The Girl in the Blue Shoes

by Shaun Hume

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,’ said the travel worn me. ‘If anyone was going to figure things out, it was going to be me.’ He seemed to be having a good time, watching himself, me, in a state of general confusion and at best sporadic comprehension.

  ‘I think the first question to be asked and clarified is, who is who?’ I said this with the height of conviction. I knew who I was, and what was said by this imposter in front of me wasn’t going to change that.

  ‘You’re a Duplicate – I take it by now you know what one is?’

  The words had meaning, but for now I couldn’t decipher them. How could this ever be so? Duplicates were collected up, they were part of the program, The Girl in the Blue Shoes had confirmed it. If I was a Duplicate, how could it be that I was allowed to go unchallenged for so long? If I was a Duplicate then I, whoever I was, must have crossed over, made my way into the Otherworld. But I hadn’t … had I? It couldn’t be possible, and I wouldn’t entertain it.

  I suddenly became aware of how another look felt, but was able to see how it appeared to others for the first time. I was looking at me in that tepid way, waiting for a reaction, a lingered thought dripping off the edge of my eyes like newly formed dew. But would I, even if it was in the form of a Duplicate, deceive my true self? Or would it be of the more probable evils that I should treat my own Duplicate with a lesser form of ill regard?

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true,’ I said before I could respond. ‘You see, I was not aware of the side effects that would result from crossing over when I first stepped into the Otherworld. And indeed it was only by deciphering some final ancient texts that the reference to a certain Doppelgänger finally made sense to my mind. The crossing over of another time proved the effect once and for all, and then the hunt was on for you, the blip, the world’s first Duplicate. By this time I admit some many years had passed. But when I located your whereabouts it was no more than a trifle to entice you back into the once home web of your mind, your gracious and faithful Oxford.’

  Years? But I had not been away from Oxford that long at all, had I? My thoughts were stinging, the idea I had been manipulated, tricked into following along, Alice once again so faithfully following the deep curiosity I had long been known for. But was this the real me standing over me? If so then something had changed. Something had horribly changed. This opposing me took no time to notice this second guessing emanating from me, and duly went on.

  ‘My allies have been few, so little have known anything about the work I was doing that there were bound to be gaps, holes that little rabbits could slip through. But you must understand, I have been out of touch with … civilisation, as it were, for quite some time. I had to be recovered from my travels in order to be present and deal with this little situation here.’

  Surely this wasn’t right. It didn’t even sound like me. But maybe that was the point?

  ‘In many ways you are me, of course,’ I, or as my understanding and belief on the matter unfolded, it went on, ‘but the fact still remains that you are not, not truly me at all.’

  ‘But if I am as you say, why did I not just continue working on all of this as soon as I came about? As soon as I was … duplicated. How is it that I know nothing of this?’

  The other me grinned, he really grinned, an almost sickly smirk dripping with a prideful tang.

  ‘Oh, you did, you did keep working … from what I can see. But your accident, and the apparent memory loss that resulted from it, was a most fortuitous happening. Otherwise who knows what may have happened … ’

  Was it really me? Had I really been that? My brush with death had changed me, I had from then on lived a different life, been a different person.

  I feel here that panic took rise to the front of my thoughts and a reddened blotch began to form in my mind, a growing splinter that as it flourished caused pain, and the pressure it built on me drove a cold sweat through my pores at near speed of light. Could any of this be true? Could I really be a … Duplicate? A mere copy of myself, a myself that had been recreated by some strange cosmic program?

  As soon as I had seen my own living and breathing face right before me I had eyes for all else. But now things were seeping into the cracks of my view and I thought of the second voice I had heard chattering, and the second familiar tone. But it was her too, The Girl in the Blue Shoes, standing aside with a conflicting expression hovering all over and about her person like a thickening mist. Did he, the unbound me, know she had met with me? Did he know what she had told me? How could he have, as it seemed the figure had only just returned from these so called travels. His presence in Oxford again was surely only a new one, the efforts they had taken to track me down hastened more swiftly in the last day or so. But then, it was I whom had brought myself to them, seemingly gifting my presence into their arms.

  I eyed off the Girl and began to wonder if that had been her intention all along, to place the Duplicate, her Duplicate, where I would see it. To foster my curiosity, draw me in like the mindless moth to the flame, and then tell me just what I wanted to hear. For it seemed it was indeed the truth, as I knew in my gullet it was so. This must have been known, by me, the other me, that I would have only had to delve deeper, needed to seek out the origins further, and by this I would reveal myself to them, a cornered child, a frantic pigeon.

  It were as though a fuse had been lit and suddenly my time was not my own. I felt the pale flesh around my cheeks begin to grow sallow and panic was soon to set in. If this were true, if it were all possible, then surely there would be no longer any use for me, no more time yet to be wasted, no risks furthermore to be taken. They had the mark of me; I had the mark of myself.

  18.

