Mirror-Mirror

It was a holiday and I was visiting the Mirror-Maze section of the amusement park.

Walking through the maze, I was surrounded by multiple images of mine in the mirrors around me. They were everywhere………., in front of me, behind me, to my right, and to my left. Then there was one above me on the mirror attached to the ceiling.

I started feeling a bit dizzy, so I took a pause.  Catching my breath I was enjoying being surrounded by my own images. They looked just like me. They moved exactly as I moved. If I moved to front, they moved to front. When I moved back, they too moved back. When I laughed, they too laughed. When I made a face, so did they too. I started entertaining myself by moving my body-parts in various dance-like movements. I was enjoying the sight of the images mimicking me.

Suddenly, I felt that one particular image of mine, the one right in front of me, was a bit different.  I felt that this one wasn’t mimicking me........

I watched it once again, a little more attentively this time, just to make sure that it was only my own reflection in the mirror. Yes, it looked exactly like me, dressed in white shirt and grey trousers, and wearing the same specs.  It was me undoubtabally.

Looking towards my reflection, I made a weird face, then smiled, and then removed my specs expecting it to follow my actions……..

But it didn’t………

Rather, it kept on staring at me with serious and meaningful look.

I got a feeling of bewilderment and uneasiness in me. What this image is? Who is it?

Before I could react, the image moved. The man quickly took out a revolver from his pocket and put pointed straight towards my head. “Freeze,” he shouted.

So, he wasn't my reflection, but someone real.

Raising my hand up I asked, “Who are you? And what do you want?”

“I am you,” he replied staring straight into my eyes. “I am your persona from the parallel universe,” 

Watching my puzzled looks, he went on to elaborate.

“You may not know, but a parallel universe exists which is just a replica of your own universe, and that’s where I come from.”

“My universe is a parallel universe to your universe. Everything and everyone who is in this world, has an exact replica  in the parallel universe. Like you exist in this world, and I am your replica existing in the parallel world.”

I had started to understand.

“So it was true,” I thought. “The speculation that a parallel universe exists is true.” And I here was facing my own persona from the parallel universe who had traveled through light years to meet me.

The Parallel universe

He spoke more. “Whatever happens in your universe happens in our universe. Every event which happens in your world happens exactly in the same way in our world too." 

“But there is a major difference- On timescale, my universe precedes your universe by exactly one hour,” he informed me. "It means that whatever happens in your world, happens one hour before in the parallel universe, " he continues.

“Foe example, I was actually born in parallel universe exactly one hour before you were born in your universe. And I will die exactly one hour before you die,” he explained.

As I understood what he was saying, I asked the question most relevant in the situation, “What do you want? Why have you come here?”

He looked straight into my eyes and replied, “I have come to commit suicide. I am fed up with my life in the parallel universe and want to die. However, I can not cease to exist as long as you are existing, so I have come here to kill you……..so that I too would stop existing.”

“You are the root cause of my existence,” he said without taking his eyes off from me. “I am going to kill you now just to allow myself give up my existence.”

Before I could react, he pressed the lever of revolver. I heard a loud bang and then sound of shattering of glass. Then I felt a sharp pain inside my head caused by the bullet travelling through my brain. Soon, I was dead.

However, just an hour before I died, my parallel persona from the parallel universe had to die. As per the laws of parallel universes, all events of his universe had to precede the events of this universe by one hour. This included my death also. Hence ‘his death’ took place exactly one hour before ‘my death’....

But again, as he died one hour before the time he met me to  fire the bullet, he could not have fired the bullet at me (A dead man can’t hold a revolver and shoot). This chain of events logically resulted into my not getting shot at and killed. So I survived.

But since I survived, he stayed alive (and didn’t die an hour before). And since he was alive, he certainly met me and fired that killing bullet at me. This improvised chain of events could have no other consequence than my being dead, killed by the bullet he shot. But my death meant an even earlier death for my killer (an hour before), and so again I escaped getting killed. But then…………………

The events created by me and my parallel persona from the other universe had pushed both of us into fifth dimension. We were trapped in the fifth dimension shuttling back and forth between events and didn’t know how to come out………

My family searched for me everywhere but couldn’t find. They had last seen me entering the mirror-maze. Nobody saw me coming out from there, but at the same time, they didn’t find any trace of me inside the mirror-maze either.

Naturally. People from this world could not see the fifth dimension I had got trapped into.

The Fifth Dimension

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Would you like to read some of other weird sci-fi?

