See, I think I've been brought here to take over living some other girl's life. This girl is someone whose file I've clearly read time and time again until I know it by heart, though I can't remember doing it. I can give you so much of her personal history you'd scarcely be able to find a hole in my impersonation of her: it's no wonder I was chosen for the job, since we look alike, sound alike and have practically identical taste in music and skill sets, identical shoe sizes and mannerisms. I don't know who has put me here or what my mission is, but I have become so immersed as her doppelganger that my real life, back in that other place, seems like a retreating dream.
Although I can't be sure whether I am here against her will or in keeping with her wishes, I'm beginning to suspect she's on my side. I can tell because she leaves me these clues all the time. Before disappearing, she left her house very much in order, applying for loans so that I might live comfortably, arranging for her mail to be forwarded so that it would not inundate me, carefully aligning overdue library books on the table so that I'd see them first thing and return them (after perusing them, naturally, to inform myself as to her recent subjects of investigation). In general she has made it easy to take the helm. I am certain that she even planted messages for me in conversations with friends, knowing they'd remind me later of things she said, all so I could go about her daily tasks without breaking character. My relationship with her lover, after a bit of initial awkwardness, has been shockingly sincere and comes so naturally it's alarming. If he has detected the substitution he has said nothing about me being an impostor.
I don't know if she's ever coming back, this prior avatar. Frankly I hope she stays gone a while because I'm rather enjoying the life she left in place for me. If she does return, she'll undoubtedly be surprised that I may not be willing to forfeit everything to her as quickly and easily as she anticipated. In fact I sometimes feel that my superior life and world experience might even make me more fit for the role than she ever could have been.
If she does come back I imagine we'll have to battle it out at dusk on some abandoned quay, and the whole melée will end with her swimming off into the night, never -- or ever -- to return. Or maybe things will just continue as they are, until I one day stumble upon the vital piece of evidence that reveals the mysterious connection that binds me to her.
To be continued.
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