  All sorts of sordid trails ripped through my mind and I conceded that if it was me, and indeed it seemed it was, then I wouldn’t let myself roam free with what I knew. Or would I … ? A truce could be reached. If it was for the benefit of something I held dear, no matter what shape or form, surely I could trust myself to help the cause, hold the secret and let the actions go on unheeded, uninterrupted, free still from any public judge or jury. This would, I feared, be my only option.

  The next path then left to take was that towards deciphering how I would construct my case, which mode I would choose to use so as to not merely be given the best chance of approval, but one that would assure my continued existence, my life to prevail. Without disillusion, I knew I was losing time. I had already predicted my own internal reactions, and the other me was making ready to speak.

  ‘No doubt you’re trying your best to think of what would convince me to spare you?’ said I to me. ‘And yes, I know you’re thinking I will end your life, although you know in rational situations I would never do such a thing. But rational is not what I would call this situation. I’m sure you agree? Surely you don’t think it would be prudent to let Duplicates live on, do you? It would throw everything into chaos, the work I have done would all be in jeopardy. You have seen yourself how far they are out of place, existing but not as they should with the other, the real them living and breathing too.’

  I only nodded in reply, desperate not to allow anymore of my hand to be shown. But it was me, how could I not know what I was thinking? What was different about me was different about him … or was it? We were the same person it seemed, true, but only up until a point. If I was indeed a Duplicate, then I had in me as much as he had in him, but had lived a different life. After my “creation”, the word brought shivers to me somehow, I had turned my own tale, picked my own paths. And although the nuts and bolts of what I had been before indelibly shaped what I continued to become, it did not dictate it, not solely.

  At last, an ace up the sleeve. I felt vibrant and able. But doubt took his share once again. If I had thought this, had I too? It was of little matter anyway, I had no better option than to do what I could and use this new boon as best I could.

  ‘I do agree,’ I said finally. ‘Do you mean to kill me then?’

  ‘It appears t
hat there may be no other way. Indeed, with Duplicates who live on, this is in fact the only way.’

  ‘There are plenty of other ways for those willing enough to see them, surely you haven’t forgotten that?’ Inadvertently I had just reminded myself of a long ago spoken, but frequently drawn upon speech from Bertie. It had been the first lecture of his I had attended, and I remembered it well, even if it seemed that the remembrance was only a preprogrammed one. I saw the flutter in the eyes of myself as I looked down on me, tied to the chair, with even callus.

  ‘Indeed,’ the “real” me replied with even keel and little emotion. Something was clearly different, it was evident right then. Those few years we had lived our separate lives, like conjoined twins unwillingly split, had taken their toll on both parties, strong changes all mixed together with the many years of relative normalcy before it.

  Here I noticed an actual moth was stuck to the wall beside me. The little thing was grasping on in hopes of finding more light, the dowdy bulb at burn in the room clearly too weak to leave any self-respecting insect satisfied. No window lay open. It was, in effect, trapped. As we shared our predicaments, I glared at a shining difference between us two: I was in plain sight, the moth was not. The moth had the advantage. The only reason I saw it was because I was searching for something, anything that would help me out. The moth was waiting, poised in its place to await the perfect opportunity, the right state of affairs and mixture of moments to gift it what it sought – freedom. But how could I pull my own advantage? Was it even possible?

  ‘But choice,’ the free me went on after a long enough pause, ‘that is what I have over you right now. And that is what will move me – choice.’

  Victory!

  ‘As you have choice,’ I said as rapidly as possible, caring as much as I dared to mask my eagerness, ‘that means I have none. But if I am you, then you have none and I have all the choice in the world.’

  ‘What choice do you have? What path lays before you but the one that I choose for you?’

  ‘Surely you realise, that whatever choice you make is shaped by me also, written with the same hand that I hold here now, shaped by the same mind?’

  The original me had a look across his face of superiority now, a cool glow of something thought but not earned.

  ‘You’re rambling now,‘ he said, a cold indifference in his voice, a reptilian quality that, in truth, unsettled me some. ‘You can attempt all you like to play games of the mind and run circles with your tongue, but it will do you little good in the end.’

  I looked towards the moth. It flickered.

  I felt reckless. I wanted something to happen now. Even if it be disaster, at least it would be better than this stagnant play that I was front and centre row for at present.

  ‘The end. When is it anyway? You’ve been waiting and talking while I sit at your hands, you and The Girl in the Blue Shoes. So why don’t you forward your plans into upheaval? Why don’t you bring the end and make your choice?’

  ‘But don’t you want to know my plans? Surely you’re curious at what could move me so much, move us so strongly?’ He knew the answer before he had finished asking the question. So did I. ‘And how could you not be?’ he went on, ‘being I in so many ways, the thought of such an endeavour was born before you were, the impetus for such a thing imprinted upon you.’

  But the choice I had was whether or not to act on them.

  The moth gave a jitter. A ruffle in the stagnant air told me a door outside the door that held the room I was in had opened; someone else was coming. The moth was creeping closer to the doorway, drinking in the new air, poised to dash in a flap of feathered wings. I felt too a twitch in my back, as if something was sprouting and tensing for flight, an almost animal instinct that had been laying in wait until the exact moment it was needed. And that time was now.

