Challenge 73

“Who am I, anyway?”

In view of the serious stories in this issue, this Challenge is deceptively light-hearted. Remember the old saying, “Two heads are better than one”? Well, how about six? Ásgrímur Hartmannsson’s “All Together, Now!” might remind us of the saying “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”

According to Ásgrímur’s story, what problems might arise when someone has multiple personalities that appear not in sequence but all at the same time?

The scenario suggests some tough questions, which have to do with such science-fiction staples as telepathy and personality transfer as well as with the existentialism in John Thiel’s response to Challenge 72:

If you had to share your head with someone, whom would you choose?
Or we can simplify the question: if you could choose to be anyone else, who would you be?
Or further: if you could go back in time and start over again as yourself at an earlier age, knowing only what you knew then, what age would you choose?
Or a variation on the question: if you could choose to live at another time or place, what would you choose?
Or we can make it easier: if you wrote a story on the premise of mind-sharing — or any of the first four questions — what kind of story would you write?

Please send us your ideas!