28 Dec Happy Birthday, Other Other Me

My family has a bit of a rocky history. My grandmother had some troubling religious beliefs, which drove a wedge between her and my mother. We couldn’t celebrate any major holidays together, so the only time I saw my grandmother was on my birthday. However, as she was too sick to travel, we’d have to go see her instead. So, every birthday, we went up to see my grandmother in Chatter Blinds. It was a three-hour trip from our home in Worcester up to Brunswick, then a bit further east.

My grandmother lived in a small red house with white lining overlooking the coastline. It was a beautiful place. There was this salty smell in the air, and a mild but constant breeze. My grandmother was a frail woman who could barely get around, but she’d be dead in the ground before she’d let her house fall into disarray. It was always impeccable.

Celebrations at her place were never really a big deal. My grandmother hated the idea of birthday gifts, so instead, we’d have a large meal and read aloud from one of her books. She’d also play the piano. Despite her faults, she was an amazing piano player – it was easily the highlight of the trip. That, and the birthday gifts I’d get to open on the way back home, were my reward for not making a fuss.

I remember this one time when I was 8 years old. My mother and grandmother were making dinner, and my father had gone into town to get groceries, leaving me to explore the area on my own. I made my way down to the water, following the bottom of the cliffs. There was a small section where it looked like two different cliffs intersected, leaving a small opening about four feet up. It took a bit of fidgeting, but I managed to get a closer look. There was a cave in there. I was just a stupid kid, but way too curious not to check it out. I climbed inside.

I walked through a tunnel. It was lined with these curious blue flowers. I brought one along to show my mom. The tunnel led into a large, almost spherical cave. There were three cracks in the wall where water poured out into a pool in the middle. It was shallow, no more than a foot deep. A single ray of light reflected off the pool, giving the walls an unreal shimmer. When I looked up, I noticed something even stranger.

There was water in the ceiling. I didn’t understand how that could be possible. It was like the surface of a lake, but in the ceiling. It didn’t make any sense. It was crystal clear, allowing me to see my own reflection up there.

I stood there for a couple of minutes, just looking at my reflection. I waved, it waved. I jumped, it jumped. I couldn’t understand it. Finally, as I stood there, I took a whiff of the strange blue flower I’d found. It didn’t really smell like anything, but one of the petals tickled my nose. I sneezed.

“Bless you,” a voice said.

I looked up again, only to notice that my reflection wasn’t holding a flower.

“Thanks,” I said.

The reflection didn’t move. Only now did it occur to me that it wasn’t actually a reflection; it was a whole separate person. And he looked exactly like me.

“Is it your birthday too?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he responded. “I’m at my grandma’s place.”

“Me too,” I said. “We’re having some kind of sheep stew tonight.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah.”

I had a long talk with the other me. We were very similar, but there were a couple of small differences. For example, his dad had a different name. They lived in a different town. And, of course, there were no little blue flowers in the tunnel leading to the cave.

As the ray of light started to fade, I realized I’d been out for way too long. They were probably looking for me. But before I left, we decided on an experiment. I climbed up the side of the wall, and the other me did the same. I handed them the blue flower, and it crossed from this place to theirs. He got a hold of it, promising me he’d cherish it.

Before I raced back to Grandma’s place, I looked back a final time.

“Happy birthday, ‘other me!’” I called out.

“Happy birthday, other ‘other me!’” he called back.

Every birthday that followed, I’d go back to see “other me” again. We’d talk about the year we’d had and the gifts we were hoping to get. This is where he and I were the most different. We were doing well, so I could reasonably hope for good things to come. But things had just gotten worse and worse for “other me” the past few years. While I’d wish for things like Halo 4, he’d wish for his dad to get a new job. When I wished for a cool airsoft rifle, he wished they could afford a car. And when I was 13, I wished for a TV in my room, and he asked for the rain to stop burning his skin.

When I was 14, the illusion of the reflection above was broken. “Other me” was dressed in black, telling me he was there for his mom and grandmother’s funeral. He didn’t stay long, but he wanted to see me before he left. After just a couple of minutes, I was alone, staring at the shimmering ceiling.

