The Good Life

He had been up here a hundred times and not once had he ever considered the need to leap the short distance between these two buildings. The two brick structures, built some time in the late 1800s, stood shoulder-to-shoulder, separated by a damp, dingy alleyway.

During the last century-and-a-bit, a series of pipes were laid between the rooftops, crossing the alley like shoelaces. It's entirely possible that at some point the active imagination of this building's owner got the better of them and they had installed gruesome-looking spikes to stop petty criminals or foreign spies from running or riding motorcyles between the two towers via the pipes.

Steam billowed, as it always did, from the ducts that led all the way down to the kitchens. It always smelt of palm sugar and olive oil and reminded him of safer, quieter times here on the roof.

To his right, the harbour. Nobody would find him if he went into the water. Or the mud. To his left, the busy Conlins Road. Far too wide to leap, way too high to hope for a landing that wouldn't break every bone in his body.

Maybe he could aim for the sleek black Audi in which he had arrived. He knew that was madness because the roof was quite hard last time he rapped his knuckles on it. There was just one way out of this. Well, half a way out. If he could clear the gap, so could his pursuer.

His pursuer was the same size, weight and approximate fitness level as he was, or at least he thought so. It had been a year since they last met and you know how it is when there's a long time between drinks - you forget that their life has moved on, too.

He returned his gaze to the opposite rooftop. He noted how long it took for the drops of water leaking from the pipes to hit the puddles in the laneway below. He imagined a watermelon landing from the same height, bursting open and disgorging itself over a wide area. At least his death would be quick.

Quick, unless he didn't quite make it and bounced off the opposite wall. He would slide down the rough old brickwork, instinctively scrabbling for any handhold, skinning his hands and knees and elbows. He'd land eventually, less spectacularly but way more painfully. This was an unappealing prospect. Comfortable lives should include a comfortable death, he thought to himself. That's the rule.

With his success, he had developed the mindset that if you wanted something enough, you would get it.

That's the story you tell a packed auditorium that they too can be wealthy like you if they just believed in themselves and followed you on Instgram.

That is alarmingly easy to believe when you are spectacularly wealthy, which he was. He had a little black book full of cheat codes to thank for that. Which his pursuer wanted.

The top hinge on the access door broke, the iron bar he had used to prop it shut clattering to the ground.

He would need a run-up. He backed away from the edge, peering over his shoulder.

Five years earlier

Paul squirted too much oil at the well-heated wok in front of him, the whoomp catching his colleagues unawares as the evening wound down. He was making himself a late-night snack and just as his self-satisfied smile faded, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

"Jenkins," hissed the boss. "Delivery for you."

He knew what it was. At least he thought he did. Every year on their wedding anniversary, his wife Teresa would come to work with the cheapest, nastiest gift she could find. They didn't have the money for anything fancy, so made the best of it by laughing instead of despairing.

The source of these gifts was invariable the back alleys of Chinatown and every year Teresa would plumb its depths for the cheapest, absolutely the worst gift she could find because it's the thought that counts. Paul agreed. The effort she put in was staggering and warmed his heart.

The restaurant was empty apart from Emma who was going through the evening's credit card receipts and cash takings to uncover some money-laundering opportunities.

It wasn't much of a place, a regular haunt for delivery riders and warring drivers from both sides of the rideshare/taxicab divide. It was mostly good-natured, but each corner had its huddles of lycra-clad bicyclists with massive backpacks, casually-dressed rideshare steerers and official cab drivers with their stained uniforms.

But now, after closing time, just after one in the morning, the tables were empty and cleared of cutlery and dirty plates. Paul looked to Emma, the cashier, who pointed to the nearest table.

Wiping her hands on her apron, she retreated to the bathroom leaving him alone with Teresa's hard-won kitschy horror, always bought for less than a fiver and the energy of a vigorous negotiation.

Carefully aligned on the table was a small black notebook. Unless Teresa had resorted to shoplifting, this was far more than a fiver. This was a quality item. Paul knew that from the luxurious texture. He opened the front cover to find heavy stock paper, fit for the glorious extravagance of a fountain pen.

The door to the street opened and without looking up, Paul called out, "Sorry, we're closed."

He heard the footsteps come his way the short distance from the inward-swinging door. He detected the familiar footfall-slip-footfall-slip of each step over the greasy, end-of-service floor. It was that kind of place.

Before Paul could look up, an identical black notebook landed on the table opposite his and the interloper took a seat. Thinking it might be Teresa, he looked up with a smile across his face and went to launch himself across the table to kiss her.

"Woah there, champ," said a strange voice.

Paul looked up and found himself looking into a mirror. Except he wasn't. He was facing an identical twin that he was quite sure he didn't have. The voice was strange in that way you don't recognise yourself listening back to a recording.

