I’ve always believed in doppelgangers. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had this vague suspicion that there existed somewhere in the world a copy of me; a clone, born of some sorcerous or darkly scientific process, whom I would someday meet—when fate decided it was time.
For years, I carried this belief in utter secrecy, telling neither my friends nor family, but always ruminating upon the possibility—the eventuality—on quiet, lonesome nights. I think some part of me always wanted a brother, and with the death of my parents in my late teen years, this desire had probably reformed itself into another, admittedly strange fixation; and then a bizarre, seemingly unfounded expectation.
Initially, it had been disconcerting; this idea that I’d someday, through no actual intent of my own, cross paths with my other self. I’d never had any expectations or ideas as to what might occur when that inevitably happened. Eventually, thinking about it came to fill me with a sense of profound dread.
Initially. After a while, after I’d formed, nurtured, and ended several relationships—both platonic and romantic—the idea of meeting myself started to grow on me, to seem almost intriguing. There was still an eeriness about the concept, some level of ominousness about it; but otherwise, I had started to look forward to the unprecedented existential event. Again, I remembered how much I’d longed for a sibling growing up.
Whether or not I showed this change of heart outwardly is something you’d only learn from those with whom I’d spent time during that transitory period. And they’d no doubt only be able to guess (wrongly, mind you) at the cause, if they’d noticed it at all. Acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors, etc. No one of any real substance in my life who might’ve been able to even broadly guess at the right answer.
Well, I’m now twenty-seven years old, and yesterday I met myself. It was quite an unusual experience—quite an unsettling one, as well—but overall, I think that I’ve grown as a person—that I’ve developed in a way most people never will. Here’s what happened:
While walking alongside the road on my way home from town—having just bought myself an impromptu brunch of meat, cheese, and oatmeal—I came upon a man sitting a few feet off the shoulder, over in the grass of the bordering field. He wore a brown trench coat, black slacks, and a baseball cap, with a scarf covering all but his eyes; and was staring toward the sky; apparently following the glacial movement of the clouds overhead.
The sun wasn’t prominent in the sky—hadn’t been out for hours—and yet the man was squinting. Despite my inability to see the features of his face, I somehow perceived an expression of consternation beneath the wool scarf.
Ordinarily, I would’ve continued along, since he hadn’t seen me and there wasn’t any reason to draw his attention to myself. But something about him, the way he was seated on the grass, reposing calmly, drew me to him. And so, without any reason—or at least not one that I could consciously define—I walked off the shoulder and into the open field.
I made a fair amount of noise as I approached, the grass being rather dry, but the man kept staring skyward, transfixed by whatever had caught his attention above. Stopping a few feet short of where he sat, I offered a polite, softly spoken “Hi”, not wanting to startle him if he’d truly been so celestially enamored as to not have heard me.
For a response, he smiled, keeping his same posture and orientation. Still clueless as to why I had diverted from my path to interact with this stranger, I stood by for a while; trying to think of something to say, whilst also wondering what on Earth there was to be so obsessed with in the dull, cloud-littered sky.
Finally, just when I’d been about to give up and ask, he turned to face me and said, “It’s weird, you know? Past all that blue, past those little tufts of cotton, there’s a great black vastness, stretching endlessly in every direction. Everyone always wants to know what’s out there—what’s beyond. Well, if I’m being honest – I don’t care. This, all of this right down here, is good enough for me.”
I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t expected him to soliloquize on the gulf of space and its uncertainties. For a moment, silence lingered. He continued to gaze at what I still felt was a fairly unremarkable skyscape, while I tried to think of something comparably interesting with which to carry on the conversation. Again, before I could form something to say, he spoke: “How about we have lunch?”
As if compelled to comply by some guiding hand, I went over and sat down in front of the man. Quietly, under the spell of this impulse, I removed the things I’d bought from the bag and laid them out on top of it; using the plastic as a makeshift dining surface. I unwrapped the cheese and meat, setting aside the oatmeal—since there was neither water nor a pot with which to prepare it
The man had pulled his attention away from the sky, and was calmly watching as I set things out. After everything had been set out and mutually divided, I looked up at him—waiting for him to comment on the meal I’d prepared—presumably under his nigh psychic suggestion.
