Me and My Manny by M.A. MacAfee Read Free Book Online

periods of time.”
    In silence, as I for a moment permitted Harry to think he’d solved one of the great mysteries of the deep, I pondered another uncanny event I heard of from the old salts.
    “Okay, smarty-pants. How do you explain that when possessed ships were destroyed they fought to stay afloat? Set on fire or taken apart, the very timbers of bad ships made bloodcurdling screams of protest before going under.”
    At last Harry said, “I’m not going to account for it. Instead, I am going to warn you that if I hear one more word about possessed ships, bloodcurdling screams of protest just might start coming out of you.”
    “Well of all the—” I flipped onto my side and burrowed into my pillow. “If that’s the way you feel, goodnight.”
    For several minutes I lay in the dim room, my eyes on the manny slumped under a sheet as Harry insisted. I really wasn’t angry. I was pleased. I felt prosperous because now I had two husbands, in a way.

Taking Over Harry
     
    One afternoon, Harry spent a long time on the living room sofa just peering at the manny reposed on the leather recliner.
    “That thing freaks me out. It makes me feel like it’s trying to take me over.”
    I suppressed a laugh. “Just because Wolf sort of resembles you, doesn’t mean he wants to become you.”
    “How would you know what he does or doesn’t want? He’s my double, my doppelganger. Don’t you know it’s bad luck to meet up with your doppelganger? It’s supposed to mean your death is imminent.”
    “Oh, that’s just so much folklore.” Harry’s earlier denials about possessed ships aside, he was as gullible as ever. “You’re not going to die just because I got a dummy.”
    “He’s more than a dummy, you said so yourself. I’m telling you,” Harry added with a hint of dread in his voice. “Wolf is out to consume me. He’s already started. He gets all the things I ever wanted, a new recliner, a great set of wheels, and special attention from the girls.”
    “I never knew you wanted those things.”
    “He succeeds where I fail,” Harry went on. “In the end, he’ll dispose of me.” His voice took on an ominous tone. “That thing intends to suck the life out of me. You’ll see.” He shook his index finger. “Once I start to change, it’ll be too late.”
    The way I saw it, Harry had been speaking figuratively. Annoyed that Wolf took up too much of my time, he resorted to hyperbole to make a point. Still, his assertions worried me. I thought about Wolf becoming real; but I hadn’t allowed that Harry would become unreal in the process. Pinocchio just went from a puppet to a person, reasonable since he was an original with no double, no doppelganger, no lookalike of any sort.
    That Harry would feel threatened by his wooden replica was something I could not have anticipated. Nor could I have foreseen my growing attachment to Wolf despite the marital strife he might cause.
    “You want me to get rid of him?” I said in challenge.
    “Wouldn’t hurt,” Harry said.
    “It just might, if I’m not careful how I dispose of him.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Since you seem to believe that what happens to the dummy will happen to you, you could burst into flames, if I burned him in the barbeque pit on the balcony. Or you could break apart, if I hacked him up with an ax. You might even die of a wretched disease, if I dumped him in the trash bin out back.”
    “Enough. We’ll take this up later,” Harry said, heading for the shower.
    Truth be known, I had noticed small changes in Harry. He had become less talkative, his speech more clipped, at times trailing off. He took to sitting around in rigid almost catatonic postures. His skin had taken on a sallow cast, his face often appeared set, his eyes fixed.
    Equally disconcerting were the differences I’d noticed in Wolf. In the bright morning light, he looked fresh and well rested; his brown eyes sparkled, and an unnatural glow appeared on his