Unique Copy Center

I was near Washington Square Park. I walked past a print and copy shop with a banner outside. The blue banner displayed red block letters that spelled Unique Copy Center. I stopped walking to gaze at the terse paradox. I couldn't imagine how or why a unique copy of anything would be produced. If a mother walks into a copy shop with her two children and orders one hundred copies of a flyer with information about Sid, the family's missing cat, surely the mother does not desire one hundred unique copies of the original flyer. A unique copy could contain misspelled words, a blurry photo, or inaccurate contact information. A unique copy would not be a copy at all; it would be a new original flyer.

Maybe the copy center didn't produce unique copies. Maybe the copy center itself was unique. I chose not to investigate its interior. I only looked at the banner. I disregarded the intended meaning of the banner. I disregarded the copy shop entirely and began to consider what purpose a unique copy might have. A unique copy could be many things. It could be a plagiarized paper augmented with some original paragraphs or sentences; it could be a reproduction of anything constructed from a different medium than the original; it could be a damaged version of the original; it could be a reorganized version of the original; it could be an unrecognizable version of the original. A unique copy could be art. 

Every piece of art is a unique copy. Every artist is a unique copy machine, distorting and reimagining reality. Artists produce unique copies of what they see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. Even the artist himself is a unique copy. All human beings--all species--are unique copies. We share nucleotide sequences in DNA, yet we exhibit uniqueness. We stoke pride with our uniqueness. We talk about our uniqueness so much that it becomes our sameness. 

But in the same way that a unique copy of an original flyer for a missing cat would become a new original flyer, a unique copy of a human being--a son, a daughter, or anything in between--would become an original person. An original person with original humanness. 

I walked away from the Unique Copy Center and went to class. I drew two unique copies of the Unique Copy Center's banner in my notebook.