Jonathan
What exactly is your full name?
Leafhead
Doctor Voracious Klonduke Leafhead II, ASC.
Jonathan
ASC? You're a member of the
American Society of Cinematographers?
Leafhead
Not yet.
[Laughs]
But I consider myself a bringer of light
and vision.
Jonathan
Let's go back to the beginning. Your
newspaper ad made mention of getting
to be a part of "historical breakthrough
events that will tear down all that we
think we know about the inner-workings
of Earth and the Universe."
Leafhead
Sounds like something I might say.
Jonathan
I have seen things here that could
change the world. Yet you seem to
keep all your inventions to yourself.
Leafhead
[Lights a pipe]
You've seen things here that have changed
the world. I don't publicly unleash the entirety
of my inventions because it is far too much
for people to handle. Instead, I have
anonymously leaked my knowledge into the
mainstream over a course of many
years. You wouldn't believe just how much I've
influenced humanity over the last century.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Jonathan
That brings me to one of my main questions.
How old are you?
Leafhead
I think I will be turning 103 next October. If you
don't include the years I spent in cryo-freeze.
Jonathan
So you are immortal. Was it the Jellyfish?
Leafhead
[Laughs again]
What?
Jonathan
I thought you were interested in Jellyfish
because they contain some ingredient
needed for an immortality formula.
Leafhead
Not sure where you got that idea... but the
reason for my immortality is that once while
on Mars I had the incredible fortune of
stumbling upon a pair of well-seasoned
travelers of time and space. Their names
were Dr. Wilx, an Astrospeciologist of the
highest order of intelligence, and Dr. Rip
T. Brash the Third, a belligerent sort of
fellow that I wouldn't advise you to try to
shake hands with. They were beings from
a very high-order on the universal scale.
I guess their blood acts as a catalyst or
something for effects of immortality. They gave
me an injection to the eyeball that was
assured to grant me a life of hundreds of years.
Jonathan
Not only have you been around a long time, but
you've been to a lot of places too, haven't you?
Leafhead
I've been to most places on Earth, yes. Thanks
to my teleporter.
Jonathan
Not just places. I mean times.
Leafhead
Right. That.
[Lights pipe again]
Jonathan
We've already met, haven't we?
Leafhead
Of course we've already met.
Jonathan
What I mean is that you had met me
before I even saw your newspaper ad,
at a point later in my life than now.
Leafhead
What makes you say that?
[Here I briefly left the room so as to retrieve the proof in the form of Leafhead's Will].
Jonathan
I'm mentioned in this will, yet it is
clearly dated from before my actual
birth. At what point in the future have
you traveled to and met my older self?
Leafhead
You found that old thing, eh? I wouldn't
think much of it at this point. But if I'm
going to be telling you everything then
we might as well start with your first
day at the house. Remember when you
were bit by that poisonous reptile and I
had to filter your blood through the De-Toxifier?
Jonathan
As if someone could forget.
Leafhead
That wasn't exactly an accident.
Jonathan
The part about me being attacked by a hybrid
reptilian creature, nearly dying and having to be
subjected to some sort of medieval torture device?
You mean that was the part that wasn't an accident?
Leafhead
Exactly. It was all part of my brilliant planning.
You see, after the death of Melvin I decided to
never again lose a valuable assistant. I endlessly
labored to perfect a cloning device. It is a very
simple machine. All I need is a sample of someone's
blood and I can make a perfect replica of both their
mind and body. The reptile creature was instructed to
bite you so that I would have an excuse to put you in the
De-Toxifier, which is actually the Cloning Machine.
Jonathan
There's a clone of me somewhere in the house?
Whereabouts? I'd like to see.
Leafhead
That's the tricky bit. You've only got to look into
a mirror to see the clone of the original Jonathan.
You are the clone.
Jonathan
[Cool but with obvious simmering rage]
Explain please.
Leafhead
The interesting thing about my technique of cloning
is that it is a veritable splitting of the mind. The clone
does not exist in its own separate mental state, but
rather the original subject will feel themselves existing
within both bodies at the same. It is an extremely
disagreeable way of trying to live, therefore it is never
ideal to have both the clone and the original subject
alive at the same time. However should the original
subject die, the clone can be unfrozen and the brain
will pick up exactly where it left off upon dying as if
nothing had happened. As I proved in your case, it
is entirely possible for someone to go through the rest
of their life ignorant of the fact they are living in a
replacement body. If one remembers to always
have a clone on hand as well as a person to entrust
with the knowledge of thawing such clone, then my
cloning techniques are in their own right a form of
immortality. Anyway, that time you ate the turducken
from Obscurity Sandwich you were in fact poisoned
beyond repair. I know that I said I knocked you out
and put you through the De-Toxifier, but I actually just
shot you in the head and unfroze your clone. I had
the original-you cremated and scattered in the forest.