That year was the first and only time my grandmother gave me a birthday gift: a silver cross to wear as a necklace. I loved it; it was simple and beautiful. A small engraving on the side commemorated my 14^th birthday and bore my grandmother’s name. The gift humbled me. I guessed that “other me” wouldn’t be getting any presents this year. This was a great reminder that I was in a good place, with good people.

My grandmother passed away later that year, and that was the last time we went up to Chatter Blinds as a family. I wouldn’t see “other me” that following year, or the year to come. It became this distant memory, like a half-dream. Something that felt like it’d happened to someone else. And yet I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to “other me” in the years that followed. How bad had things gotten?

But time moves on. School turned to work, and work turned to career. And while I never had to wish for my dad to get a new job, or for my family to afford a car, or for the rain to stop hurting – my wants and wishes over the years changed as well. But I kept that silver cross around my neck as a reminder that those years had happened, and that I was lucky in ways I couldn’t imagine.

The year I turned 23, my mother passed away in a sudden accident. We had a brief ceremony with the closest members of the family, but she had asked in her will to be cremated and brought to her childhood home back in Chatter Blinds. My father, who survived the accident, was too hurt to go there himself. I was asked to go on my own, to fulfill her last wish. So I did.

I drove up to Chatter Blinds, following the same roads we’d taken so many times before. Mom was resting in a simple metal urn beside me. It was a long and silent trip, and I kept the radio off. I wanted to think of all the times we’d driven there over the years, and what those trips used to sound like.

And, of course, it had to rain. It rained about half the time we drove up there, and this time was no exception. It was fitting, I supposed. Mom always loved the New England weather.

My grandmother’s house had fallen into disarray, ravaged by weather and wildlife. The best description for it was “reclaimed by nature,” as wasps had made their home in the rafters and rats had swarmed the basement. Without its caretaker, the old house was nothing but planks and memories. I hadn’t planned on staying long; I was just there to grant my mother her wish, and then I’d be off. But before I did, I spent some time in my grandmother’s bathroom shaving and straightening my shirt, doing my best to look presentable–but also just to have a bit of a cry.

I scattered her ashes free at the coast, as specified. While my grandmother had been buried, my mother had always been a bit more secular. But in death, they’d still wanted to be together, in a way. I didn’t understand it, but she’d never asked me to.

Before I left, curiosity pulled at me. I could just go back home, but there was a part of me that was anxious to see if that cave was still there – and if so, what would I see? Had it all been real? It was nowhere near my birthday, so I  figured I wouldn’t see “other me” there, but had he ever existed to begin with? I’d just been a stupid kid, after all. Maybe I had made it all up.

I made my way down to the coastline, following the bottom of the cliffs. There was a bit of overgrowth, but I could see the entrance to the cave. I’d gotten quite a bit larger since last I’d been there, but I managed to squeeze through. For a brief moment, I thought I might get stuck, but the opening widened as I got further in.

Coming back into that large spherical space, everything was as I remembered it, albeit a bit smaller–the cracks in the wall, the pool of water in the middle. And above, the floating reflection of another place.

I wasn’t expecting to see someone up there.

But I did.

For some reason, even now, my doppelganger was waiting for me.

He looked identical but dressed differently. He had wild, bushy hair and what looked like plastic rags fashioned into a primitive raincoat. There was also his cave; it was covered in those blue flowers. The same that I’d given him that first year we met. They were quite large, and I could see now that they were, seemingly, some sort of sunflower.

“Hey, me,” he said. “Haven’t seen you around.”

“You’re real?” I asked. “You’re really… real?”

“As real as you,” he smiled. “For now, at least.”

“I thought I was making this up,” I admitted. “That I was just passing the time. Playing.”

“We did that, too,” he said. “But that doesn’t make either of us any less real.”

He told me he’d been hiding in that cave for some time. It was bad out there. Storms ravaged the coast, and there were raiders watching the main roads. The government had collapsed, and there was something else entirely out there.

“People go missing at night,” he explained. “Mostly during the storms. They speak of tall people hiding in the dark, dragging victims into the woods.”

He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for months. He’d survived by hunting and fishing, and had gotten his water from his grandmother’s water pump. You couldn’t drink the rainwater, or you’d go mad.

“I don’t think I’m going to make it,” he admitted. “It’s just a matter of time.”