  Footsteps, faint but growing louder.

  That time was now. The moth twitched again, and my wrists, as bound as they were had taken on a looseness and a space now existed between my skin and the nylon strands of rope, a space that seemed to grow. And then, it stopped seeming to grow and actually grew, the rope now no longer binding me but lay across my hands like cobwebs – I was free. My heart took on the life of a racehorse and enlarged and reduced at a pace I can hardly think it had ever matched in previous races.

  The footsteps grew louder still.

  And the air turned to water and swilled and swished, and there were swells in the room that couldn’t be controlled by anyone. Not me nor I could take on the surge that began its turn right there and then, like I was caught in a whirlpool out to sea. But no one else. The original me and the Girl In The Blue Shoes both standing aloft, as shrewd as ever.

  I now knew I would have to do nothing but run, my hands now miraculously free, although still held behind the chair and behind my back, the urge to spring them out in front of me now almost going unsuppressed. Time was now everything and the only thing, the moth and I soon to be away.

  ‘As much as the surreal nature of our conversation has enlightened me, now is the time to bring it all to a rounding end,’ said the standing me.

  Time.

  ‘I assure you, you will be dealt with in the most sincere of fashions. After all, it is me we are talking about, and I am not all callousness. You must know this.’

  After he had spoken these words I turned away from me, sat still in my chair, and bent his attention elsewhere. In another movement the door was open and the moth was away, my arms springing around as soon as it had taken flight. I had the barest of time to catch the look of surprise on the face of the door opener before I had collided into him and my jailbreak was made.

  A long barren corridor, like that of the barrel of a gun, myself the bullet as I rushed with all gusto towards the single door to my north. Shouts fired their way down the corridor behind me, more bullets down the clinical barrel. These were like arrows at my tail, poison tipped and aching to plunge deep into my flesh. I grappled the door handle and wrenched the thing open, startled when one of the hinges rattled free. But I regained my composure just as swiftly, cutting to my left down another sharp but more brightly lit corridor and onto a set of stairs. My legs felt like leaden blocks already, as I tore as quickly as my limited athleticism would allow, up one flight of stairs before they died. Down another slim corridor and up another set of ancient steps, the chase still rattling on behind me, distant but clear.

  Before I had known a thing, I was back in front of the oaken door I had seen before, the strange carvings, the heated surface. But this time the door had been left ajar, the simple lock inactive. Rushing footsteps like hurtling hail suddenly stung at my ears and I dived into the room without a glimpse of the hesitation I had registered before, the darkness welcoming as I fancied a place to hide, the ways out not near, and my breath now short.

  The eerie light of before had disappeared. The place was completely dark, but cool and hard, the abundance of stone in the construction apparent, even if I could not yet see it all clearly. But my eyes were fast adjusting, like the scene was being freshly painted before me, an inky watercolour of shadows and arches, columns and a stone flagged floor. I was in a great chamber, matching with the architectural style of Christ Church, but not a space that I had ever come across in all my years at the college.

  I stumbled towards the back of the chamber, the agitation of my flight ebbing away as I took in the beauty and magnificence of my new surroundings. The realisation that I had now walked into a dead end had not yet dawned on me, too engrossed was I in what it was that I had found. But had I found it? I had now, but people had been in here. There were desks and computers stacked against one end of the chamber, looming just now in the darkness like muted soldiers, filling cabinets hulking like trolls turned to stone. Had I, the original me, found this place? And could it be the scene of the whole affair?

  A little recognition of the time of day came to me and my mind pulsed and throbbed like a heaving hive, so in turmoil with activ
ity, so turning with fear that I hardly remembered to stand upright. Blissfully, the shouts and hollers had died down, and I had put some space between me and my pursuers. In fact, there was a strange calm that fell like drizzle on the space around me, and it was too late before I realised I was cornered. So vast was the darkness of the room I was in now that I had imagined I was in a much larger degree of space than was the reality of the situation. I back-stepped a fair distance, the edges of my vision blurring, the pain emanating from the wound on my leg suddenly giving its all, imploring me to stop, to sit, to rest.

  A rat, I was cornered, sat down or stood up. And as I moved away further from where I had entered, there came a gentle glow on the floor, a blue-white hue coaxing me to turn around. I turned, and saw, what was surely the portal, the doorway that the original me had spoken of.

  It was only now that I noticed the ceiling of the room I was in, or more accurately the chamber, was deeply vaulted, the style lush and intricate. There were columns too, mostly running along the walls, standing to attention like stone soldiers. At the very depths of the chamber was a similarly fashioned arch, from which was resonating the ghostly hue. I approached it like an animal to a likely trap, my steps now focused but tentative. It looked like smoke, but not so. Akin to a gentle mist, but with a certain rigidity that left me with no doubt that it was there; this was no trauma induced hallucination or daydream.

  ‘Stop right where you are!’ I had arrived. And so had the other me, the real me. But I was real. Who was to say that I wasn’t more real than him?