His opposite was dressed in a crisp white collared shirt, a discreet logo on the cuffs suggesting great expense.

"Who are you?" Paul eventually managed.

"Me," his opposite smirked back.

"What?"

"Me. And you. We're me."

"Well that clears that up," said Paul nervously.

"I'm you. From the future."

Paul snorted. "Good one."

"Let me show you," he said, opening the book. It was filled with handwriting he recognised as his own. "It's a journal of the last twelve months. It's for you to read over before we swap."

"Swap?"

"Tonight, I delivered this book to you. I wake up tomorrow morning and I'll do this whole year again and come here and meet you. Except the book is full of all the news of the year ahead - stock market information, property prices, cryptocurrency, the lot."

Paul winced at the tortured tenses. He looked at himself with the scepticism of a high school teacher who had just heard the answer, "Nobody" to the question "Who filled my drawer with Mountain Dew?"

"No, really. You lived this whole year and wrote everything down and I bring it back to you. I woke up tomorrow morning and had all I needed to know to make a ton of money."

"I don't have any money."

The other Paul placed a briefcase on the table. "Yeah you do."

Paul screwed up his face. "This is very silly."

"What have you got to lose? You take this book, I take that one. You take this half a million dollars, I go back to my...dimension, I guess. In a year, we swap, you live a year of the good life. Rinse. Repeat."

"You're talking rubbish."

"Tonight, you'll go up to the roof like you do every night of your miserable life and eat those noodles. You'll read this notebook. You'll make the right choices. You'll become me and we repeat the process. We are never, ever going to be poor again."

Five years later

He sat waiting for the swap, facing the door. Back to the Bad Life tomorrow. The grind of the kitchens, the kids, Teresa juggling three jobs and her sick mother. The tiny house with the cracks in the walls.

The Paul who would walk in from the kitchen, dressed for the Bad Life, would hand him the book, fall asleep with Teresa in their little shack and wake up in the mansion or the ranch with her and then spend a year being rich. Everyone's a winner.

"Happy anniversary," smiled Paul.

"You too. How is she?"

"Tired," Paul replied.

"You?"

"Also tired," he beamed.

"You seem happy."

"Yep. I am."

"Why?"

Paul shook his head. "You're not going to believe it."

"Believe what."

"What I'm about to tell you."

"Oh?"

"I hate you. I hate your Good Life and I hate everything about it.I hate what you've done to us. Teresa hates us and is sleeping with our best friend."

"I'm you!" Good Life Paul protested.

"Not anymore you're not. I'm out."

"What do you mean out?"

"Finished. Done. No more cheating."

"How is this cheating?"

Paul shrugged. "It just is. I don't know how it started, but I want to finish it."

"Oh, good grief," sighed other Paul. "You think this is a teachable moment in our lives, some kind of fever dream to tell us the grass isn't greener?"

"That's exactly what it is. Every year we swap and all I hear is that the helicopter's rotors are the wrong colour or the weather in the Bahamas was beastly. You're not me anymore."

"This is what happens to you when I get rich. I am you."

"I don't like you. I like this me."

The other Paul leaned back in his chair. "You're bluffing."

"I'm not." He threw a neatly folded mongrammed handkerchief on the table.

Other Paul opened it. It was filled with ashes.

"It isn't..."

"It is. You and I both know that this book is what made all this happen."

"Then how do I still have my copy?"

"Give it to me."

Other Paul smiled wryly. "That's not going to happen."

In a flash he was on his feet, flipping the table into Paul's face. He made for the outside door but the table and himself were in the way. He turned and ran, through the kitchens and up the stairs.

He ran the five storeys of stairs faster than he had ever run anything before. He heard the squeak of Paul's knock-off kitchen Crocs on the stairs.

He burst through door and on to the roof, slamming it behind him. Grabbing an iron bar that had fallen from an old water tank's inspection railing and propped it against the door to delay himself.

Running towards the edge, he considered whether he might make it across. Just as he backed up for the run-up, Paul was right there, a firm grip hand on his neat white collar.

"No. That's not how this ends." Paul turned his captive self to face him.

"You really mean this, don't you?"

"I'm staying," Paul replied. "Here I have love."

"Love!" he shouted. "The whole world loves us. We make them believe."

"We lie to them!" Paul growled.

"But it's not you, it's me! In my timeline, I'm the face of the scam!"

Paul shrugged.

"How do you know killing me will end this? How do you know you don't die too?"

Paul stared at his doppelganger. He relaxed his grip. "You're right. Damn you. You're right."

He straightened other Paul's shirt. Without warning, Teresa barged past and shoved other Paul into the darkness.

She turned and smiled at him. "Happy anniversary, darling." She paused for a moment. "Wait, you're the good one, right?"