It felt like looking at a broken reflection. It hurt. Not just because I could literally see myself in this person, but because I’d been so fortunate while he hadn’t been. It was unfair. The silver cross felt hot against my chest. So I did what any charitable person would have done: I offered him a way out. I climbed up the side of the wall and reached out a hand. As a kid, I hadn’t been tall enough to reach all the way up, but now I was.

“Come on,” I said. “I’ll get you out of there.”

He climbed up the side on his end and reached back. Our fingers broke the surface and touched. I grabbed his wrist and pulled, but I had no leverage. Neither did he. In a strange moment, we both slipped from the wall, leaving us suspended in mid-air, holding on to one another.

However, as fate would have it, I was just a little bit heavier. Maybe it was my diet or the clothes I wore, but I weighed him down. Slowly but surely, I pulled him through from that place to this.

We both fell into the pool in the middle of the room. I bumped my tailbone pretty badly, which would make for an awkward trip back home. But the relief on his face said it all: it had worked. He was free. I could almost see a light coming from his smile.

“I’ll consider this a… belated birthday present,” he said. “Thank you, ‘other me.’”

I wiped the sweat off my forehead and got up.

“You’re welcome, other ‘other me.’”

Leaving that cave together, I still couldn’t quite understand what had happened. There were two of me now. How could that be? How was that possible?

But he was as real as real could be, and the moment we left the cave, he laughed. He doubled over like he’d been told the most hilarious joke ever, despite the rain pouring down on us like wide-open floodgates.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“It doesn’t hurt!” he said, grinning. “It doesn’t hurt at all!”

In the end, it seemed he got his birthday wish.

He told me a wild story about how things had been for him in that other place–how, in a couple of years, everything had fallen apart. Lightning storms ravaged major population centers. Roving bands of death cultists marched down Main Street. There had been several high-profile assassinations. Cultural and tactical allegiances across the globe collapsed. In some places, the ground itself seemed hostile, pockets of gravitational upheaval popping up randomly.

“Before we lost the web, there were pictures of Amazonian palm trees suspended in midair,” he explained. “Not long after, we could see it happening downtown.”

He’d been coming back to that cave over and over again. Not just for shelter, but to see what it had been like for me. For years, he’d assumed things had been as bad for me as they were for him.

I took him back to my car. I’d planned on driving back home, but my tailbone was killing me. We decided to spend a night at my grandmother’s place before returning in the morning. It wasn’t a good solution, but it would have to do. The top floor, though small, remained relatively untouched–as long as you kept the windows closed, on account of the wasps.

I shared a couple of sandwiches with the other me. He ate as if he hadn’t seen food in days.

“This looks just like her place,” he explained in between bites. “Except on my side, there’s not much left of it.”

“I don’t understand what happened,” I said. “Was there no explanation? Nothing?”

“It happened all at once. Earthquakes, meteor strikes, solar flares, flash floods… all of it. And over time, it just got worse.”

He had trouble talking about it. It was obvious that he’d lost a lot of people; just thinking about it caused his face to twitch and sour. He excused himself to use the bathroom to get some space. He was in there for a long time, borrowing my grooming kit. When he finally emerged, he looked like a new person–and even more like me. The same hair, the same beard. We could have been twins. Then again, in a way, we were.

We stayed up late that night, talking about anything and everything. I told him about my job, my family, and my hopes for the future. He was amazed by it. To someone like him, it sounded like everything he’d ever wanted–from the simple joys of purchasing fresh fruit from the supermarket, to the prospect of getting married and providing for a family.

Since I’d dressed up in my fineries, I had a spare set of clothes for him to borrow.

He looked like a new man.

By the time midnight had come and gone, we were both exhausted but too eager to sleep. Two identical voices in the dark, like a lonely man talking to himself.

“I’ll get my own life,” he muttered. “It’d be weird for the two of us to be in the same place.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but I can help you get settled.”

“Just get me a train ticket,” he replied, “and I’ll be on my way.”

He talked a bit about South America, and how he’d cursed himself for not seeing the rainforest before the upheaval started. Now, he had a second chance.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I did, however briefly. I woke up to the sound of someone running, and when I opened my eyes, I saw “other me” bursting through the door. He’d been outside, in the rain. That much was clear.

I sat up and gave him a curious look. I reached into my pocket to check the time, only to realize I’d left my phone in my other pair of pants, the ones he’d borrowed. I was still wearing my slacks. “Other me” had not just my phone but my wallet–and my keys. And looking a little closer, I saw that he had them in his hand.

