The Doppelganger
(a piece of flash fiction)
Sara cautiously made her way down the narrow hall to the bathroom. Another Wednesday, another hangover.
The mirror, the same one that had (at least apparently) been there for decades, refused to cooperate this day. Voices, both real and imagined, emanated from the cured and processed sand. This is it; this is the moment for which you were born. Listen.
Those elusive dimensions of reality (and layers of pseudo-reality), unseen and not experienced by normal human beings, became suddenly and inexplicably evident. A ghostly apparition (I think they are called wraiths) appeared in the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions of what once was a two-dimensional surface. Sara looked around the room and sensed…nothing. It was the mirror, that was the portal…that was where the spirit was. With one glance, an image, one whose physical presence was comforting and yet strangely unfamiliar, filled the surface.
A Picasso-esque figure, defined only by the shadows, not the form, appeared. Had someone (a creator perhaps?) taken an image and changed it in remarkable ways? Is that what happened? Sara instantly understood (though she did not know how) that the shades of grey defined the figure’s essence.
Look, look at her. This is it; this is what you have been waiting for. Don’t hesitate. Approach her; you must not waver. A three-dimensional creature being mocked by an ethereal six-dimensional being, does that confuse you? Try to free your mind; you are better than this. Oh, I see; you were hoping for something different, perhaps something more tangible? Guess again.
Author’s Note: Imagine waking up and meeting your destiny in a bathroom. Not very sexy and indeed not the stuff of legend. It might not even be indicative of sanity. At this exact point, Sara was convinced she was losing her mind.
The ghostly figure, the one that existed only in the extra-dimensional world of the mirror, posed and preened as Sara stared silently. She began to realize how the other dimensions worked in concert with the mind and matter of her limited reality. It was like a Mozart concerto; sublime and elegant, powerful and yet entirely elusive to those untrained in the art of nuance. Sara did not have the experience to understand what was happening. None of this was her fault.
Sara tried to touch her tormentor. Her hand went into the mirror but then disappeared into the extra dimensions. She had no sense of direction; there was nothing she could do to guide her wayward limb. A tear ran down Sara’s cheek as she was overcome.
She stood silent and still in front of the mirror, her rational mind exploring its other half. She was only aware of the extra dimensions when looking at the mirror; the rest of the room appeared normal. She tried to turn away but she couldn’t. On a most fundamental level, Sara was entangled with the image in the mirror.
The wraith finally spoke. “Tell me something,” she said. “Tell me anything.” Sara tried to open her mouth but could not. She searched her being but came up empty. Her breathing grew fast and heavy as all energy left her body. She fell to the floor.
Sara Langford, having just had the most intense experience of her life, tried to pick herself up. The wraith, as they are prone to do, faded into one of those elusive dimensions that regular humans do not have access to. There the creature remains, totally dismissive of the woman who, even though she looked nothing like her, was her doppelganger. Here Sara Langford remains, struggling for the words to tell anyone who will listen what happened to her one Wednesday morning in March.
