has to be them. She’s all that’s left of them, and she has to be them.
Rachel stands up from her bed, sniffles, and pads to her parents’ bedroom. Downstairs, she can hear people talking. They are probably talking about her. She opens the door to the bedroom and goes to her mother’s vanity, takes out a tube of lipstick. She doesn’t know the name of it, not yet. She puts it in her pocket, looks at herself in the mirror, whispers, “My name is Rachel Duncan.”
She tells herself it’s true.
1. “My name is Marion,” says the tall woman who is not Rachel’s mother, crouching down so the two of them are eye to eye. Rachel hates her instinctively, like breathing. She hates Marion because Marion is not Rachel’s mother. She hates Marion because Marion looks like she’s trying to be Rachel’s mother. She hates Marion because Marion doesn’t look like she’s trying at all.
Marion’s lipstick looks better than Rachel’s does. Rachel hates that too.
“I’m very sorry to hear about your parents,” Marion says softly, and that is when Rachel learns about lying.
1. Rachel cuts her hair.
1. Rachel learns to walk in heels, one wobbling step at a time, making circuits around the apartment they’ve given her. She is sixteen. This is too young to have an apartment of her own, but there is a man sitting in the corner and watching her, bored. So she is not really on her own. These steps she is taking, they aren’t her first. This is just an adjustment. This is just a new way of thinking.
Three weeks later she will sleep with the man in the corner, and two days after that she will go to Marion Bowles with her voice shaking, with tears in her eyes, and get that man…terminated. For now she keeps walking. Her feet are beginning to blister, slightly, around the edges; she lets that pain bloom to fill her mind and smiles in a mirror of its jagged edges. Her smile is cold. Just cold. Her smile is cold and unfeeling. Her smile is cold and pointed as cut glass.
1. Rachel gets a phone call, and a voice on the other end says Sarah Manning.
This is the first time she has heard that name.
1. “Blood is thicker than you think, Aldous,” says a woman in silhouette, facing a window.
1. “Right,” says a woman with Sarah Manning’s face, “Sarah Manning. So. My name is Rachel Duncan, and we are going to come to terms.”
1. She takes off the wig. She takes off the boots. She peels the leather jacket off, then the leather pants. Looks at herself in the mirror. Each jagged edge of her body is only and entirely her own.
“My name is Rachel Duncan,” she tells the mirror, and relishes the way her lips fit around the syllables – sticky as they are, still, with a lip gloss that could be Sarah Manning’s. She runs a hand down the curve of her ribs. My name is Rachel Duncan. Along the skin of her thigh. My name is Rachel Duncan. Trails fingers, lightly, to feel her skin goosebump. My name is Rachel Duncan.
She pads in bare feet to her vanity in the corner, takes out a tube of lipstick. The name of it doesn’t matter; there is only one name that matters, here. Rachel Duncan leans in close to the mirror, paints her lipstick on.
“My name is Rachel Duncan,” she says again, watching her red-painted mouth, the way it moves.
It is true.
1. There is a pencil in her eye. She screams and screams and screams.
Heart [Duncan, Rachel]
1. Rachel’s heart ________ when Sarah Manning pinned her to the ground.
a. sang b. raged c. did nothing d. went cold
2. Rachel’s heart ________ when she was a little girl.
a. sang b. raged c. did nothing d. went cold
3. Rachel’s heart ________. It could figure out how to do nothing else, now.
a. sang b. raged c. did nothing d. went cold
4. Rachel’s heart ________ at the sight of the other clones, their faces spread out in photographs on top of her desk.
a. sang b. raged c. did nothing d. went cold
5. Rachel’s heart ________ when Alison’s husband called the other clones her sisters.
a. sang b. raged c. did nothing d. went cold
6. Rachel’s heart ________ as she looked at herself in the mirror.
a. sang b. raged c. did nothing d. went cold
7. Rachel’s heart ________ when she slept with a man for the first time.
a. sang b. raged c. did nothing d. went cold
8. Rachel’s heart ________ when she ordered a man dead for the first time.
a. sang b. raged c. did nothing d. went cold
9. Rachel’s heart ________ as she rewatched her old video tapes, over and over and over again.
a. sang b. raged c. did nothing d. went cold
10. Rachel’s heart ________ anyways. It had never cared what she wanted.
a. sang b. raged c. did nothing d. went cold
Epigraph [Duncan, Rachel]
The monster wrenched the spike
from his eye and out it came with a great geyser of blood—
he flung it aside with frantic hands, and mad with pain
he bellowed out for help from his neighbor Cyclops
living round about in caves on windswept crags.
Hearing his cries, they lumbered up from every side
and hulking round his cavern, asked what ailed him:
“What, Polyphemus, what in the world’s the trouble?
Roaring out in the godsent night to rob us of our sleep.
Surely no one’s rustling your flocks against your will—
surely no one’s trying to kill you now by fraud or force!”
“Nobody, friends”—Polyphemus bellowed back from his cave—
“Nobody’s killing me now by fraud and not by force!”
“If you’re alone,” his friends boomed back at once,
“and nobody’s trying to overpower you now—look,
it must be a plague sent here by mighty Zeus
and there’s no escape from that.”
Lies [Duncan, Rachel]
Answer true or false.
___ Rachel Duncan needed help.
___ Nobody did this to her.
___ Nobody did this to her.
___ Rachel Duncan hates her father.
___ Rachel Duncan hates herself.
___ Rachel Duncan hates.
___ Rachel Duncan is different than the others.
___ Rachel Duncan is heartless.
___ Rachel Duncan is not cold at all.
___ Rachel Duncan lies.
___ Rachel Duncan remembers everything.
___ Everything will be alright.