A word about Cecil

As a dry run, allow me a moment to tell you a bit about Cecil Bandersnatch. Some may claim he is an invention of the imagination, perhaps added by a degree of alcohol consumption, but I can tell you for certain he is a real person. This is what I know about him:

Cecil was born in the south of England in 1980 in the town of Hastings. His parents were only holiday there from their home in London, and so he has no special connection to the place. He has been overheard to say, however, that when things got rough in London he has been known to make a "Hastingsy retreat".
Though there is some uncertainty, no doubt encouraged by Cecil himself, as to the occurrences of his youth, if there is one fact about Cecil that is not in question, it is this: he went to Oxford. There he studied botany, and distinguished himself as best one can amongst the clearly competitive botany crowd. When interrogated further, Cecil has revealed on several occasions that he was second in his class, though the reason that he did not obtain the top spot has only be explained as, in his own words, "A social faux pas involving the daughter of a Dean at Oxford, and the botany department located at King's College".
Cecil's family is very old money, as people like to say; his father is the attaché to the Minister of Defense in England, which as I understand is more of a ceremonial position given to him in much the same way our country hands out ambassadorships like they are candy. Needless to say, Cecil wants for nothing and is perfectly content that way. While he does not squander his wealth, having it allows I know for a fact, having visited the place on several occasions, that he owns a rather spacious apartment in New York City that contains no furniture at all, though he has gone to the trouble of outlining every space the furniture would occupy with painter's tape and enjoys making a show of always asking why you are standing on the couch when you wander within the imaginary perimeter.
I must correct myself on one point regarding his New York apartment; there is one room that is furnished, and to see it you would think you had stepped into a different time. The walls are hardwood, where they are not hidden behind bookshelves stuffed to the breaking point with volumes containing all variations of knowledge. The vast majority of the tomes are bristling with makeshift bookmarks and notes, no doubt added by Cecil himself. The only other furniture in the room is a massive hard oak desk with a decidedly comfortable-looking chair on one side. Most of the drawers of the desk are locked, the only one that is not holds an assorted array of pipes, all of which when blown will emit a stream of bubbles.Cecil to entertain the strange notions that overtake him as a person with more free time than commitments.
I would not go so far as to say that Cecil is a drunk; this assumes that one not only achieves sobriety during the course of their waking hours, but also that one overindulges in consuming alcohol. It seems somehow significant that Cecil manages to constantly walk the line between either of these states. He carries with him always the faintest scent of alcohol in the way one is left with a favorable scent-memory of a beloved realitive who drinks a bit too much, and less in the oh-God-why-do-i-always-get-the-subway-seat-by-the-wino. He also always carries a flask on his person, though they occasionally vary in design; I have learned over time that this betrays their contents, though my investigative skills are humbled when I reveal this knowledge only comes to me by Cecil's own admission.

And that is all I have to share on the man for now.

Thought Process

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the room was that the entire place had a very familiar feel. The second thing I noticed was the soft carpet beneath my bare feet. It ran the length of the room, vanishing under the desk that sat facing me, opposite and to one side of the door. The desk held a standard table lamp and what appeared to be a computer screen. The walls were a pale blue from the floor up, then they were painted to represent a mountain range about two feet short of the ceiling. The mountains had each been individually painted, free from the template drawings one often encounters. The ceiling was painted like the sky, patches of clouds floating about without any kind of pattern. The ceiling fan that spun slowly in the middle of the room had small plastic stars stuck to its blades.

The room was not a large one, but there was easily enough space in it for a person to feel comfortable. As I looked to my right I spotted for the first time a dog, a golden retriever with a full, furry coat, staring at me. Finally noticed, the dog eyed me with brown eyes, then stood up and, tail wagging, picked up a stuffed dog bed in her teeth and looked at me expectantly. After a moments hesitation I bent down and extended one had toward the dog, then gentle scratched her head. The dog accepted my affections without any reaction, her tail already wagging. I shrugged and turned, approaching what appeared to be a drawing table situated in the corner next to the door, the dog following behind me.