“People like to think of it as an abyss, a yawning chasm. Space, that is. They imagine an ever-expanding domain of nothingness—or of everything. But to me, space is just that—space. Unused canvas, harboring nothing of interest, of substance, beyond the residual flecks of material: Uninhabited planets, broadening galaxies, burning nebulae. It’s all just noise, motion, chaos. The real stuff, the art, is here. Right here around us. Don’t you think?”
Before I could respond, he picked up a piece of meat and a piece of cheese, put them together, and bit into them. He closed his eyes and leaned back as he chewed, as if the simple snack was some sort of highly savory delicacy. For some strange reason, I felt that not joining him would be rude, even though I was the one who’d bought the meal, and until moments ago hadn’t even known of the man’s existence. So, taking a piece of meat and cheese, I leaned back and began eating.
We sat like that for a while, him staring at the sky, me staring at him; neither speaking, while somewhere a farmer tended to his lawn; the reaping raucous of some thresher or large mower echoing to us from across the vast stretch of land to the east.
Despite the unusual circumstances, I felt at peace. For all I knew, this man could be a serial killer, luring helpless travelers from the road and strangling them in the nearly knee-high grass. I wouldn’t be the first to disappear in the middle of the day, in an area that was, despite its relative placidity, still dangerous to the naive and unsuspecting. And yet, I sensed nothing immediately dangerous about the man. He was eccentric, of that there was no doubt, but his eccentricity felt harmless.
When he finished his first portion, he went for another; this time using two pieces of cheese and a single piece of meat to form a little sandwich. And, just as I’d done before, I mimicked his actions, taking for myself two fat slices of cheese to act as buns for a sliver of meat about half their size. It felt fun, whimsical, to craft such things with this man I’d never met; and my nerves slowly relaxed as we ate in peaceful silence.
Upon taking the last of the meat, the man broke it in half and offered me the slightly larger of the pieces, which I appreciatively took and threw into my mouth. He ate his more carefully, thoughtfully; nibbling as if he certain he’d never come across another piece of meat ever again.
I realized then that I found him fascinating; that I was as captivated with him as he was with the sky. Both subjects at face value were ordinary, unremarkable; a cloudy sky and a man dressed for weather much colder than the present atmosphere. And yet in him I felt there existed something special—a profundity of being. Not because of what he’d said about space and the Earth; I’d heard similar musings before. But the way he moved, the little motions he’d made throughout our short time together; there was something enthralling about it, subtly mesmerizing.
I suddenly felt compelled to ask him a question:
“Where are you from?”
His head angled to the side, not fully turning away from the sky but giving me more attention than before.
“Well, where are you from?”
I told him matter-of-factly, unsure of why he’d inflected the question so oddly; as if in telling him of my origins, I’d automatically know of his.
He nodded, as if he’d already known of my hometown, and had simply wanted to confirm the information. Puzzled, and a little unnerved, I repeated my question.
“I think you know.”
It was then that I recalled that seemingly age-old suspicion of mine: the belief that I’d someday encounter my doppelganger.
And that things wouldn’t go well.
It was only a little after midday, and yet I felt a sudden chill pass over me, the realization of this person’s identity freezing my nerves, frosting my very cells.
His eyes turned and narrowed, fixing on my own with a stare of such awful focus that I felt trapped in place, rendered helplessly immobile. As if that had been his goal, he then leaned forward and crawled across the grass, over our meager picnic, and right up to me; stopping only when our faces were a few inches apart. His was still wrapped in the scarf, not a centimeter of skin exposed. I could only see his eyes, and the near-crazed passion in them evoked a choking terror. There was nothing particularly frightening about their color or shape, but the intensity with which he glared, the flaming spirit behind them—almost inhumanly intense—was just so unsettling.
Carefully, with his eyes still locked onto my own, he began unraveling the scarf.
The moments ticked by with immeasurable, dreadful slowness. I feared—dreaded—the revelation of my own face, perhaps contorted into some insane visage, if the man’s eyes betokened any idea of the face in which they were set. The hands peeled back layer after layer slowly, milking the tension before the imminent reveal; while my own mind unraveled at the unthinkable possibility of being murdered—or worse—by some psychotic clone.
