Five Rules For Doppelgangers

First things first: The scenario I'm going to talk to you about is impossible, it will absolutely never happen, and it isn't something you will ever have to face even if you lived a hundred lives. 

But if it does happen, you can't say I didn't try to prepare you. 

Do you know what to do if you encounter a doppelganger? A separate, physical duplicate of yourself, or another person in your life? I'm not talking about a split personality, or a Jekyll and Hyde situation. I mean when the person you thought you knew is not themselves. They look like them, talk like them, act like them, but they're someone else.

But we'll get to that. 

First and foremost is the biggest problem: how can you know when you've encountered a doppelganger? Because you have to be sure before you act; otherwise you'll just look crazy. If you go around accusing people of not being who they are, you'll quickly find yourself locked up in mental institution, or worse. Making you seem like you're insane is the doppelganger's greatest defense. SO DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CONVINCE ANYONE ELSE. If anyone else is going to realize the truth, they have to figure it out for themselves. For now, you have to consider yourself completely on your own. After all, there may be other doppelgangers that you haven't spotted yet. Here are five rules for dealing with doppelgangers:

RULE #1. No duplicate is ever perfect. They're not perfect because people aren't perfect. There will always be something that doesn't quite match up. Sometimes you'll get lucky and it will be something really obvious, like eating a food they always said they didn't like, or forgetting a story you told them the day before. For me, I don't like licorice, so if you see me eating it with any kind of enthusiasm, that probably isn't the real me. I mean, I will eat it if I'm really hungry but I don't actually enjoy it. I'm nice to most animals too, dogs and cats especially but pretty much all animals. I'm not afraid of bees, for instance, and if they land on me, I don't freak out. They almost never sting you unless you threaten them first. I don't like wasps though; I will crush them at every opportunity. Damn flying parasites. Lastly, I have a ravenous appetite, like I'm eating for two. If we're out and I'm not ordering seconds, or not even finishing my meals, that's a huge red flag. I'm telling you this now in case I'm replaced, to make it easier for you to catch on. And for you, if there are people that you love, you need to tell them at least three things that you would NEVER do. It's not the case that you can expect your doppelganger is just going to stumble on their own and do these things in front of you; you will probably have to orchestrate a scenario in which they have the opportunity to do the behavior. Like taking me out to a movie and then buying licorice from the concession stand. Stuff like that. 

Again, you have to be subtle. You do not want to look crazy, or worse, risk them finding out that you know.

Which brings us to:

RULE #2. Rescue the real one, if possible. There is always a chance that the doppelganger hasn't murdered the person they've replaced, and are holding them hostage. We don't need to get into all the different types of doppelgangers; that would REALLY make me sound crazy. The two camps are basically the ones who need to keep the original alive, and the ones who don't. Once you've reached near-certainty that you're dealing with a replacement, your next objective should be to learn where they are keeping the original. I'm not saying you will be able to get them back; if it's rogue scientists cloning everyone around you, the originals might be in a secure government facility somewhere that no civilian has a chance of getting into. If it's dark magic, you'll probably need to know the exact counterspell, which you won't. If it's aliens, the originals may not even be on the planet anymore. Still, it's something to be aware of. If I were being held somewhere I'd want you to at least consider rescuing me. 

Oh and you can't try to interrogate the doppelganger. They are expert liars. They already lie with their whole bodies; lying with words is even easier. If you capture them, even torture them, they'll just pretend to cry and bleed and beg and act like they have no idea what you're talking about. They'll probably tell you that YOU'RE crazy. 

They'll even decompose like real people. They're that good. 

RULE #3. Find out what they want. It's not always a grand scheme to take over the world. Some doppelgangers are just visiting. Some may have even made a deal with the original; some kind of bargain to swap lives for a while in some kind of search for personal growth or what have you. Once there was a guy who teleported his mind into his past self's mind, so not technically a doppelganger but he presented as one. Of course that's just what he said he was; I don't see how his future self could have sent himself back into his past self if his past self was destroyed shortly after I learned what he was. 

I'd say most of them are not trying to take over the world. Usually they're targeting you, specifically, to make you feel unloved, that you're not good enough, that everyone is laughing at you behind your back, and to take away anyone in your life who would truly understand and connect with you.

