doppelgänger
[ dop-uhl-gang-er; German daw-puhl-geng-er ]
noun
- a ghostly double or counterpart of a living person.
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Darren looked at himself. Not in the mirror, or in any other reflective surface. He looked at another him. The two Darrens stood there, looking each other for several seconds before the copy spoke.
“So, uh, this is really awkward. You weren’t supposed to be awake.”
Darren, the real one, was not quite sure what to think of that. “Why not?”
“Would’ve made things a lot easier. Now I’m not really sure what to do.”
“What were you going to do? And who, what, are you?”
Clone Darren looked almost ashamed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m a doppelganger. I was going to do all the normal doppelganger stuff. You know, kill you in your sleep and take over your life for various reasons.”
Darren was not sure what to think about that. He was, oddly enough, remarkably calm about the entire situation. “And you’re not going to do that now?”
“Nah. I can only do that by getting the drop on you. Right now, you’d fight back and my fighting ability is pretty much nil. Even less than yours.”
“Ouch. That’s gotta suck.” Considering he had never been in a fight and was not exactly at the pinnacle of physical ability, he could imagine how weak the dopple was. “So, what happen now?”
“Oh geeze, I don’t actually know. I can’t exactly leave. All the other doppelgangers will have a field day if they find out. I’ll pretty much be a complete outcast.”
“That sucks. Hey are there a lot of you guys around?”
“More than you think. I’m not gonna go around ratting out my own kind though.”
“Fair enough.”
The two stood there, once again descending into awkward silence. Then Darren got an idea.
“Hey, how about we make use of this?”
“How so?”
“We do the whole twins trade places thing. Do you have my memories and stuff?”
“Right now, only surface level stuff. Normally I’d get all that by eating you, but there are other ways. Way that, you know, leave you alive an intact.”
Darren was very glad to hear that. Being eaten was not high on his to-do list. “Okay, so here’s the deal. I’m not thrilled with my job, and would love a day or two off. But my boss isn’t the best person in the world. So, you take my place for a day or two, then we switch back and keep going. Maybe a full week or so for each of us.”
“Hm, sounds like a raw deal on my end. What do I get out of it?”
“Room and board, for one. I live alone, so nobody’s going to question why there’s two of me. Also, it’d probably be pretty easy to get a few spare IDs and credit cards and stuff. As long as you don’t go super overboard, we can split the bank account.”
Dopple-Darren held his chin in thought. “Won’t that drain your money pretty quick?”
“I have a few ideas for a side hustle that could make bank. I just never had time to actually do any of it. Without having to go into work every day, I could do that.” He was quite confident in his ideas. They may not make him a millionaire, but they’d at least pay the bills. At least if everything worked out. And he’d still have a full-time job to keep things going.
“Hm. You know, that might actually work.” Dopple-Darren said. “Well, depending on what you’re planning. It’ll be a bit confusing for my kind, but who knows, maybe this’ll lead to a new era in human-doppelganger relations. Let’s do it.”
“Alright, great. We’ll iron out the details in the morning?” Darren asked.
“Yeah, sure thing. See ya then.”
Without even asking where he would be sleeping, Dopple-Darren left real Darren’s bedroom. Most likely headed for the guest bedroom that never actually got used. Darren shrugged and got into bed. He could figure all this out in the morning.
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I wish something like this would happen. It'd be great. Although I might not know what to do with myself if it ever did.
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