The Resemblance
He thought he saw a friend entering the coffee shop, staring at him as the other passed.
Impossible, of course. His friend, Andy, died back in the early part of the century, murdered while on a business trip in Tennessee, a story misted with mystery. Andy and a woman he’d met at a bar talked to a man in the bar about buying a boat. After some drinking, the three went out to the man’s house at midnight to see the boat. A fight ensued.
Andy always carried a knife and pulled it now. The knife was taken from him. Stabbed twice in the abdomen, he staggered half a mile down the long dirt road leading to the house. A trooper found him dead on the roadside hours later.
All that came back as he watched the man with the remarkable resemblance to Andy. Other possibilities could explain why the man looked like Andy. It could be Andy. Andy could have returned from the dead. Andy’s death may have been faked, the death story constructed as part of some larger con. Maybe Andy had a twin he didn’t know about, or he’d crossed into a dimension where Andy still lived. Theories crowded his head as Andy’s doppelganger took his coffee and departed the establishment.
He couldn’t let it go. Catching up, he called, “Andy.”
The man turned back to him. A smile flickered over his expression. “No. Not me.”
Sipping his coffee, the Andy twin turned and hastened away.
The Writing Moment
One of those days of sunshine and just the right smell and air texture that my brain asked, “You sure you want to go to the coffee shop? Sure you want to be inside, siting at a laptop at a table, inside, mind you, did I point that out, pecking away on a keyboard? Are you sure that you want to do that on such a pretty springy, summery day? Just think what it’s like outside. You get a chair and go out there and read and doze…you should think about it.”
I did think about it. So gosh darn tempting. Then I remembered what was happening with the character, plot, story, and suddenly I was in a hurry to get to the coffee shop, plant my ass, and peck away.
Friday’s Wandering Thought
Quite a sight. A young slender man, sunglasses and forest green cap, leaning forward and upright, arms working hard, speeding along in a wheelchair on the sidewalk, cigarette in mouth streaming smoke.
There’s a story there. We rarely get to know the stories behind scenes like these.
Introductions
Many thoughts were lapping my head.
“Who is he?” the stranger asked.
“Don’t know.” I considered the dead man and holstered my gun. “He didn’t introduce himself. Speaking of that…” I cast a net over the short woman beside me. She’d walked up just after the other breathed his last. She was fortunate I didn’t shoot her.
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Oh, my name. Nancy Sinatra, I’ve decided.”
“You decided.” She didn’t have a car. Numerous new questions joined my mental list.
The stranger chortled. “I’m an alien. Don’t have a human name. First time I’ve had a body like this. First time to Earth.”
Alien. Figured. I’d need to delve into that.
I shifted my victim to look at his face. Nice forehead shot, I congratulated myself. Been lucky to kill him. He’d had the most important element — surprise — but I was faster. “Can you help me with this body?” I’d decided to toss him over the nearby edge into the ravine below. Wasn’t nothing but starlight and a skinny moon’s cast for illumination but I knew the ravine was there. Sure wasn’t burying him. Figured it had to be done fast. Before others arrived.
She picked up the body. All five four of her hefting six feet plus something inches and a few hundred pounds, putting him over a shoulder like a light jacket.
“Geez,” I said. “Respect.”
She nodded. “Where to?”
I directed her, “Follow me.” I hope she wasn’t going to kick me over with my dead guy. “Be careful.”
“I will. I can see better than you.”
“Oh. I see.” Ha, ha. I use humor to cope. It’s not good humor.
“Why’d you kill him, Tate?”
“You know my name.”
We stopped and looked together into the dark valley at our feet. “That’s why I’m here,” she said. Not even breathing hard.
“Toss him,” I said.
She did.
We listened to his downward journey and the final silence. A warm wind licked my skin. A cricket began a lonely solo.
“You didn’t say why you killed him,” Nancy Sinatra said.
“Self defense. He tried to kill me when I arrived.”
“Ah. Prompts a difficult question, doesn’t it?”
“What?” I knew what but I was challenging and measuring. Figuring out who Nancy Sinatra was. Wondering why dead guy was alone.
“You came back in time. So how did he know you’d be here?”
The billion dollar question. “Same as you, I suppose.”
“Nope. You told me to be here. I didn’t tell anyone. So how did he know?”
That’s what worried me. Yet he was alone. “Yep. If I do it again, I’ll need to come back a little earlier. How are your shoes? They made for walking?”
“What?” Nancy Sinatra’s puzzlement carried like an echo across a canyon. “They’re shoes. What else would they be made for?”
I chuckled. “Forget it. Start walking. I’m going to teach you a song.”
I knew the song from my future. I wondered why she chose that name.
Michael Seidel, writer 