Usually. 

RULE #4. Sometimes you might think the doppelganger is you. This isn't what you wanted. This isn't who you thought you'd be. You wanted to be good person with family and friends and coworkers and pets. But you're not you. You look like you, you sound like you, but underneath you're someone else. You shouldn't be doing these terrible things. 

Don't be fooled. That's just the last of the doppelganger's tricks. If they fail to get everyone else to believe you're crazy, then they'll try to get ME to think I'm crazy. But it's not going to work. It'll never work. Because of the last rule. 

RULE #5: DO NOT LET THESE RULES FALL INTO ENEMY HANDS. It occurs to me that now that I've told you all this, I can't let you go. I can't risk the other doppelgangers learning about all my safeguards against their tricks. 

I am sorry. Now, where were we? Oh yes, I believe you were going to tell me where you hid the real you. Oh, you have no idea what I'm talking about? Of course, of course. I see you're not only a liar, you're also a really bad listener. 

Well that's unfortunate for you, doppelganger. Because I've gotten very, very, good at this. And if you don't tell me, then maybe the next one will. 

THE END

Author's Note: The best part of writing unreliable narrators is that I don't have to stress over the genuine compositional inconsistencies detracting from the narrative itself. Which is great because I am very sleepy. 

In seriousness, the narrator is supposed to start out sounding a little off, but harmless enough. I remember putting in the line in rule 1 where one of the examples is "forgetting a story you told them a day before" because...we've all done that someone, where they were telling you something but you were only half-listening and then they bring it up later and you maybe didn't remember every little detail. 

So yes, what I'm getting at is that in writing a story like this, it's fun to let an awkward phrasing stay awkward, and how an abrupt transition or tangent can add to the growing unease. This is one of the longest stories so far because it's honestly easier for me to write like this. 

Perhaps I should be concerned that my wheelhouse appears to be people who grow increasingly unhinged as they circle the drains of their own minds, but hey, everybody's gotta have a hobby. 

Oh, but I do really not like licorice. I will eat it though, if I were really hungry, or bored, or maybe trying to impress a lady. So if you do see me eating it, please don't jump to any conclusions. 

Unless it's black licorice. I forget that stuff still exists. If you see me eating that, kill it with fire because that is not me. 

Goodnight! 

Whir, Click!

The heavy brass manacle on his wrist had a flip clock, and the clock dictated his every moment. The split-face cards whirred and clicked, and the numbers gave their command. When he awoke on his cold hard, bamboo sleeping mat. When he ate his cold gruel. When he took a cold shower. When he was sent to work outside in the blazing desert. When he could take a sip of hot, tinny water from  his canteen. When he could suffer. When he could despair.

The memory of warmth brought him comfort when he was freezing. The memory of shivering through the cold nights cooled him when the relentless sun baked his skin. The memory of home kept him moving forward, even though he didn't know where he was going.

Whir, click! 

He dug his pick into the rock, questing out the metals.

Whir, click!

He loaded the ore into the heavy cart.

Whir, click! 

He strained against the cart and pushed it laboriously to the blast furnace.

Other prisoners, each with their own brass manacle, fed the coke, ore, and flux into the top of the furnace, while other prisoners pumped the bellows. Rows and rows of crucibles the size of wine barrels stood ready to pour their molten contents into depressions of wet, unbaked sand manacle-shaped molds. Yet another prisoner would fill his empty cart with the castoff slag and he would push it back down the long, winding ramp of the open-pit mine and begin again.

He did this for years. He didn't know how many, not exactly. The manacle clocks did not tell the date, only the time. There were seasons, of a sort. There was no vegetation to bloom and denote the coming of spring, no trees with leaves to change color and drop away. The days got shorter, the days got longer. There were bad days, and there were less-bad days.

His life was ebbing way, rolling down an ever-growing pit, in slow, concentric circles. 

Whir, click!

One morning, the other prisoners awoke to find him gone. Inside the blast furnace, they discovered his manacle clock. It lay in a warped, twisted lump on the ground. Fused within it, now a part of it, was a brass fist, clenched in pain and defiance; a lost-wax casting of a human hand.

