I work nights as a parking lot attendant. It's boring and the pay is awful but I do get to read a lot of pulp novels. The garage is just down the block from my building and I enjoy the walk in the cool evening air and I often get to see the sun set. It's not that I dropped out of high school, or huffed paint, hopped a border fence or have a glandular problem or any of the other reasons you would suspect someone would end up in such a seemingly lowly job--no I chose it because I have a problem I don't know how to solve and working in a badly lit booth reading smudgy ink at least makes the problem a little less worse.
Every time I wake up, about six in the evening, for the last decade or so, I see myself crawling into bed. He never acknowledges me and I know it's because he doesn't see me, and I know that because I never see myself as I crawl into bed in the morning. It isn't like he's a ghost, he is as solidly physical as I am. I tried talking to him, screaming at him, and punching him, and all I ever felt was a biting cold on my knuckles--it was not flesh I touched, but something else.
I tried moving apartments, several times, and he's been consistently there. And I know its my future self. I see the haircuts before I have them, the scars and bruises before I get them, and there is an almost imperceptible aging; I swear it's there!
The worst part is that even though I would love to wake up rid of my doppelganger, I know that the day that he isn't there, is the day I will die.
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