COPYCAT
As told by Ditto himself
People said I was odd. Fair. But then again, most of them weren’t paying attention.
That’s the trick — most folks never really look. They glance. They skim. They assume. But if you watch… really watch… you see the truth behind every twitch, every scratch, every purse of a lip.
I learned to lip-read with a pair of stolen binoculars and a lot of daytime TV. (Subtitles on, of course.) Not because I wanted to understand people. I wanted to outsmart them.
Name’s Ditto. Not legally — I gave that name to myself. Thought it had a certain ring to it. Like an echo. Like something that comes back to bite you. Which is exactly what I do.
You see, I specialize in justice. My kind. Not the court kind. That’s too slow and way too sloppy. My justice is tailored, specific, and utterly satisfying. I ruin people. Quietly. Creatively. Sometimes permanently.
I never leave a trail. That’s Rule #1.
Rubber gloves — surgical grade. Clean room — sterilized and bleached. White coveralls — so I don’t drop a single skin cell. Mask, naturally. And when it comes time to deliver one of my signature threatening notes? I use an ancient Xerox machine. Then I make a copy of that copy — gives it that authentic “deranged psycho with a toner problem” vibe.
Now, about her.
She conned me out of fifty grand. Lifted my heart, then my wallet, then disappeared like a fart in the wind. She played me like a fiddle with a loose G-string. So I did what I do best: I got even.
Her name doesn’t matter. Let’s call her… Ms. Snakeface.
I lived in a condo complex. Too many gossips, not enough recycling bins. But that worked in my favor. Because Ms. Snakeface had an enemy. His name was Chuck. A loud, red-faced man who wore Hawaiian shirts in winter and once accused the HOA president of embezzling the lawn maintenance fund.
Perfect.
I composed a letter to Snakeface. Said I’d run her over. Friday. Noon. Told her to count the minutes. Then I took that Xerox copy, and I made sure it had Chuck’s DNA on it. Won’t go into detail. Let’s just say I borrowed his toothbrush.
I dropped the letter into her tote at Trader Joe’s. (She always bought the pre-marinated tofu — classic sociopath.)
Then… life happened.
She actually got run over. A hit and run. DOA. Flattened like yesterday’s roti.
Now, I didn’t do it. I swear. I was across town at the time, watching a Zumba class through a bakery window. But my little note was in her purse, and the cops went nuts.
They grilled Chuck like a cheap steak. Pulled his trash, his browser history, his DNA. They even sniffed his printer.
That would’ve been the end of it. Until he showed up.
The Kid.
This greasy-haired genius from unit 203 who used to fix my laptops and printers when I’d mess something up trying to bypass Windows updates. Smart as hell. Socially radioactive.
We started out as pals. I liked him. Hired him to rewire my network, clean out some malware, tune up the desktop in the garage. He worked fast, but… he borked a couple drives — and I told him I’d only pay half. Which I did. Fifty bucks in a used coffee can. I called it “lesson money.” He called it theft.
Apparently, the Kid holds a grudge. Like an elephant. A snarky, tech-savvy elephant.
“You know most printers save a tiny thumbnail of everything they ever print?” he told the cops. “It’s how they spy on you.”
Of course, he wasn’t wrong. I mean, it’s not a law, but a lot of those newer printers? They do keep ghost images on internal memory. Even some copiers — especially the ones from the ’90s — store shadow documents in secret directories. Digital necromancy, really.
And mine? Oh, mine was a relic. My prized Xerox. My sacred smudger.
One day it vanished from the rec room.
Gone.
I figured a neighbor borrowed it for church flyers. No big deal. Until two weeks later when the cops showed up with a lab report and a grin.
The Kid had stolen my copier and mailed it anonymously to the crime lab. The machine still had faint echoes of my masterpiece — the letter to Ms. Snakeface. My fingerprint? No. DNA? Nope. But the file was there. The timestamp. The signature smear.
They cracked it open like a can of sardines. And they found me.
So now I’m writing this from a windowless room with three square meals and a roommate named Brick who smells like cheese and rage.
But hey — at least they’re paying attention now.
And that?
That makes it all worth it.
Would you like this formatted into a PDF short story manuscript, HTML post, or narration script? Or should I create a cartoon image of Ditto and the Kid — one in a lab coat, the other holding a screwdriver and a grudge?