He was frazzled, as if he’d been running. His eyes kept darting between me and the window.

“There’s something outside,” he said. “I went to check it out.”

“What is it?” I asked.

He shook his head and mumbled, as if expecting the words to come to him. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think I’m being followed.”

I inspected the windows but saw nothing. But as we stood there, looking out, I heard something. Scratching. Like a tired dog trying to open a door.

We listened. “Hear that?” the other me whispered. “It’s here. Something’s here.”

I heard a door open, and something stepped inside on the bottom floor. It was only a matter of time before it found us. “Other me” suggested we make a run for it, but I had a different idea. Grandma had an old-fashioned fireplace in the living room, and a chimney-access ladder bolted to the side of the house. We could climb out the window and make our way across the roof, then down the rungs on the other side.

We cracked the window open and made it outside. I helped “other me” up, and we tip-toed across the metal roof. It was this corrugated metal roof, and in the rain it was slippery as all hell. The sound of water drops echoed, masking our footsteps. As we reached the ladder, I stopped.

“Hand me the keys,” I whispered. “I’ll get the car started.”

He hesitated. Even now, looking at him was like staring into a mirror–but something was different. I knew myself well enough to read my own face, and the two of us felt something vastly different. I couldn’t put my finger on what, however. Either way, he refused to give me the keys.

“Come on,” I urged him. “We’ve got to be quick.”

“I can drive,” he said. “Don’t worry, just go.”

“You’ve never touched this car before,” I protested. “I’ve got this.”

“No,” he whispered back. “I’ve got this.”

I didn’t like it, but there was no time to argue. There was an intruder in the house, and we had to get going. I descended the wet rungs first, nearly slipping a couple of times, rust staining my fingers in the process. “Other me” followed closely behind.

The moment I stepped off the ladder, I knew something was wrong.

There were humanoid shapes in the rain–taller, slender, and unnaturally dark. Even in the sliver of moonlight peeking through the clouds, I saw them clearly.

“Other me” got off the ladder, and we made it to my car. Out of habit, I beelined for the driver’s seat, but the door was locked. “Other me” picked up the keys and fumbled with the buttons, unable to make out what was what. I extended my hand.

“Give me the keys,” I repeated. “I’ll handle it.”

“No,” the other me insisted. “Just… give me a minute.”

“This is not your car!” I snapped back. “It’s my property. I’ll help you, but you’ve got to work with me.”

He ignored me and continued fidgeting with the buttons, until he hit something he shouldn’t have–the panic button.

I’d never used it before, and all of a sudden, blinking headlights lit up the night. The shrieking of the alarm cut through the rain sounds, immediately drawing attention to us. I grabbed my doppelganger’s hand, intending to snatch the keys, but he pushed me away. He said something, but I couldn’t hear him over the alarm.

I turned around to find the dark shapes had surrounded us, and were drawing closer. That’s when “other me” finally managed to silence the alarm. By then, my tongue had gone dry, my ears were ringing, and my rust-stained fingers had gone numb.

“It’s him!” the other me called out. “I was here first! It’s him you want!”

I turned to him. I didn’t understand what he was saying, or why. It didn’t make any sense. He dangled the car keys, as if trying to entice an animal.

“Look! See?!” he continued. “These are my keys! This is my car! He’s just trying to take it!”

“What are you doing?!” I asked. “What… what is this?”

“I’m not part of this!” he lied. “Just take him away and leave me alone!”

The figures drew closer. One of them was about nine feet tall, with arms that reached its ankles and an elongated neck. The head looked like a prehensile tail, bobbing back and forth at unnatural angles. Despite its proximity, its form remained indistinct; I couldn’t make out any musculature or bone structure. But they were clearly approaching–and they were listening.

“What are you doing?!” I cried. “I freed you, and now you’re throwing me under the bus?!”

“No, I saved you!” he shouted back. “Just look at us! Which one is ready to go–the one with the keys, the wallet, and the phone–or the one with neither, shouting in the goddamned rain?!”

“Unlock my phone then!” I called back. “If that’s yours, prove it!”

