3rd Times the Charm?

It was on a cold and rainy night that the former lovers met. He begged her to come back to him. Leave your husband he argued with her over dinner - this time we'll make it work he promised her. She remained curiously blank. She was willing to concede that she loved him and loathed her husband, but could not, would not return, she said.

He remembered the first time he met her - she'd been a vivacious, bold creature. She'd stood up to him, the school jock and told him to fuck off when he tried to bully a nameless nerd. She'd laughed and told him to grow up when he started failing classes. She'd run away with him when his world collapsed after the death of his mother. They'd been happy together - until her husband came along.

She remembered the deal she'd made with her husband - not knowing the hell he'd create for her. She remembered the vows she'd taken to stay with him in sickness and in health and smiled a little. Just a few months ago she'd nearly broken the deal, broken the vows.

With her world breaking down her lover had convinced her to run away with him for a second time. We'll be happy he'd promised her. But the attempt had failed miserably. The young couple afraid of the powerful old man hadn't gotten far when they realized they were being followed. Panic stricken they had pressed down hard on the accelerator and a gory accident had followed. She was scarred for life, he would always walk with a limp.

She shook her head, there would be no third attempt to run away. She told him she loved him and kissed him one last time before saying goodbye. She walked out onto the balcony for her habitual post-dinner smoke. Her husband sat in a wheelchair, soaked, shivering in the cold. She lit her cigarette and blew the smoke towards him. He whimpered in the dark.

(Plot Credit to Parakram Kakkar - story written as an exercise)

The Doppelganger

She was storming around violently in the other room. Throwing books of shelves, tossing around chairs and the occasional side table. I shivered under the blankets, they were my only shield against her. I'd be safe as long as I remained under them I consoled myself. 

Then, a scarier silence. Had she managed to enter my room? If I peaked out from under my blankets would she be standing, grinning maniacally over my head? I mustered some courage slowly uncovered my face and looked out. Nothing, nothing but the ceiling. I knew she couldn't be hiding under the bed or behind some furniture, I had long since learnt to sleep in a bare room, with no nooks to hide in. 

I turned on the lights in my room, gingerly tiptoed around the house, setting it ablaze with lights. Painfully aware that she would have set the house ablaze. I crawled into bed and waited for my friend to arrive. 

15 minutes later, a patient but unsympathetic friend arrived. She had had enough of my stupid doppelganger fear she said. I agreed, that's why I'd I called her, to distract myself from my over-active imagination. We went around the house shutting off lights and settled down in front of the TV for the weeks fifth slumber party. Comedy, romance, action on the agenda. No horror involved. 

'Don't dwell on it, distract yourself' I was following my therapists advice. My amused psychiatrist had told me not to take my thoughts too seriously. I knew, they knew, we all knew that I knew it was an irrational fear. That I wasn't really scared of my doppelganger. That I didn't really expect to come across myself, lurking in some corner of my living room, hiding behind the curtains, testing the knives in my kitchen.  Yet I wished that someone would take my fear seriously. Surely it meant something. Alas, all my therapists were boring and behavioral, Freud and Jung seemed to have gone out of fashion. My homeopath had taken me seriously, without prompting he had asked me whether I was scared of something, I told him about my doppelganger fear and I could see him earnestly scribbling away 'is scared of ghosts'. sigh....

It was Saturday and after five nights at home, my friend and I were restless. We decided to get dressed, get out, get high and go dancing. Well, apart from the high part - I wasn't allowed to mix meds and mojitos just yet. I was willing to take 3 out of 4, which was not enough. At the club, I sat around bored, it never failed, without alcohol, I just wasn't a party person. The music was too loud, grating, I couldn't dance, my dress was uncomfortable and the smoke made me cough. Don't dwell, distract yourself I repeated my mantra to myself and began looking around, people watching, trying to spot the idiots, trying to score cheap laughs of them. When I spotted her. There she was, yelling at a hapless waiter, picking up the glass and throwing its contents on his face. Bursting out in cackles of laughter, amused at what she'd done. 

My heart was pounding furiously, I wanted to hide before she spotted me. I tried to duck under the table, but it's base was solid. The couch was pushed against the wall and there was no space behind it. It was 12:30 in the night and my friend was lost in the sea of dancers. As I furiously hunted for my friend, all I saw was her. She pulling the hair of her female companion. she treading on a guy's foot with  6 inch stilettos. She burning bits of paper with a lighter. She playing with the knife on the table.  Friend or not I decided to leave and ran out of the room, messaging to let my friend know. Face bent over my phone I ran right into her just outside the club. 

She looked at me, sizing me up. Even though we could have been twins, I could feel the differences. I was shivering, she was composed. Mousy little me next to her. We were wearing the same clothes and yet it was I who was dressed up while she must have casually sauntered out of her house. And then she spoke - 'I should have had you kicked out for my bad behaviour, it's like I'm looking into a mirror'

And then there was a crack. She must have overpowered me and pushed me into a ditch. As I regained consciousness I tried yelling for someone to come save me, but no one could hear me over the din. There were hundreds of voices yelling and screaming, and bright flames licking the night sky. After a while fire engines began to wail and then silence.  In the morning I was finally freed by the police in a manner of speaking. The police refuse to believe me, they refuse to believe that she set the club ablaze. No one remembers her. No one remembers that quiet little thing.