E=MC²

TimeWrap

My Weird Travels

A few more of my sci-fi works are here

The above post was written for following prompt in Indiblogger

One fine day, you bump into someone who resembles you, and you realise that he/she is your twin. How would you react?#ImaginativeStory

Posted by Sailaja under Short Stories
14 votes

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Cellphone In The Shrubbery!

The ringing sound seemed to be originating from somewhere behind the shrubbery in my home garden.

As I checked up, I found a small cellphone. It’s ringer volume was set to maximum to make it audible from far away.

I took the call. I heard a clear and nice female voice from the other side- “Hi, how are you?”

Taken aback, yet bound by the need to reciprocate the courtesy, I replied, “I am good. Howdy?”

“Happy. Very happy, because I am talking to you now,” she said with joy in her voice.

I didn’t understand. I just said, “Okay, same here. Please tell me whom you want to talk to?”

“Actually anyone. I want to talk to anyone who is willing to talk to me. And today it’s you. But only if you are willing,” she said politely.

I was not getting this at all. So I said, “Excuse me?”

“Let me explain,” she said. “Actually, I am girl who work and stay in this town.”

“And I have no one to talk to,” she continued. “So I just toss this cellphone into random people’s houses and then call up the number to talk to them. I had tossed this phone in your garden yesterday evening. And see, we are talking now.”

I was getting suspicious. I had been living here for more than 10 years and knew that girls in this moderately conservative town would not call-up strangers for a talk. 

Sensing my apprehension, she quickly proceeded to explain- “Actually there is no one whom I can talk to without him or her making a judgment about me. See, when you are talking to someone who knows you, he or she is bound to prejudiced. You just can’t have an unbiased, neutral conversation with someone who knows your background, your educational qualification, your financial and social status, how good looking are you, whether you are young or old and things like that”.

“And that’s why I prefer to converse with people who know nothing about me, and I know nothing about them-like you……”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I will neither ask for your name and nor I will reveal mine,” she assured me.

“I have my colleagues in office but I can not imagine opening up to them as anything and everything I say will be used against me in the game of office politics” she went on.

“Then there are those male colleagues of mine, who start the flirting game at very first conversation I make with them,” her voice was contemptuous.

“And my neighbours? They suck! The ladies there don’t have anything to ask me other than why I am staying alone in this town, why haven’t I got married till date, if I have any boyfriend and why my parents don’t visit me? Jesus!”

“There is nothing better than conversing with total strangers. They don’t judge you, don't try to flirt with you because they know nothing about your age or looks.  I can open up and share my secretes with them without any fear as my identity remains under wraps.”

“I talk to people and then request them to place the phone in some other person’s house or car or bike or shopping cart. Then again I call up and talk to the next person.” she seemed mischievously happy while revealing her modus operandi.

There was something honest in her voice that made me believe her. We soon started conversing. She told me how she loved to go hiking in the outskirts, which eating places she loved to visit, why she hated to have boyfriends, who is her enemy-number-one in office and how she is planning to rout him.  She told me why she hates Facebook and Twitter and prefers to converse live with people the way she was doing with me. She went on and on and on. Sometimes she paused to ask me a few questions like if I maintained my garden by myself and if I thought Idlis made better morning-breakfast than cornflakes. Or if I ever had a pet. She complimented me on the beautiful lawn I  maintained in front of my house.

I asked her why she didn’t call up random numbers, instead of throwing a cellphone in people’s house? She told me that she didn’t want people to have her number displayed on their phones. And then I noticed that the cellphone in my hand had its caller id feature turned-off.

It felt like we had hit it off well as we continued to talk for about half an hour. Then perhaps it was time for her to hang up because she said, “Will you please do me a favour? While you return from work today evening, will you please put this phone somewhere- through an open window in someone's house or car? Or in some flowerpot somewhere? Or may be in someone’s backyard?” I need to talk to someone in the evening……”

I assured her that I would. And I knew I won't fail my promise.

Bidding me goodbye she said, “Have a good life”. Then she went on to explain “I will never talk or meet you again in my life. So instead of just a ‘good day’, I am wishing  you a “good life”.

I smiled and said, “Have a good life, you too!”

**************************************

When I started writing another story on this prompt, it went paradoxical and berserk.

This post is written on following prompt in Indiblogger

(Thank you  Archana Kapoor for such an imaginative prompt)

Edition 102

4Days19Hours21Minutes25Seconds

You dig up a time capsule you buried years ago. Instead of memorabilia, you find a modern phone. It rings.... Complete the story! #timecapsule

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