ROCKET MAN
And I think it’s gonna be a long long time, till touchdown brings me round again to find I’m not the man they think I am at home. Oh no no no. I’m a rocket man.—Elton John
Well comrades, you should know Tom well enough by now to know his decision. He had a love for adventure and this would be the adventure of his lifetime! How could he have refused?
So, behold, it was I, Tom-Tom, Tom’s clone, who got a memory block and was sent back to 1978 to continue Tom’s legacy.
So far as the world knows, the visit from NASA never happened. There might have been a new kid in town, but no one, including me, knew the difference. No one—not Tom’s parents, his sisters, his brother Mike, his children, or his friends—had the slightest suspicion.
I am no different from Tom. All of his memories and experiences were programmed into me. We now share the same appearance, memories, personality, age, and health. We are more than twins; we are the same.
I would, however, spend the next several years gallivanting around, searching for an identity and a purpose. I was a restless spirit on an endless flight. I sought fame and fortune; seeking that heart of gold. It took several more relationships, two more marriages, and a few more heartbreaks, heartaches, and comebacks before I finally got my feet on solid ground.
CJ, after discovering she was a clone, had trouble accepting her reality. She eventually sent the children to live with me. Even though she suspected, she was not yet certain that I was also a clone.
The next few years were difficult, as I tried to adapt to being a parent. Learning parenthood right when your children turn into teenage monsters was demanding. There were a few times I just wanted to run away. Somehow, we survived.
Then I finally met my heart of gold and the ‘love of my life’, Karen. We fell in a sensible love. The way you fall asleep: slowly, but surely.
Now I am getting to the final curtain. I have discovered that aging doesn’t take a special ability or talent. No one ever gets to practice it; it just sneaks up on you. It’s gotten hard to recognize the old fart who makes those funny faces and stares back at me in the mirror. What happened to that perfect age when you’re old enough to know better and too young to care? Gone, but not forgotten.
If you read my original memoirs, then you might have thought you knew me. But you didn’t, because I didn’t, at the time. If you haven’t read my original memoirs, you might find them interesting. The memory blocks kept me from seeing the hidden revelations. But, thanks to CJ, I eventually learned how to melt them and discovered my distinctiveness.
It took writing my memoirs before I suspected a thing. Once I adopted CJ’s ascetic lifestyle, a whole new world revealed itself. Never in my wildest dreams would I have suspected myself to be a clone from the future. Our creators hadn’t figured that we would learn to melt our memory blocks. CJ outwitted them.
We needn’t be concerned that the abductors or the government may discover that some of us now know the truth. I would suspect they already know. They aren’t concerned because they know that everyone will just think us to be crazy UFO wackos. It could be that the definition of “wacko” will have to be redefined someday. But until then, at least there are a few of us who know the truth and know who we really are.
That being said, it raises another interesting question. Do clones have a soul? I do know right from wrong. I have all human traits, but does that make me human since I came from a test tube instead of the womb? I suppose I won’t know the answer to that question until I meet the Man at the pearly gate.
I have heard there could be as many as three million abductees in America. There is no telling how many more are spread around the globe. Of course not all have been cloned. But I don’t know that for a fact.
I can identify at least one of you besides CJ, but I won’t reveal who this is, as you have yet to discover it yourself. I warned you in the beginning that my story could change your life and that you might never be the same.
If you have the slightest inclination that you may have been abducted and cloned, then you now know how to find out for sure. Become a vegetarian, fast and abstain from sex and see if you have any memory blocks that melt. It may take awhile, but if you have instilled memory blocks, they will eventually melt and you will discover who you really are. It will take some courage to make the necessary sacrifices, but the results should answer your questions once and for all.
Only a few will be willing to put it on the line. I suspect there will be many who really don’t want to know. I can’t really blame you for wanting to stay tucked in your comfortable and secure little world. It will be interesting to find out who the brave ones will be.
So you now know, it is I, Tom-Tom who wrote both the original memoir and this revised edition. Tom has been absent from this timeline since 1978. I wouldn’t worry about him, though. I have been having some pretty exotic dreams lately. Those dreams indicate that he is gallivanting around in the future, footloose and fancy-free, on a quest to save the human race from extinction and help them to revert back to our present-day appearance. Perhaps someday the abductors will not be mistaken for aliens anymore.
In the meantime, if you should someday happen to see a UFO, the least you could do is wave. After all, its occupants could be some of your kinfolk. :)