I saw myself again, getting off the train.  I looked beat down as hell.  This was the fourth time I’d seen me out in the world in the past six months.  The sightings are picking up.  I didn’t even recognize myself the first time.  It was more of a nagging sensation as I brushed by through the steel doors of the Metro train.  She was frumpy and fat, swathed in baggy over-stretched pants that rose too high above her socks.  A floppy blue tunic top completed her ensemble.  Her chocolate-colored skin looked washed out and unhealthy and her liberally gray hair was pulled tightly back in a messy bun.  I touched her as I went in and she came out.  My swinging arm slid momentarily against hers.  Gooseflesh erupted all over my body.  I barely turned my head in time to catch a glimpse of her profile.  The doors closed and I saw her standing on the edge of the platform staring at me through the filthy window.  She was me, alright.  I couldn’t sleep for two days after that.

The second time I saw me I was buying a coffee in a Starbucks.  I hadn’t gotten one in months, but I was walking down the street and decided a hot mocha would hit the spot.  I pushed open the door, walked up to the line and stood behind myself.  I didn’t realize it was me at first.  But something about the back of the head and the slumped shoulders sounded an alarm in my brain.  Prickles enveloped my entire body, just like the first time.  I slowly back-stepped until I was far enough away to turn and flee. Adrenaline pounded through me until I was sitting in my living room trying to appear nonchalant to my husband’s eagle eyes.  The last thing I needed was the third degree.  Yes, I was sure.  No, it wasn’t just someone who looked like me.  I knew myself anywhere, it turned out.  The real question was, what was I doing here?

She scared the daylights out of me today.  I went out onto the balcony for some air and looked down ten floors below.  There she was, standing in the middle of the circular driveway, tilting her head back.  She had on my purple sweater with the hole in the back hem and those damn high-water black pants.  Her hands were planted on her hips and I could see by the way she rocked slightly from side to side that her legs hurt, just like mine do.  What does she want? There can’t be two of us here at the same time in the same place, can there?  It doesn’t seem natural.  Well, crap.  Maybe she’ll just go away.

I wake up at 3:11 a.m., drenched in sweat.  I feel like I can’t breathe and I’m trapped inside a small space.  As I sit up gasping, movement in the corner catches my blurry eyes.  A dark shape is lurking there, pressed against the wall.  Fear instantly squeezes my heart.

“Who’s there?” I cry out.

Beside me, my husband stirs and grumbles.

“What is it?”

The shape is gone. I stumble out of the bed and lunge for the switch on the wall.  Warm yellow light fills the room and I can see that nothing is there.  But the thing is, I can still feel her.  I know it was the other me.  My husband rolls over, pulling the comforter over his face.  I flip the light off and go into the kitchen for a drink of water.  On the way back to bed, I hesitate at the apartment door and eye the peephole.  Seconds hang in the air while I debate with myself.  Of course I look.  I have to.  Slowly, I step up and gaze into the small hole.  She’s there, staring solemnly back at me.  Her face is drawn and tired and there are dark circles beneath her deep brown eyes.  Yet, her expression is inscrutable with a hint of anger floating just below the surface.  She turns her head and walks away out of sight.  I sigh and lean my forehead against the cool wood.  What am I going to do?  I don’t believe she will go away.

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday.  I’m sitting on a concrete bench in the terraced park that overlooks downtown Los Angeles.  The sky is cerulean blue.  There are no clouds.  The sun is warm, but not too much.  The winter air still has a bite of cold in it.  I am watching a sparrow hop about on the green grass.  A shadow falls over my face and I look up.  It’s me.  She sits down a few inches away.  My eyelids droop in the bright sunlight.  I have a headache.  I can feel me looking at myself sideways.  I’m too sleepy to turn around.  She leans in close to me and I shiver.  Tiny electrical prickles flare over my entire body as she whispers in my ear.

“It’s funny, you know. The sun is white here.”

THE END