Finally, the last layer came away; and even though I’d watched throughout the entire process, terror-stricken and petrified, the full image didn’t come to me—mentally, at least—until the whole scarf was cast aside.
It wasn’t my face. It wasn’t a face, at all.
It was an image of…a scene of formlessness, of simmering and smoldering night—a molten infinitude of star systems, galaxies, entire universes condensed and consolidated into a chaotic microcosm; and at the forefront of this cosmic hyperactivity were those eyes, which now looked less like eyes, and more like two massive spheres of dark-light. They now appeared as eerily luminous wormholes; as black, fathomless vortexes. Somehow, all of this ultra-stellar horror had been contained behind the simple wrapping of a scarf.
Speaking without a mouth, speaking from some far-flung depth within that nightmare=scape, he said, “Oh, you look surprised. I guess you don’t know where I’m from—what I am. Well, I’m sure it’s a platitude somewhere on this rock to never talk to strangers, especially not out here—so far from civilization. Well, the rule still holds, though I’m quite a different kind of stranger. When I say I’m not from around here, I really mean it.”
I’d been so wrong; had come to a completely, terribly incorrect conclusion about the “man” his nature. He wasn’t my doppelganger, but some roving lunatic from the stars.
Almost imperceptibly, his hands slid to my throat. I only took notice when my breathing became labored. Looking down, I saw the hands tighten, the muscles flexing beneath the pale skin.
“Thank you for dinner, but I’m still a little hungry. Feels like I’ve got a black hole for a belly, hehehehahaha.”
His insane, ferally unhinged laughter carried on and out for what seemed like an eternity, while his grip on my throat continued to tighten. Still paralyzed, I could only suffer the agony of strangulation; could only bear the mental collapse of unavoidable eye-contact with that window into worlds and systems remote and uncharted.
There was a sensation of spiritual waning, as if the life-force was being sucked right out of my body; and I would’ve yielded to it, would’ve allowed myself to be pulled into that yawning void, if the man hadn’t suddenly been knocked away; leaving me sprawled on the ground, half-conscious.
A shape moved across my blurred vision, and then there were sounds of two people struggling fiercely; and then, as abruptly as the conflict had started, the violence was cut short by a monstrous shriek. For a moment, silence lingered, and I feared that my unknown savior had died at the hands of the inter-cosmic murderer. But a voice called out my name, and I immediately bolted upright—at once relieved of my paralysis.
The voice was familiar—it was my voice.
Turning toward where I’d heard the sounds of fighting, I saw myself standing over the body of my would-be killer. The slain man’s head was buried face-ward into the soil, even though the body was belly-up. My savior, my doppelganger, had apparently twisted the thing’s neck around. Savage, but appreciated.
Turning to him, I tried to form a question, and then to offer my thanks; but my mind, as wrecked as it was, could do neither.
“It’s alright. He—it—is dead. I followed him here, I guess from my world. He’d tried to kill me there, but I fought back, and he tried to get away. Some kind of portal appeared, and as enraged as I was, I pursued him through it. I guess he must’ve arrived much earlier. I didn’t believe it at first—when I saw you. And when I saw him trying to kill you, well…I’m just glad I got here in time.”
Still unspeakably shocked by the bizarre, totally unforeseen events, I only nodded. He returned the sentiment, and quickly helped me to my feet. We turned our attention to the dead thing, and my doppelganger suggested that we bury it somewhere in the field, and I thoroughly agreed.
A few hours later, we were back at my house. After a comparison of our lives, we determined that we were quite similar in matters other than appearance, and that he’d come from a reality or universe extremely similar to my own. We also surmised that with the death of the cosmic traveler, there would be no more portals through which to traverse the universe and its realms; and that my doppelganger was, for the moment, “stuck” here in my world. Neither of us had any issue with this. He even mentioned having had a suspicion since childhood that he’d someday meet his doppelganger, under strange and possibly grim circumstances. I suppose, had he not arrived when he did, things would’ve turned out pretty grim for me.
Together, my doppelganger—my brother—and I ate some oatmeal.