In that world of Short Stories

Short story-1

Dense ash clouds loomed all over. The pavement was neat as the winds blew away the dirt. In the rush that everyone was, there was a spark that lit up my surroundings; it was my little one with a pony doll in her hand. Holding my pinky finger, she danced and pranced while playing with a lace let loose off my trench coat. That brought out the kid in me too as I tried fitting my feet in the tile squares while holding my brown suede hat pinned to my head. Glancing at the passers-by with a proud smile on my face and admiring the lovely father-daughter duo we were, looking at our reflections in the glass doors of stores, we continued.

Strange as it seemed, I was flummoxed to see a glass door in the middle of the pavement at the end of the block. As the distance grew shorter, I realised it wasn't a glass door but a person who looked strikingly similar to how I was.
The khaki trench coat with the collar raised, the brown hat, dark brown boots; it was too real to not believe it wasn't my reflection. The man limped towards us, staring behind my back. I looked back and there was nothing. As the distance grew shorter, more details became visible. There was a massive gash on his left cheek. The cut was fresh
from the looks of it. His trousers were bloodied and his eyes, red and swollen. It seemed he cried his heart out. At this point, I was only trying to fathom how it could be so. He constantly shifted his eyes from my back to my daughter. I was shocked and scared at the same time. I overtook my daughter to cover her from his sight. An old piece of newspaper flew with the wind and stuck to his leg.
He didn't seem to care and continued walking towards me, staring at my daughter.


I had a wrong intuition. The feeling wasn't right. I stared into his eyes with a forced frown. The guy was undeterred and kept walking towards my daughter and me. He was a few metres away from us, and I grew apprehensive. I clasped my daughter's hand and armoured her with my body. In the blink of an eye, my doppelganger dove onto me, throwing my daughter and me onto the sidewall. I was infuriated with him. A furore broke out from the nearby crowd. I was shocked to hear the outcry from so many people as it wasn't usual for all the people there to notice what was going on with me. I got up lifting my daughter, and then I realised what struck. A maroon coloured public bus ran across the curb from my behind and rammed into the building ahead of us.

I turned around to look at my doppelganger. I didn't know what was happening. I couldn't reckon that he saved mine and my daughter's life. He kept walking without turning back. His limp faded as he walked. His trousers didn't look like they had any blood on them. Just as he arrived at the turning point, he looked at me. The gash on his face vanished, his eyes were healthy. As I panned down, there was a kid who looked exactly like my daughter. He held her hand with one of his, tipped his hat just as I would do and walked away, turning at the corner.