Like in that film wot I saw…

So I’m sitting by a window on the top deck of a bus, it’s doing its thang somewhere in North London, while I’m minding me own business reading a magazine. Said bus comes to a halt at a request stop (these things happen). From my vantage point I see two figures waiting to climb aboard.

Imagine my astonishment when I realise that one of those figures is me.

Had this doppelgänger inter-dimensionally crossed into my plane of existence? Was he from a parallel world? Was this a future version of me? A past version of me? Was he here to give me instructions to create a better tomorrow? To warn me? To save me? To kill me? Was he in the midst of a fundamental paradox? Was I? If we touched each other, would the universe implode? Was he a clone? Was he created secretly by a nefarious corporation? By the government? Did he escape? Was he now being hunted by them to cover their tracks and keep their dangerous secret? Was I? Were we both in danger? Did he have something Earth-shattering to tell me? Was he my long-lost identical twin? Were we separated at birth? Was he looking for me? Was this fate? Was he an hallucination?

Or was it I who was all those things?

No.

When he came up the stairs and sat two rows behind, the devastating reality hit me.

He just looked a lot like me.

Same tall, thin, lanky frame. Same broad shoulders. Same short-ish, messy blonde/brown hair. Same almost-Greek profile with a similar nose and same squarish jawline. Same narrow mouth with quite plump lips. Even the same coloured t-shirt. It was almost uncanny.

As he got closer, disappointing little differences between us began to emerge. His eyes were a bit smaller than mine. His hairline was slightly receding. His teeth were nicer. He had a mole.

Still, he could easily pass for my brother, if I wanted or needed one.

The point of this post? Well, those initial, ludicrous ideas I mentioned earlier were not actually embellishments I made to spice this little blog up. Those thoughts actually occurred at the time. Seriously. I did wander, even if it was only for a moment or two, whether that was me from another time, dimension or universe and I became slightly unnerved. Most would say it was a pervasive indicator of impending insanity (and they would possibly be correct), but I have a theory. Fuck yeah, I do.

I watch a lot of sci-fi films, and when something fantastical happens to “the normal guy”, he/she seems to spend half the movie not believing it. We as the audience already know it’s true, so when the hero questions it, even though it’s realistic that they would, we just want them to get with the program and fucking accept it so the adventures can get started. Imagine if something like that happened to you. Put yourself in Sarah Connor’s position from the original Terminator. An Austrian bodybuilder with limited acting ability has just tried to decorate your innards with bullets and you were saved by a scruffy American dude wearing a long overcoat usually favoured by perverts. This guy who just saved your life proceeds to inform you that he is a soldier serving under your as-yet-unborn son 40 years in the future, and is fighting a post-apocalyptic war against malevolent robots. He was sent back through time to protect you, ‘cos your little boy is the saviour of mankind and all that. Monosyllabic Austrian bodybuilder happens to be one of these eponymous robots, covered in human skin to blend in (well, blend in as much as a Teutonic brick shithouse wearing leather possibly could). He was sent back to kill you and consequently, your unborn child. How long would it take for you to accept it? Especially when your survival depends on your complete trust of scruffy yank dude? I have wondered to myself how I would react if such an eventuality came my way. Not specifically that of The Terminator, of course, but something similar. Like Back to the Future. Yeah, I’d love a DeLorian.

As I type I sit and ponder just how much this sort of thinking may have permeated my day-to-day existence, so when something only slightly out of the ordinary happens (like seeing my lookalike) my brain races towards the stupendous. What’s wrong with me?

Anyway, you get the idea. I’m not explaining this very well (as ever), but I suppose such films (and books) have left an indelible imprint upon my sub-conscious. Is my reaction a sign of an over-active imagination (which as an aspiring writer is a positive thing, I assume)? Or does it suggest that I’m an easily-impressionable dolt who watches too much ridiculous shite? Or is it both? Or neither?

I have always kept an open mind about most things. Although having no reason to believe in God or divinity, I would class myself as agnostic rather than atheist. I do lean towards the latter, but how can anyone claim to be certain about these things? Even those who absolutely believe in God still only call it “faith”. I accept evolutionary theory more than I do creationism, but who am I to say which is right or wrong? Is there even a right or wrong? Whatever, that’s a whole other subject for a whole other time.

I digress. There’s having an open mind, and then there’s entertaining science-fiction plot-devices as if they could be real. I’ll say it again – those bizarre notions really did enter my head. Nothing remotely like that has ever happened to me before, and when I told my girlfriend about it she laughed. I cringed. I would laugh too in her place. A most disquieting experience took place on that bus and I’m not at all sure what it says about me.

Whatever. That’s enough of that.

On a related note, they say that everyone on Earth has an exact double of themselves somewhere. The man on the bus was not quite mine, so I’m wondering where he is and what he’s doing right now. I’d like to shake his hand and commiserate with him on his bad fortune. I can totally empathise with the poor guy. I hope he’d do the same for me.

That’s your lot. Like Paris Hilton’s undercrackers, I’m off x