I regretted the title almost as soon as I wrote it. There was a decent chance it would insult exactly the people who enjoy slipping into another name—though I have never been shy about insulting people, including myself. I used to be one of them. I liked a good alt identity.
In college I worked on an electronic magazine. It ran on submissions, which meant that at first there were not enough of them to keep the thing publishing on schedule. So I did what any reasonable editor would do: I put on several extra layers and pretended to be several contributors. For a while it worked. One or two pieces per fake name, written with enough variation, and nobody could tell it was the same person. But as the page count grew, each real person had to wear more and more masks, and eventually there was nothing left to say. We cut the submission section, stockpiled whatever came in, and waited. It reminded me of those stupid elementary-school math problems: a pool that is draining while a pipe pours water into it. I used to think the problem was idiotic. Apparently it had real-world applications.
Even when I wrote under a borrowed name, my voice leaked. I would start out straight and end up ranting or cracking jokes, and anyone paying attention could tell the same hand was behind it. Eventually I became the one forcing other people into masks. I laid out the magazine like a map divided into colored blocks and made sure articles by the same person were separated so their identities stayed hidden.
That was amateur stuff. Here is something a little more advanced.
When I was in school, pen pals were still a thing. Letters arrived late, and that delay gave them value. Unlike instant messaging, a letter had a kind of irreplaceable pleasure. My deskmate had a pen pal he was crazy about—not just fond of, genuinely obsessed. Then he confessed, and it failed. She was eight years older than him, and she had started writing to him mainly because she liked the delay, the game of letters. After that awkward confession, their correspondence stopped.
He was not ready to let it go. He decided to put on a new mask and write to her again. In those days, finding a pen pal was simple: you wrote to a magazine, asked them to publish your details, and they printed your information in the footer. So he had an excuse to approach her under a new identity. This time he invented a persona three years older than her and became her new pen pal. To imitate an adult personality, he found a tool he could use—me. He asked me to help simulate a persona, to write something that sounded like adult knowledge and opinions, based on whatever was popular at the time. Somehow, the plan worked.
But he got smarter. He did not just create the adult; he also created a mask who was the same age as the woman. He even forced himself to use a different way of writing, so his handwriting would not look the same. He wanted me to become one of his masks and write letters for him, but I refused because there was nothing in it for me. If he had paid me, I probably would have sold my soul.
I have no idea what happened to them afterward. If I were that pen pal, though, I think I could have caught him with a careful look. A few tiny details give a person away, especially the vertical-hook stroke and the heart radical at the bottom of a character. If you do not believe me, try it sometime.
I do sincerely hope that in the years since, he stopped deceiving people—and stopped letting himself be deceived. The internet is full of flirty female accounts that turn out to be a man who smokes and drinks.
Now for something even more advanced.
The Newborn Agreement came from a true story. Its predecessor was Apple. When I was a child, I heard about an acquaintance from the family compound who died in an accident. His death was simple—too simple, really, for a man who seemed destined for a loud, dramatic life. A car crash. It turned out that simple death was only the setup for a far more complicated and disturbing story. Three mistresses appeared at once and confronted his wife. One wanted support payments. One wanted a share of the inheritance. One wanted proof that her existence with him had been real.
As the truth came out piece by piece, it became clear that the man had been maintaining four completely different lives that never intersected. He was confident enough to tell each woman where he actually lived. Maybe he had predicted that he would leave the world quietly, and so he had to manufacture enough drama for himself. Of the four lives, one was an honest, responsible husband who worked away from home and served as the family’s pillar. One was a newlywed life with a young woman; they never registered the marriage, but their wedding that year was a big, lively affair. Why would a young woman love a man thirty years older? The answer only came after his death—and though he was gone, she was dragged into another maze, another abyss. One was a true love who was herself married; she divorced and became pregnant for him. He swore he would treat her existing child and the child she was carrying as his own. But not long after that child was born, the man who made the promise was dead. One was a married man who drove a woman mad with desire; he promised he would divorce his wife to prove his love, then belong to her completely.
Four stars, each moving on its own orbit. Each thought it was the only one. In fact, they were all satellites of the same planet, given their separate paths by the same powerful gravity, which meant they could never meet. Then the day came. The planet collapsed. The four satellites lost their gravity, their orbits went wild, and all of them crossed at the same point. With a plot that dramatic, it is hard not to call it fate.
Some people cursed the dead man as a turtle bastard. I find something resonant in that. Bastards are not the only ones who like a good disguise.