Source
The courtroom is packed with people eager to hear the judge's ruling after intense days of confrontation between the prosecution, defense counsel and witnesses.
The blow of the hammer works as a damper and everyone remains silent.
The judge speaks
-Since the jury has not been able to reach a verdict on the fact that the defendant has committed homicide or that the act can be considered suicide, and the crime committed by the defendant is not typified in the law, it is impossible to convict or release him, so we suspend the trial until a solution to this dilemma is found and the defendant will continue to be deprived of his liberty until a sentence or release is achieved.
Karl Haussman breathes a sigh of relief, he knows that his act will always be remembered and that now he will not only be one more who agreed to volunteer to be cloned, but he will be remembered as the first who managed to make the law look like an eyesore.
One day, tired of seeing himself in another, he decided to end the nightmare and killed him.
What nobody knows is that he is the clone and not the accused they think they are judging and when after hours, days or months of deliberation they manage to create a law in which it is considered homicide and not suicide to take the life of a clone, then he will prove that he has not been the executor of the crime, since he is not the Karl they think but the one they think has died and according to what his own lawyer has explained to him they will have to release him and declare the trial null and void.
They will then have to start all over again the whole legal plot that is synthesized in accusing him, imprisoning him and judging him.
Those moments of freedom when he can be alone will serve him to disappear, because he is tired of being someone else's copy and man has never taken into account in his experiments or technological advances the psychological impact that these may leave on the majority, they have always been considered collateral damage.
Life is surprising and believing oneself to be a god is an eternal curse.
A fascinating story. Presents not only a legal conundrum but an existential challenge. Thank you for posting this most interesting story in the Ink Well community, and thank you for engaging with your fellow authors.
I'm never disappointed when I read your stories. Consciousness, autonomy, authorship of self--ideas that have concerned authors for centuries.
I think of ETA Hoffman and Automata. I think of Unamuno and La Niebla. And I think of Bladerunner (movie). It's a complicated thing, trying to adjudicate what is human and what is not. I could go on with examples as I write this. However, you bring a novel perspective in your short story, in having a clone kill the original.
It is a thoughtful and thought-provoking story.
What a great twist, @joseph1956. I didn't see that coming. And I like how you explore the morality and humanity of cloning. Clones are a great topic for sci-fi stories; you took this one in an interesting and unexpected direction.
Hello @joseph1956. An interesting concept of individuality, not only in the legal profession, but also in the scientific realm. Can you kill yourself and it not be suicide as we currently know it? Research involving the cloning of animals or humans is a hotly-debated topic with moral and ethical concerns. Mankind needs to make advances in technology and and medicine, but at what cost to our existence.
In my opinion, I don't feel that man is meant to create another human being. A human is not meant to exist in more than one body. This debate will rage on for decades while work is secretly being done without the knowledge of the masses.
Thanks for this story. I liked the concept you present. Great job.
Take care.