Doppelganger Slingshot

A short story

You ever worry that your life is so wasted, your brain is melting into a puddle of forgettable memories?

For such a long time, I considered myself beaten down, worn down, oppressed and repressed. Everywhere I worked drained my soul and everywhere I looked, I saw pain. People scared me and disgusted me. The weather angered me. Everything was so, so hard. 

But then I met a man.

This was just like me. He was about 45, overweight with large breasts, dressed in a t-shirt, sweatpants, and sports team cap of a team he didn’t really watch, single but dating a woman who looked like him except she had small breasts, and with a high-pitched voice that came out of a mouth covered in neglected three-week scruff.

I saw him at a bar by my house that has an indoor cornhole game. Playing cornhole winded me, so I sat out a round to get a beer. And there he was. I really thought it was a mirror, I’m not kidding. I took a second and third look, but it was another person who looked just like me. It was strange enough to see somebody who resembled me that much, but the strangest thing was how I felt. I didn’t feel surprised or even interested in who this guy was. I just felt complete and utter disgust. 

He looked like me, but everything about the man revolted me. He sat hunched over on his stool, like he was about to pick something up off the floor and gave up halfway. He scrolled his phone like it was a wheel he had to turn and stuck his neck out towards it like he was trying to see a bug up close. He wore a permanent semi-smile like he was trying to tell everyone he is happy and content, but he just looked simultaneously smug and uncomfortable, like an arrogant huckster who just farted in front of his mother at church. And he slurped! He tipped the glass just far enough for the beer to touch his lips and instead of tilting just a little more to take a gulp, he kept it at his lips and slurrrrrrrrrped. 

The bartender put my beer in front of me and I put it up to my lips and slurped. Right then my heart stopped. I slurped just like he did. And I always have. I was a goddamned slurper, too, but never realized it! I felt my back was hunched over, my neck was stretched forward, and looking at myself in the mirror behind, I had that same just farted smile. 

I stood up and was about to confront the man, but I just didn’t know how. When you confront somebody, do you ball up your fists and then shout? Or would that be too aggressive and maybe announcing your presence with an open hand is the more appropriate thing to do? And how aggressive should I be upon first encounter? Because too aggressive makes it seem like you’re in the wrong, doesn’t it? Isn’t the point of this to make the other person look bad? And all the cell phones. Surely, somebody will record a confrontation between two men who look just like each other. It would definitely go viral. I’d be known as that guy who was fighting with himself at a bar with an indoor cornhole game.

I sat back down and stared at him. I couldn’t help it. My eyes were glued to his face, scanning every strand of hair on that unkempt goatee that looked just as bad on him as it did on me. No matter how long I stared at him, though, he didn’t see me. He stayed glued to his phone, just like I would have if I were him. I wondered what he was looking at, but I already knew. He was scrolling political views on Twitter that he agreed with, which made him feel intellectually superior to millions of people he doesn’t know and will never meet but has actual hatred in his heart for - the only real emotion he has because he’s too afraid to get involved with anything more real than pixels on a screen. It’s a pathetic existence this man, if you can call him a man, leads, and he’s oblivious to how pathetic it is. He thinks it’s good. He thinks he’s good. He thinks the world would be a better place if there were more people like him - weak, useless, and smug. He thinks these are good qualities, although he might have different words to describe them. But it’s still what they are. 

He paid for his drinks and got up to leave. I paid for mine and follow him. I would never hunt, but I stalk like a skilled hunter stalking his innocent prey.

I watch how he walks. He wobbles more than walks, and his hips sway with discordant femininity. It’s the ugliest walk I’ve ever seen. But I become conscious of my own hips and realize I have a similar movement. Have I always walked like this? Impossible. But as we both continue walking, I realize we are completely synchronized. That is my walk. I have the same disgusting walk! I immediately stop walking like that. I keep my hips straight, my ass clenched. I roll my shoulders. And I walk like this the entire time I follow him.

I follow him to his house - a small house in need of a paint job, sitting on a corner lot, surrounded by a wire fence. My house is a little nicer, so I’m starting to feel a little more sane. This guy isn’t some strange cosmic blip version of me. He’s just some guy who looks a little like me. Nothing more. I hang back until he goes inside his house, wait a couple minutes, and then I unhook the latch to the fence door and carefully walk around the side, looking for a window to peep inside. I know what I’m doing is strange and wrong, but I just have to see more of this person to make sense of what’s going on. 

I find a window. The lights are on inside and the blinds are open. A woman is lying on the bed, naked. She’s fat and pearl white. She looked like spilled a vanilla milkshake on the bed and put a blonde wig on the pillow. She looks like my wife. She looks exactly like my wife. I think she is my wife, but it can’t be. A door opens inside and in comes that man. He’s naked, too. The same white blob of flesh, but with splotches of hair here and there. And he has that damn smile!

I want to leave, but I want to stay and watch. I have to be sure of something. And I have to see for myself. When I do see it, I want to cry and vomit and fall on a curb teeth first. The man fucks just like me! He moves back slow and quick pumps forward, like he’s pulling a slingshot. That’s my move! I made that up! And this fucker who looks just like me does the same thing. But I look at the woman who looks like my wife but isn’t my wife. She’s not enjoying it. But the two women I’ve been with loved it. At least, I thought they did. But now I see this woman, and think about all the times I’ve done it, and I’m not so sure. 

I go home. My wife is already on the bed, lying there naked, a spilled vanilla milkshake with a blonde wig on the pillow. I tear off my clothes and, instead of jumping into my slingshot move, I shove my mouth on her clit and go to work. I do things she never thought possible - that my own tongue never thought possible. Her heavy thigh hits the side of my head and I think I may have sprained something, but I don’t stop. I’m making up for years of mistakes. The only way I can dig myself out is to start doing things right. She cums so hard, she thrusts her pelvis up and knocks me off the bed.

When I climb back up to the bed, she doesn’t even know what she did to me. And although I know what I did to her, I can’t really believe it. She takes deep breaths with her eyes closed and smiles with one corner of her mouth. She says my name over and over again. I’ve never done this before. I have an epiphany: I will never be me again. I will be a new man. I will only do things that matter. I will get in shape. I will learn things. I will go on adventures. My life will be full of real interactions and contributions. I will no longer be a smug, obese, 45-year-old child who does nothing meaningful. 

But when I wake up the next day, I forget about all this. I don’t even think about anything I did the night before - seeing that man, following him, watching him fuck his wife, or coming back home to fuck my wife - I don’t think about any of this until lunch time when I’m sitting at Taco Bell, take a bite of my grilled cheese burrito, and see that man again. He’s sitting right across from me, taking a bite of his grilled cheese burrito.

We stare at each other, eating our burritos. Our eyes never move from each other. 

We chew and wipe our mouths in sync. 

We finish our grilled cheese burritos.

We slurp from our Sprite.

And we take out our phones, spending the next 15 minutes scrolling, feeling superior to people online as we eat another grilled cheese burrito. We finish that burrito, look up at each other, and we both give that arrogant fart smile. 

“Stick with the slingshot,” he tells me. “It’s us.”

He walks away. I watch his walk. 

And I walk away the same way. I didn’t like it, but it was easier that way. 

I felt miserable, but I was happy that way.

I felt scared, but I was comfortable that way. 

I felt oppressed, but I was freer that way.

I’m just like everybody else, which makes me special.