Over the drawing table was a large painting. It held a duck, seated comfortably in a pool chair, looking perplexed at two bullet holes in the wall over his shoulder. Written beneath the painting were the words "Sitting Duck". I chuckled as I read this, and then looked down at the contents of the drawing table. Scattered about its surface were dozens upon dozens of sheets of paper, some completely blank while others held a few words, phrases, or were filled completely. They seemed to be notes, thoughts, and stories, all jotted down hastily and without any system or organization. Several caught my eye, but my curiosity at the rest of the room tore my attention away.

I noticed on the wall a window looking outside, though the view it presented me with was not what I expected. I had the nagging feeling that before I had entered this room it was the early evening, and yet this window showed me a view out into a rainy day. A glance at my watch claimed the time was nearly midnight, and yet the window was clearly a daytime shower, the weather beyond the glass a downpour with wind strong enough to slant the rain at a steep angle. The faint sound of rain landing on a tin roof confirmed that it was in fact raining. A shook my watch a few times, then mentally scorned myself, as shaking a digital watch was unlikely to modify its function.

The dog at this point seemed to grow tired of my exploration; she walked away from me to the center of the room and placed her bed on the floor. Stepping onto it, she walked a small circle several times before laying down facing me and letting out what I thought might be a profound sigh. Her eyes followed be as I continued around the room, their puppy-dog stare zeroed in on me.

In the rear of the room was a very large bookshelf, nearly covering the entire wall. Roughly half filled, it contained books of varying shapes and sizes. There was not a single title amongst them I didn't recognize, though some lurked deep in my memory and I had to think for several moments to place the books' origins. Pulling one from the shelf, i flipped it open and found the page I had turned to blank. I shifted through the pages, and occasionally words or phrases would appear in the margins. Some sections of the books were completely filled, others empty like the first few pages I had spotted. I checked several other books with similar results, and realized after the third novel that in reading the parts that were printed, I recognized the moments in the story from my readings. I shut the third book and continued around the room to the desk.

Surprisingly bare, the desk only held the lamp, a flat computer monitor, and a keyboard and mouse. No tower was visible for the monitor, and no cables ran out of it, power or otherwise, but bright on the screen was the background of a city in ruins. A few mouse clicks and taps on the keyboard opened most of the familiar programs, though the web browser held a large bookmark folder titled "Distractions". I closed out the windows I had opened and sat down in the comfortable chair behind the desk. The golden retriever on the floor immediately stood up, grabbed her bed in her mouth, and dragged it over to where I sat. She set the bed down at my feet and once again preformed her laying down ritual. I leaned over in my chair and scratched her behind the ears for a few moments, then sat up once more.

Sitting opposite me, in a chair identical to the one I occupied was a man who appeared identical to myself. I stared for a moment and then slowly, I lifted one hand up to my face. The mirror image of myself did the same. When my hand was next to my face I bent my index finger forward slowly, and the person opposite me did the same. Then he grinned, wiggled all his fingers, and laughed.

"I'm just messing with you, i'm not a mirror or whatever you were thinking."
He grinned and waited for me to respond, taking a moment to clean the glasses he wore on his face.
"So...if you aren't some creepy mirror image murder-thing, what are you?" I said, realizing my glasses were smugded and resisting the urge to clean them.
He laughed, mouthing the words "murder-thing", and replaced his glasses.
"If you want to get really technical, i'm you, though obviously I can't be, since you are sitting there, hogging the dog, and i'm sitting here, alone without even a cat I can pretend cares about me."

I let this process for a moment and then dug down deep into my mind in order to come up with what seemed the most appropriate and fitting response.
"Ok." I said, and looked across the desk at what was apparently myself, but not.
"Look, if it makes it easier, think of me as Tawks instead of Scott" he said, reclining somewhat in his chair. He looked up at the ceiling, covered in clouds which, if I looked hard enough, appeared to be lazily drifting across their blue sky.
Laughing lightly, he spoke, seemingly to the ceiling, "Things could get confusing if we both used the name Scott."

I found myself nodding in agreement, then shook my head and looked at Tawks.
"Ok, so you're Tawks, and I'm Scott. What do you want?"

Tawks looked back at me, matching my gaze.
"Well, mostly that is up to you. What would you like to talk about?"

Chasing phantoms in one's dreams...