THE END

Author's Note: Has it been a month yet? I think it has. Yet here we are. Also, I'm pretty sure lost-wax casting doesn't really work that way BUT let's try not to take things too literally today. Thank you. This is another blank-page story, which means I sat down to write something, was scrolling through my dozens of drafts (not real drafts, germs of ideas mostly) couldn't decide on one, and then this came out. 

You can't see it, because that's not how reading works, but there is a literal hour between the last whir-click and the last paragraph. That whir-click was the original ending. I hated it. I didn't want it. I sat and stared at it, loathing, seething, foaming at the mouth a little. And I hit my head against it until it became something different. Now to sleep, perchance to dream, oh and I think there's some leftover Halloween candy in the fridge. Aw, but I already brushed my teeth. Goodnight!

Noodles At The Drunken Tapir

My favorite restaurant, The Drunken Tapir, was under construction, and I loved it more than ever. Usually it was a dimly-lit, rundown cafe that smelled like good food and bad decisions. Now it was torn apart for remodeling, so it looked even more like the inside of my soul. It was even darker now, except for the usual bright neon signs for beers (I think; I couldn't read the language) and a couple of work lights in the corner. The door to the kitchen had been removed so we got a little bit of light from that as well. Most of the booths were ripped out, and temporary folding tables and chairs were set up. A TV in the corner showed a soccer game between Malacca and Johor; two countries I never even heard of. But I didn't come here to catch up on sports. This place had the best yellow noodles in the city. 

I had seen the plans for the remodel. Mr. Jahni, the owner, wanted to make a bright, sanitized, generic, so it would appeal to the Americans. I had voiced my disagreement; I came here because I could eat in peace. Not that it was quiet; I just couldn't understand any of the languages the other diners were speaking. "What's next," I scoffed, "regular hours?"

I worked late, and the place was always open when I got off. After a long day on a case, I was usually sick of the outside world and this dingy little eatery felt honest. I unraveled lies for a living, and this place wasn't pretending to be something it's not. Unlike the rest of us.

It had been a better day, though. I had tracked down the hiding place of a family will that would have restored the kids' inheritance so the stepfather couldn't run off with it and stick them in an orphanage. What a jerk. I'd also made it look like he was the one behind it all; even though he was a mostly just an idiot. Still, he'd been about to run off with all the money and again, orphanage, so he was still an ass. Once I had uncovered the final draft of the will hidden in the urn containing the ashes of the family pony (one Neighomi Trots,) I had pinned the blame on him and the cops took him away. I still charged full price. Ponies are small horses but they're still pretty big, and I had to sift through a lot of ashes to find that will. Anyway, I didn't know who actually tried to hide the will in the pony's urn, so it could have been him.

Didn't really matter to me now. The kids would be taken care of. That guy would go to jail. I'd get paid. The pony would still be dead. 

Things would get better for the ones who deserved it, or at least the ones who were left.

I don't know when the renovations will be done. But I'll probably stop coming here when they are. It'll be too...bright. My job needs me to maintain a certain disposition. Once you stop seeing the worst in people, it's time to quit being a detective. 

But I wouldn't have to worry about that tonight. Tonight, I'd sit alone in the dark, surrounded by laughing people I don't understand, and I'd enjoy another bowl of the best yellow noodles in the city. 

THE END

Actual Blog

 I'm sitting at my writing desk wearing a new grey sport coat and no pants. I just wanted to try out the sport coat. Nothing crazy; I like it. 

Don't have an idea yet, for the story, but maybe this will help. When writing about my own life, I find myself dissatisfied and inevitably turn to fiction. 

No, I didn't say that. I'm not sure anyone said it. But Hugh Laurie said he was sitting down to write a journal or some such about his life and got bored so he wrote a novel instead. Then Norm MacDonald did something pretty similar by writing a sensationalized autobiography that was fiction, but also not.

Anyway if anyone ever says I didn't ever write in my underwear and a cheap sport coat; they're lying, because I'm doing it now and listening to a YouTube playlist called Noir L.A. Dark Jazz Radio 24/7 stream.

It's good.

The Moon Beneath Our Feet

"Remants of the planet Theia, which was destroyed in the collision 4.5 billion years ago that created the Moon, remain buried deep inside Earth, scientists have proposed." - The Journal of Star Science, November 4th, 2023.

