Alone, standing atop her Omnipresent Scanner, Cushions gave silent thanks to the Gods for returning the Earplug Brothers and her other self, safe and intact…
Now, she realised, she would need to show great leadership. She would have to be the first person to reintegrate her two temporal selves. Worse still, she would have to perform the act in public. “Gotta set an example, Cushions.” She whispered to herself. “Otherwise we could have two of everyone wandering about the place, taking up space; getting into arguments about whose turn it is to wash their underwear; and eating me out of house and home.”
Obviously, her twin had drawn the same conclusion. Therefore, before anyone could even try to settle back into the museum, her two selves appeared on TV together…
Crowds began to form around the public television screens…
Throughout the Museum, tension grew as the two Cushions’ moved closer to one another. No one dared breathe whilst the two bodies appeared to coalesce…
However, no sooner had the brief flash of temporal energy subsided, and Cushions, alone, stood before them, then everybody gasped in desperately needed air and cheered with relief…
“Hey,” she shouted above the din, “that wasn’t so bad. Piece of cake. If I could, I would do it again. Now it’s your turn.”
Initially people were sceptical. The pink background against which Cushions had merged made some earplugs wonder if it might be the result of special effects. So, donning their metaphorical ‘hero’ hats again, the Greenhorn Girls stood before the camera of one of the Rupert Piles: took up their dancing positions…
…and high-kicked their way back into their single selves…
…which might have been a mistake, because, during their duality, they had each lived very different lives – with two sets of memories. One in which they had survived a tsunami and lived in the brief Epoch of Dung: the other where they played the role of heroes. This left them all very confused – and it showed in their faces and gait…
Also, for a while afterwards, they appeared to suffer residual after effects…
Nevertheless, an example had been made. Quickly others followed their lead…
Mandy and Candy (times two) chose the Main Thoroughfare to re-join…
The disused roller skate park proved popular with the two Ninja Perkins’, Auntie Doris’s, and K’Planks…
Rupert Piles even filmed himself becoming one again. “Pity,” one of them said to the other, “as a duo we could have covered twice as many stories.”
© Paul Trevor Nolan 2022
Tooty Nolan: Languishing Somewhere Between Clever and Stupid 