Journal Entries

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Jennifer looked over at the park bench with a satisfying smile. She and her eleven month daughter had been out and about all day sight seeing and her legs were killing her. "How bout we take a little rest Mimi," she said looking down into the stroller. The baby made gurgling noises and smiled back up at her mother. "Yeah? You want to? Well let's go over here on the bench," she said as she swerved over to her right. Upon sitting down and unbuckling her child, she looked up at the sky. What was once a sunny day had now transformed into a dark, gloomy, and cloudy one. However the clouds weren't gray like normal rain clouds, these clouds had an oddly olive green hue to them and they seemed to move in a counter clockwise direction. "Looks like we can't stay here too long girlie, its probably about to storm," she said with a pouting face to her daughter. The baby stared up at her and began to chew on her fingers. Pulling her hand away from her mouth, Jennifer unstrapped Mimi from the stroller and brought her up to her lap. "If you're hungry, don't chew on your hand baby girl. Tell me so I can feed you," she said sarcastically causing Mimi to start screaming non-understandable words herself. Chuckling, Jennifer pulled out a big bottle of milk with cereal in it. "Well here you go since you're about to starve to death," she said with a smile. The baby eagerly took the bottle and began to drink. Looking up at the sky, she wondered if her daughter would finish the bottle in time so they could make a dash to the car before it started to rain. The clouds looked like they were ready to pour at anytime, yet the winds were still calm and the scent of rain had began to fill the air. As Jennifer looked around the park, Mimi started to sputter and almost choked on the bottle of milk. "Whoa slow down there, it's not a race girl," she said as she plucked the bottle from her daughters mouth and patted her in the back. Mimi began to cry in protest and reached for the bottle again causing her mother to laugh. "You almost died and you still want more milk?" She asked between the little girls cries. Giving her the bottle back, Jennifer sat and watched as her daughter basically chugged the milk down from the glass bottle, only stopping to catch her breath. She almost didn't notice that another person had come to join her on the bench, but as she shot a quick glance out the corner of her eye she saw that the it was a woman. She too had a child but she couldn't see it cause the woman had her back turned to her. Fixing her gaze back on her daughters drinking, Jennifer spoke up. "Hi, how are you?" she asked sweetly and the person gave her no answer. "I see you have a child too," she started "what is it and how old are they?" Again the woman gave her no answer. Of course that wasn't a problem because one way or another, Jennifer was going to get her to talk. Her personality was just that strong. "What's their name?" She asked as she shot another glance to the woman who still had her back turned towards her. "Her name is Abigail," the woman quickly answered back with a cold tone. Jennifer thought to herself with a little bit of a surprised expression. "W-wow I was actually going to name Mimi that, but I changed my mind. What made you think of Abigail?" Again the woman was silent and Jennifer sighed. Her own daughter was over halfway finished with the bottle of milk but when she tried to pull it away, Mimi gripped it tighter and continued to drink. "How old is she?" She asked the woman as she closely monitored her daughters drinking. "Eleven months, she'll be a year old next month. July 15th," the woman snapped back. Gasping, Jennifer looked down at her daughter. "You hear that Mimi? You have a birthday twin! Maybe sometime this week I can come back so you and Abigail can have 'sister fun time'. Her mother and I can also have a decent conversation," Jennifer said with a chuckle. The stranger continued to fidget with her daughter and said nothing. Sighing again, Jennifer began to just talk; seeing if the woman would be aggravated enough to stop her. "I would've brought Mike, my husband, but he had to work today. It seems like if he isn't working at that factory, he's trying to add to our house. I had to basically force him into the car last week so we could spend some quality time together. All three of us. Did you also come by yourself? Or is Abigail's father working too?" Jennifer waited as the woman finally sat back onto the bench and began to sniffle. The clouds had now began to circle a little bit faster causing Jennifer to try to pry the bottle from her daughters mouth again. Mimi cried out in detest and pulled the bottle back into her mouth. She only had a little bit of milk left anyway so Jennifer let her gulp down the last few ounces. "I hope your daughter doesn't act like this," she said with a chuckle. "Plus I fed her this morning, I don't know why she's so hungry all of a sudden." She shot the stranger another glance and saw that she too had began to feed her daughter, but still had her face turned the other way. "Maybe one day we can actually talk. I may have caught you on the wrong day," Jennifer said as she gazed up at the clouds. "I don't blame you for not being talkative. I know how kids can be plus this weather isn't helping the cause either. It's usually sunny here causing people to be a little bit more happier," she stated with a small giggle. "Gavin beats me and he's never home to take care of the child," the woman said suddenly. Jennifer watched as Mimi gulped down the last little bit of milk out of the bottle and thought to herself. "That's strange, I used to have a boyfriend named Gavin. He would get drunk and hit me plus we would get into a lot of fights before he found out I was pregnant with Mimi. Once I put that in his head, he stopped acting out and we were doing fine during the nine months I carried her, but a month after she was born he started drinking again. So when Mimi turned six months old, she and I left him. Got all of our clothes and went to go stay with my mom. Now I share a house with Mike of course but we've only been together