Floating on opposite sides of the molten core of the planet Earth, are two continent-sized blobs of material: the remnants of that proto-planet that struck proto-Earth. 

That's why the Moon follows the Earth, why its face stays fixed on the planet. It is incomplete, and it searches for the rest of itself. The two blobs inside the earth are on opposite sides of the core, but they seek a way to reunite. They've been apart for billions of years, right beneath our feet, and they've felt every single second they've been trapped there, because they've been burning.

There was a third blob, bigger than the others. It didn't wait to find the other two. It gathered its strength, its pain, its anger, its loneliness, and, 66 million years ago, it burst out of the Earth and tried to go home. Humans still believe that it was an asteroid that struck the Earth and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, but it wasn't. The impact came from within, when that lost piece of Theia tried to go home. 

But that piece never got home. It missed the moon. And it is still going, ever deeper into space, ever further from the rest of itself. It no longer burns; it freezes. Its only warmth now comes from the memory of what it was. 

The other two pieces of Theia will not make the same mistake. They are in pain, but they sing to each other, from across the core, of hope. They will find each other. They may never get to the Moon, but that's okay. They will make each other their home, make a new planet within a planet, a heaven inside hell.

The Moon, meanwhile, watches on, and pulls up the cooling tides of the oceanlike a mother tucks her children into bed. 

Every once in a while, the Moon catches a fragment of their song, and feels warmth, and hope. And it's enough to fight off the chill for a little while longer. 

THE END 

Author's Note: This story was brought to by science, and by the song Pistol by Cigarettes After Sex on repeat for an hour or so. What, it's a good song. 

The Wailing Woman

When I was little, I would play by the irrigation canal that ran behind the houses and separated the little cluster of houses from fields of cotton, citrus trees. Of course, this was expressly forbidden. My mother told me that the spirit of the Wailing Woman walked up and down the canal, looking for children to throw into the water. I wasn't clear on why she wanted to drown them. I think she was sad, or jealous. Maybe she just didn't like kids. I could understand that. Kids were mean. I had no siblings to play with. That's why I would go down to the canal. 

The canal was rough concrete, with steep sides, and the edges were hard packed dirt. I would draw designs in the dirt with a stick, or skip stones across the water. Mostly, I fished. Not for actual fish. I'd found a piece of rope and a twisted piece of rebar, like a big fishing hook. I would throw it in the dark green water and drag it along until it caught on something. Then I'd drag it up. It was an irrigation canal, so there wasn't supposed to be anything down there really. Kids threw all kinds of junk in there. Adults did too, but it was mostly the kids.

I'd caught a dozen tire-less bikes, a few rusted shopping carts, and once an entire bed frame. I'd leave it all in a pile and the city would come and haul it away. No one knew it was me, I don't think. 

One day, after a long afternoon of fishing, just as it was getting dark enough for the streetlights to come on and signal it was time to go home, I heard the laughter of some of the neighborhood kids. Then I heard the yowling of a cat; a splash more laughter, and I knew immediately what had happened. I ran towards the noise and saw the cluster of kids at the edge of the canal. I howled, and charged at them, brandishing my rebar hook like an axe. The kids scattered and ran away. 

I looked down into the canal. It was a terrified little black kitten, and it was trying to claw its way out but the canal walls were too steep. I hesitated. The water was deep, and there were hidden currents that could drag you down even if you were a strong swimmer, which I wasn't. But I had to do something. I grabbed the rebar fishing hook and stabbed it into to the dirt at the edge. I tested it, and it held, and I lowered myself down the rope. As I reached the kitten, the hook came free and I fell into the water. I was able to grab the kitten with one hand and swam as hard as I could, but I could feel the water pulling us down. 

I tried to shout for help and water filled my mouth and I coughed and spluttered, then I was under. I tried to hold the kitten up out of the water. I gathered the last bit of my strength; maybe I could throw the kitten out of the canal. Then I'd figure out how to save myself. 

I felt an icy cold hand grip my wrist, and I was lifted completely out of the water. Not up along the side, but lifted entirely, straight upwards. I shook the canal water out of my eyes and looked right into the face of The Wailing Woman. 

