Clone 23 is a double, a spare man to be cut up and sold piece by piece to the best bidder, like an animal hanging on show in a butcher shop. He therefore flees into his mind and imagination where he creates a cell that is a little bigger than the one he lives in. However, even here his hallucinations and his anguish do not allow him to breathe easy. Thus he meets the hypothetical characters who have benefited from his body.