He pulled it out, hesitated for a moment, and then punched in a code. The phone unlocked, and my jaw dropped. In the heat of the moment, I’d forgotten how similar we were. Of course, we would use the same code. All he had to do was consider the code he would have chosen, and there was a good chance it’d be the same.

The shadowy figures turned their attention to me. As they drew nearer still, I panicked.

In desperation, I rushed the other me, tackling him to the ground and sending the keys flying. He’d been in a lot more fights than me, and it showed. I was no match for him, and he wasn’t afraid to hurt me. I just barely avoided a maneuver that would have snapped my wrist into pieces. I got a couple of punches in, but nothing serious. He, on the other hand, elbowed me straight across the jaw. The moment it connected, I knew I was going to have trouble eating solid food for a while.

By every available metric, I was losing. Whatever was following us, they believed him, and I was getting beaten to a pulp. I had to do something, but I was running out of ideas.

“Other me” wrestled free, shoved me away, and scrambled for keys. Victorious, he picked them up and pointed at me.

“Enough!” he yelled. “It’s over!”

The figures drew closer, now within arms’ reach. I turned to one of them as a dark, four-fingered hand clutched the collar of my shirt and dragged me toward the cave. I struggled, but it was no use; it was inhuman, with a vice-like grip.

More of them joined in. One grabbed an arm; another took a leg. They barely seemed to register my weight, lifting me like I was nothing more than a troublesome toddler.

I kicked, punched, and squirmed, succeeding only in hurting myself. I felt bruises forming on my arms and legs. I had no idea what their intentions were, but I wasn’t about to go down without a fight. If they managed to take me away, I knew I would never return.

“There’s been a mistake!” I pleaded. “Please! You have to believe me. There’s been a—”

At that moment, I twisted from their grasp as hard as I could, and something around my neck snapped loose.

My grandmother’s silver cross.

One of them stopped and brought the heirloom to his dangling, eyeless head for closer inspection–and a thought occurred to me.

“I got it from my grandmother,” I said, the cold rain drenching my face. “That’s mine. It’s dated after his grandmother died, so it can’t be his, right?”

The figures stood motionless, as if frozen in time. I looked back and forth between them, but there was no discussion. Not a word was spoken, not a look exchanged.

Then they set me down.

Slowly, gently, they lowered me to the ground.

It felt like being surrounded by moving trees–these immense, towering creatures tall enough to block out the moonlight.

They turned their attention back to the other me, dropping the silver cross into my open palm.

He had made it to the car and was able to start it. I heard him screaming in frustration as he struggled to figure out the controls. He managed to put it in drive, but he didn’t get far. The creatures didn’t exactly run but were fast when they had to be, gliding effortlessly as if skating across a frozen pond.

“Other me” barely made it out of the driveway before one of the car doors was torn off. Seconds later, I heard him scream, shrieking like a wounded animal as they carried him off, angry shouting giving way to desperate pleas. In his final moments, he turned his attention to me one last time, and though he was nearly out of earshot, I heard his voice–my voice–clearly.

“You have no idea what you’ve done!” he cried, his cries gradually fading into the distance. “You don’t know! You don’t know!”

And with that, nothing remained but the rain.

I found my belongings on the passenger side of the car. The keys were still in the ignition. I would have to get the door fixed, but apart from that and the beating I’d taken, I considered myself lucky. I wanted nothing more than to forget about the whole thing. But in order to do so, I had to revisit the cave.

After collecting my thoughts, I made my way back. By the time I arrived, the rain had stopped.

The first thing I noticed was that the reflection was gone. Whatever had allowed me to see the other side had disappeared, and with it, the other me, leaving behind nothing but a cave and a shallow pool.

I didn’t know what to feel. I was relieved, of course, but also terrified. What was I to make of this? What if the other me someday returned?

Ever since that day, I’ve had the eerie sense that something is lurking behind the eyes of my reflection. That it isn’t really a reflection but, rather, an image of that other me, in that other place. Wherever he is, I imagine he remembers me, that he knows. I assume he has to play along for now, waiting for another opportunity to pass through.

There are no mirrors in my home anymore. I do what I have to in order to distance myself from those thoughts, but all the precautions in the world does nothing to ease my worries.

Perhaps nothing will happen. Maybe I’ll never see that place–or the other me–ever again.

Or maybe, just maybe, the truth is something even worse.