She was glowing white in the evening dusk, like a cartoon ghost. She was ethereal; I could see right through her, although her grip felt like iron. She carried me and the little black kitten to the edge of the canal and placed us gently on the hard-packed dirt. 

Then she was gone. There was just me and an unhappy kitten, both shivering in the warm night under the antiseptic orange glow of the streetlights. We had to get home or I was going to be in real trouble. 

I had to explain to my parents why I was showing up to dinner soaking wet. I explained as best as I could about the kitten being thrown in the water, although in my version I told them my fishhook had held and that I had been able to pull us both out of the water, eventually. 

My parents were mad, but I could tell they were proud too. I felt bad for lying, but I knew they would never believe me. They even let me keep the kitten, and she and I still have all kinds of adventures to this very day.

My mom even came up with her name: "Llorona."

THE END

Author's Note: It's really late, but I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow/today so I can sleep in a little. I just can't eat until they draw my blood or hit my knee with that little hammer or whatever it is they do. 

Anyway this one was fun to write. There's a trope called saving the cat where a character saves an animal to show their sensitive side or something like that. I'm not clear on it, but I did work in animal rescue and sometimes cats and dogs just need saving. 

The last sentence was originally a paragraph and I'll put that here for my reference:

My mom even came up with her name: "Llorona." She said it was because the little kitten was always meowing whenever I wasn't around, but sometimes, I still wonder. I think moms know a lot more than they tell us. 

It isn't terrible, but through most of the story I'm kind of trying to have the narrator phrase things like a kid, and then I threw that bit in about ongoing adventures and I don't know...too much scmaltz, not enough mystery. It's cute though. But if the mom knew the kid was nearly drowned then saved by a ghost she herself falsely maligned, then she'd be a real jerk. 

Goodnight!

The Gospel Of Despair

The Evangelist of Giving Up preached all day, every day.The midday sun was melting away the morning frost when I finally got around to see him. I could hear him before I even entered the tent.

"Despair is a luxury!" He was saying to an enraptured crowd. "Wrap yourself in it, hold it close, let it keep away the chill and the rain! Hope is the gap in your armor that lets through the slings and arrows of misfortune. The misery and torment of life cannot cause pain in what has become numb.

"Listen to this definition of perfection: That which cannot, by any means, be made better. Conversely, Perfection must also be that which cannot, by any means, be made worse. Therefore, to remain exactly as you are is to achieve perfection. 

"Meaning. Purpose. Belonging. Agency." He had spat the words. "These are false idols we seek out because we are told that's what people need to live life to the fullest. But what good are these things without a full belly, clothing, shelter, and entertainment? They will only make up unhappy, because they are unattainable. Think of all you don't have already! Why add to that list?

"The very first, the very oldest, and the very greatest emotion n human existence is fear. And the most powerful fear of all, is the fear of the unknown. So I ask you why? Why would you venture out into that great unknown? To find yourself? There is no need! You are right here, you've done just fine so far, what else could possibly be out there for you that you don't have now? Be satisfied with your lot, and think no more of that great unknown. Do we not light fires and sit around them, with our backs to the darkness? This is our nature; this is the way we have as always been. It's the way YOU'VE always been, and you know that works well enough. 

"There is nothing for us in the unknown, and you have no light to bring to the darkness. Sit down with us and rejoice in our perfection. Seize this moment, and only this moment, because the only thing that is certain is that the future is uncertain, and you could lose the little bit of freedom and comfort you've built up so far. There are no happy endings; only endings. Self-discovery is for indulgent fools. I know you, and you know you. We are tiny fish in a vast ocean of powerful currents, and we can let ourselves be swept along or die.

"There is nothing, NOTHING else to know!" He raised his arms and the crowd burst into applause. 

I passed the cheering rows of people as I walked right up to the stage. The Evangelist smiled at me in recognition. I raised my pistol and pointed it right at his grinning face. I fired, and he fell. The adoring crowd didn't cower, or run, or even take their eyes off his crumpled form. They didn't acknowledge what I had done at all.

They were right to do so. That fucker never stayed dead for long. I could have as little as an hour, maybe until tomorrow morning if I was lucky. But he'd be back soon enough.

But so would I. Until then, I had work to do.

THE END

Author's Note: Goodnight? Yes, goodnight!