The Sim-ilar Archive Of Every Double Ganger

Chapter 5

There are some days that you remember infinitely. Days you cannot cut out from your memory. Some you want to forget. Some you want to take with, wherever you go. You remember everything about these days. What the clouds looked like. How the air smelt. Things that wouldn’t matter to you otherwise. But those things are embedded in your brain, the way a bullet is in someone’s body. These memories don’t get out easily. It always takes a lengthy operation to get rid of them. And some days you decide to just let them stay. Like souvenirs. Or spoils of war.

I remember the day I first went to school. It looked so different through those childish spectacles. I saw the Banayan tree, and saw people grasping it to escape the callings of the volcano. I saw the school ground and pretended there was a pond full of rainbows. I saw my teacher and saw the shackles I would be entrapped in.
The day I stepped out of school and put on my glares ( replacement of the childish glasses. I know, I know, The metaphor gods are smiling upon me), I saw it as the place where I had learnt who I was.
I saw the library and remembered the time I saw a butterfly with a broken wing. I went running to the librarian and ‘investigated’ under the microscope. I saw the tree near the canteen and remembered the time we hugged trees as a tribute to Chipko Movement. Everything about that place, had shaped me, and I would remember everything about it as long as I didn’t catch amnesia.

So now, when I feel electricity in the air. When I feel something is about to happen. I notice everything I can. And keep in stored in my brain. Because one day when everything is slipping by, and I am grasping at the memories of what used to be, I will have something to rely on.

And as I sat in the place called Ssong Café, it was brimming with lightening. And from the tingle I felt on my arms and the shake on my knees, I knew this would be a moment I would never want to forget.

The place itself was the stuff of my chic dreams. From the moment I entered and my eyes fell upon the fairy lighting, I knew this place, would be my place. There was a place where I removed my shoes and stepped in, barefoot into a dream. There were posters and graffiti and signs that said I would have to leave my drama outside. I sighed a sigh of relief. Finally a place where drama would not be able to follow me. The first smell that hit me was old books and Maggi. If you live in India, you know that the smell of Maggi is the smell of comfort. You can never go wrong with it.

And as I have probably mentioned, and will mention again, is that old books, old books are a drug to me. With my high, I went to the counter and paid my 50 bucks. Only 50 bucks entry to heaven. The lady on the counter was so disinterested I did a double check to see if she’d seen me at all. With her droopy dead eyes, she told me that I could redeem the money to buy something if I wanted. With the note of enthusiasm that I got from her, I bid my adieu and walked away as fast as I could.

I stood near a book shelf, and took a scope of the room. There were cosy couches everywhere, with cute, happy, intense couples, reading to themselves. Legs intertwined, coffee in hand. These were the people I wanted to be. With love in the air, and in my romantic heart, I looked around at the cushions and limbs sprawled around the ground. I walked in further, towards the outside and the plotted plants. And right in the corner, on a chair forgotten, I saw myself.

Okay I should really give these doppelganger jokes a rest, shouldn’t I ? Fine, I didn’t see myself. I saw her. I saw Vasudha.

She had one leg tucked under another. Her brows were concentrated on the world she was holding in her hand. Her lips were pursed and I couldn’t quite believe how lost in the pages she was. I had never seen somebody so oblivious to the world. I know, she was supposed to look like me. But I saw her, and all the similarities between us vanished.

Now, call me weird, but honestly, I didn’t know how to interrupt her. I didn’t know how I could just go up to her, and teleport her to the Land Of The Boredom. Where Simran is the Captain Of The Ship.

I considered my options.
1.) I could go up to her and say, ‘ Knock, knock’.
2.) I could just go up there and clear my throat. But with my track record, Id end up causing a series of  horrible sounds uhhhahgdghhh that would resemble the ogre in the book she was reading
3.) Ahh okay I need to stop over thinking this.

So I walked over to her, smiling against my nervous self and said, ‘ The Age Of The Pike, good book, did you figure out who the Pike is yet?’

She looked up, her confused eyes finding mine. And her face, in the process of scowling at being interrupted and immediately changed to a smile.

‘ Shhh no spoilers, but I vaguely feel it has to be Jawa. It couldn’t possibly be Dawn.’

Looking at the sly smile creeping across my face she continued, ‘ Noo, no it can’t be. Oh damn, I actually liked him’

‘ No, no calm down. I’m not saying anything. It’s just, The Pike is not as bad as you may think he is. Don’t judge him to harshly’ , I said, tempted to give out all the secrets of the Hive.

‘ Well, you definitely know something I don’t know, because right now I want to smack the hell out of him…or is it a her?’, she looked at me, wanting to know more.

‘ Ahh. I ain’t telling you anything. We shall talk about it when you get through the third book’

‘ Um, so do you want to sit down, or is standing fine with you’

I realized that I was still standing, and sat down on the chair opposite her. The last time we met, the first time we met, she was more timid than this. Maybe, it was her passion for the topic that got her  to talk. Whatever reason it maybe, it was nice to get her to talk. I get really excited when I hear an introvert opening up.

She put down her book, and I noticed with a sigh of great relief that she wasn’t a dog ear person. That is the prerequisite to the foundation of a friendship. So I said to her, ‘ If you had put a dog year to that book, I would have lost my head’

‘ Oh my god, I know right, I would have to be held in restraints if I saw that happen. I’d snap and kill someone.’

We spent about an hour, on awkward conversations. We read a bit. Talked about our favourite books. The sort of things that are mandatory topics when you meet someone for the first time. And I wanted to fight against that. I wanted to ask her about what she thought about just before she slept. I wanted to ask her what was the one thing which purely, truly made her, her.
But I sat there quietly. And did the small talk. The one thing worse than small talk is scaring one off with deep topics. And that wasn’t something I wanted to do.

Even though we were talking about really stupid stuff, I could see that there was something here. Something I'd never experienced before.

Was is because I was talking to someone who looked almost like me?

I don’t know how, but everything came back to this.

It all eventually came back to this.