"Mr. Burt Barlow?" Although he noted that the visitor was three minutes late, Dr. Kane spoke deliberately, carefully pronouncing the name as a question and furrowing his brow in mock bewilderment. He'd seen the same face and body, just a bit less tanned and slightly less muscular, every day in the mirror 35 years before; he mustn't betray that familiarity, his secret, to the visitor.

"Your letter said something about a charity performance, with proceeds going half to the obstetrics wing and half to research," Burt began, as he sat in a stiff, high backed wing chair; somehow, the upholstery felt as hard and uninvitingly formal as Dr. Kane's pinched face, and the wooden arms seemed to restrain him like bars. Dr. Kane had an excellent reputation in scientific circles, once as a top researcher in genetics and fertility, now as Director of a leading medical center. Still, the man seemed both too familiar and forbidding, as though he represented something that Burt shouldn't see or wouldn't want to see.

"Yes, a charity performance would do so much -- if you have the time, of course." Dr. Kane plucked lint from his trousers. Speck number one, speck number two, speck number three: Each speck seemed symbolic of a life he could have led, a possibility he'd let shrivel into dust. Having too many interests or talents was a curse; one had to abandon too much too early. Back then, when he often worked alone at night with an entire lab to himself, the solution had seemed so easy. Although the process was illegal, he knew that he could easily clone himself from scrapings of his own tissues then implant the clones into selected in vitro fertilization patients. He needn't live only this one narrow life, with so many responsibilities and expectations constantly pruning away possibilities for branching out. He could live four lives, six lives, ten lives if he created ten clones. Each clone was really Dr. Kane, 35 years younger and assigned a different name, but following a path he might have taken in a parallel universe. Only four clones survived to birth; Dr. Kane followed their progress from afar, wondering if any would develop talents he'd left uncultivated and live one of his fantasy lives. Burt had.

"Dr. Kane?" Burt squinted at the man who gazed vacantly as his bony fingers robotically picked invisible gnats from his trousers; while here, Burt should study the man's movements, in case he ever had to play a fusspot.

"Oh, yes; just woolgathering, I guess. Getting old." Dr. Kane knitted his fingers together tightly in his lap; the knuckles protruded, starkly white. "When I was young, just for a short time, I dreamt of being on stage. My build was perfect for tap-dancing, and I had some talent. But it wasn't practical." Dr. Kane coughed and rose abruptly from his chair. "I had responsibilities, expectations to live up to, a wife, children, expectations. It just wasn't practical. I only thought about it occasionally, once or twice during cab rides, because it was too impractical." Dr. Kane started towards a corner cabinet, jerking its key from a pocket in his jacket lining. Those thoughts hadn't been occasional. In the shower, in the hospital cafeteria, even beside his sleeping wife long after any chance of changing his life had passed, he'd envisioned himself tap dancing or playing comedy to a cheering Broadway audience. He'd felt his arms soar up, no longer bound tightly to his sides; he'd felt the kinks in his stomach go limp and heard his voice uncoil into something fluid and resonant, rather than something raspy and tense.

"I'd be happy to do a charity performance," Burt offered. "But I'm booked for the next six months. I can give you my agent's number to schedule a time after that -- if you're still interested."

"Yes, yes I am," Dr. Kane muttered as he fumbled to fit the key into a lock; Burt thought he looked as skittish as a mouse caught between two cats, hardly the image of power suggested by that impressive resume and this office meticulously furnished in antiques.

Now Dr. Kane couldn't think about the stage or about the actor in his office; he could only think about his day's schedule. The assignments, stored in his computer and recorded in block print in the Day Planner he carried everywhere, recycled through his mind, buzzing more loudly with each repetition until a whole hive seemed to mock him: 8:00 to 11:30 AM -- see clinic patients; 11:30 to 12:30 PM -- lecture to sophomores; 12:30 to 4:45 PM -- rounds on hospital wards; 4:45 to 9 PM -- see private patients; after 9 PM -- charting, correspondence.

Dr. Kane followed his schedule strictly; like any successful man, he led a life of regimental austerity. A little before midnight, he'd arrive home and pull dinner from the refrigerator -- a cold plate on which tomato sauce had solidified into a brown paste over soggy spaghetti. It had been years since he'd let cinnamon seep into his tongue or paused to savor the pulpy tartness of fresh orange juice, but he was proud of the unrelenting self-discipline that had brought him to the top of his profession. Asceticism had gotten a bad reputation in this undisciplined, extravagant, adolescent era when people gobbled brownies until they puked and bought every trinket in sight until the whole house of charge cards came toppling down. Dr. Kane wasn't like those crowds, or like those actors with their "Eat, drink and be merry" parties. Such high living could make one fat, flabby and dull fast. Dr. Kane pulled in his abdomen, already trim from a life of self-discipline. He complimented himself for having always been practical, immune to the temptations of a stage life, and lifted a bottle of scotch from the cabinet.

"It's been a long day. Join me in a drink?"

Burt nodded. He'd have one drink to be polite; more than that could mean a hangover, a morning of rehearsal lost. Dr. Kane probably didn't know that an actor's timing had to be as precise as a surgeon's cut, that one wrong gesture could distract an audience for an entire scene, that an actor had to continually adapt his voice and movements to new co-stars and settings, and that lost rehearsal time could doom a performance.

"Will he make his maker proud?" Dr. Kane mumbled as he set two glasses on a table.

"What?" Burt frowned; maybe fatigue made the doctor ramble.

Dr. Kane squinted at the actor's open necked shirt with its flamboyantly floppy collar, his tapestry belt, his jeans tucked into black suede boots garishly studded with turquoise. "Eat, drink and make merry; eat, drink and make merry; eat, drink and make merry"; the words thumped in an urgent staccato as the scotch gushed into each glass. Dr. Kane felt sure of the man's future. He glanced up and saw a 400 pound man who resembled a walrus. His balloon-like abdomen rocked as he walked. A blue polyester shirt stretched tautly around his belly and, through a gap where two adjacent buttons had popped out of their holes, Dr. Kane saw a ribbed T-shirt stained with grape juice. Tiny glasslike eyes littered from behind swollen red cheeks and two whiskers jutted defiantly from a mole at the corner of his fleshy lips. Even in winter, the man perspired; when he walked, he snorted and panted. Dr. Kane smelt the aroma of scotch mixed with the bitter stench of sweat.

"And it's an unaffordable luxury, with every acre on earth being used for housing." The historian, given special permission to read hundreds of forbidden books while pursuing his Ph.D., sipped a flavored drink of caffeine and ephedrine and worried about what might happen if someone rediscovered flowers. In more primitive periods, people had spent hours each week digging, tilling and fertilizing huge front yards, merely to watch irises sprout in spring and roses blaze throughout the summer. Irises and roses weren't even edible; they merely attracted bees and made ancient back yards reek..

"A disgusting creature, a mockery," Dr. Kane muttered.

"What's wrong?" Burt, once more thin with an angular face, glanced uneasily towards the door.

"Just too much too think about today, too many decisions," Dr Kane snapped.

He knew what he had to do. A man couldn't let himself be mocked by himself.

He opened the capsules over one glass and watched the translucent granules dissolve. In an hour, Burt would feel the first chest pains; in two hours, he'd be dead, far from this office.

A doctor knew about untraceable poisons. In this way, he was ahead of any happy actor.

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