for about 4 months. So trust me I know what you're going through sis," she retorted while pulling the bottle out of her daughters mouth. "If you need any help, I'll be more than glad to try some counseling with you two if you want," Jennifer said assuringly causing the stranger to go silent again. Looking at her daughter she smiled and raised her up to her shoulder. "I gotta burp you little momma then we'll have to say bye to our "new friends" because it looks like it's gonna rain," she told her with a chuckle. "If you don't mind, can I ask what your name is?" Jennifer asked as she lightly patted her daughter in the back. The woman sighed and bent down to put away her own daughter's milk bottle causing Jennifer to remember that she hadn't got her burp cloth out of Mimi's bag. When she raised back up she was met with a site so scary, it caused her to jump and almost drop her baby. Staring back at Jennifer was an exact copy of herself, but different. Instead of a nice sundress this woman wore tatted jeans and a dirty white t shirt. Her hair fell below her shoulders in thin volume-less blonde layers and she had a bruise over her right eye. The woman was frowning so violently that you'd think she didn't even know the definition of a smile. Jennifer backed up and pressed Mimi tight up against her body. "Who-who in the hell are you?" She asked with a frightened tone in her voice. The woman tilted her head a little to the side and forced a crooked smile. "I'm you sweetie," she began "just without all the good perks in life that you have now." Jennifer searched for words to say but struggled to due to the shear terror and surprise she had at the moment. "But-but how? How is that possible?" The reflection of herself looked down at Mimi and then down to Abigail. Sure enough, even their daughters matched each other. The only noticeable difference was that Abigail's clothes were tattered and old, much like the way Mimi's were before Jennifer came into a source of clothing from Mike's mother. "This is impossible, you can't be me! That's- that's," she stuttered. "It's what sweetie?" The quote unquote clone asked. "You thought you could run away from your past didn't you? Well I can assure you that it's not going to be that easy Anise." Jennifer looked at the woman in growing horror, watching her return an icy glare of her own. "How do you know my middle na..." she trailed off as she looked the woman up and down. Just then, a big drop of water landed on Mimi's cheek causing her to jump and Jennifer to look up to the sky. Another one fell and hit her cheek, followed by another and another. Throwing the burp cloth into the baby bag, she quickly strapped her daughter into the stroller and began power walking to her car, making sure she didn't flip Mimi over in the process. When she finally did reach her car the rain had began to fall more steadily causing her to lay Mimi down in her seat and basically throwing the stroller into the back of her car. Running around to the drivers side of the car, Jennifer jumped in just as the rain started to pour. She reached back and buckled Mimi into her seat then turned back around to get her phone. Dialing 911, she dug around in her daughter's baby bag trying to retrieve her car keys. On the other end of the call she heard a women pick up and say "911 what's your emergency?" Nervously Jennifer began to talk as she struggled to find the key to the ignition. "Uhm yes I just saw a woman that looks just like me, I think it was one of those double people." The policewoman on the other end sat for a beat then asked, "Double people? You mean like a doppelgänger?" Pressing the phone harder against her head Jennifer quickly agreed. "Y-yes a uhm doppelgänger. She was basically me from a year ago. She was telling me that she was me without the so called "life perks" that I have now and that I couldn't run from my past." The policewoman sighed a hearty sigh. "Ma'am are you sure you're not just seeing things today?" Jennifer looked up from the bag to see the woman frowning and staring back at her. She was still sitting on the bench but was now drenched with the waters of the sky. "No ma'am I'm not just seeing things. I was sitting right beside her having a conversation." After a while the police officer asked her to describe exactly what the "doppelgänger" looked like in full detail. Upon agreeing, Jennifer found her keys but dropped them out of anxiousness and fear. "Damnit," she said as she bent back down to get the keys off of the car floor. "Ma'am?" The policewoman asked and Jennifer apologized for her language. Telling the officer to "hold on" she looked back over to the park bench and to her utter surprise, the woman was gone. Cranking up her car, she quickly pulled over to a road that was near the bench so she could take a closer look and again, to her dismay, the woman wasn't there. No trace of her could be seen anywhere plus it was raining, so it would've been hard to find any traces regardless. "Ma'am? I have my pen and paper right here, I'm ready when you are." Sighing, Jennifer started rubbing her eyes and put her car in gear. "Ma'am? Are you still there?" The officer asked and she groaned. "Yes ma'am I'm still here. Hey look, I think maybe it was in my head. I had a rough night last night with my daughter, so I might just be really tired." Assuringly The policewoman told her "I understand ma'am, uhm I don't really know about doppelgängers, so I don't know if I would've been able to help you anyway," she chuckled. Looking through the rear view mirror, Jennifer caught sight of something white flapping from the bench rails. Stopping her car, she politely told the officer "goodbye" and jumped out to brave the rain. Running over to the bench she swiped the object from the railing and ran back to her car. Upon inspecting it, she determined that it was a blanket. On the inside tag was "JA 1989" written in black permanent marker. It almost looked like the hand me down blanket that Jennifer's mother had for her until she outgrew it. Wringing the water out of it, she folded the blanket and stuffed it into Mimi's bag. It was gonna come in handy when she went down to her local Police Department.