Underneath the Canopy

I remember my dog barking, early, when the morning dew was just collecting, dripping and moistening every surface of the deck on the front porch of my cabin.

The morning was chilly, the sun shone languidly through the thick foliage of the canopy of trees overhead. The creek just a few yards away babbled and made its way to wherever it was headed.

The man was steadily approaching my cabin that morning, coming from just beyond the crest of a hill. Each of his steps crunched through the thick underbrush, his well-fitting black slacks drew streaks of mud and twigs as he clumsily made his way. Somewhere along the way, he had managed to tear a couple of holes in his once neat and proper dress shirt. His leather shoes were scuffed and soaked.

I awoke in a sweat, my heart beating intensely as I sat up in my bed. I had yet to have a visitor in this neck of the woods, so I grabbed my hunting rifle and steadily made my way towards the front door.

I remember yelling towards the entrance, announcing that I was on my way and getting no response. I told the dog to be still and opened my door slightly to get a glance at who it was.

It was me.

Not in a metaphorical, spiritual, or metaphysical sense; what stood before me was myself. Not a mirrored reflection, but the same man, at least in physical form. A near exact reproduction of myself, save for the clothes and other small details.

His hair was shorter, well-kept and brushed off to the side, his face was cleanshaven. Far removed from the scruff I had managed to grow during the past months. The rest of his attire was business-like and formal, complete with a navy blue blazer. Aside from the grime and detritus of the forest, he looked as if he came straight from a world of money and prosperity. He looked like me, but he sure hadn’t lived as I did.

We stared at one another for a few moments before he spoke up, “I’m glad I found you.”

Sensing the shock I had endured, he continued on before I could reply to him. “You must be wondering what’s going on, trust me, I’m as clueless as you are. I remember hitting the sack last night and waking in a cold sweat by drops of water, falling on me from the trees above. And I was here.”

“You’re me,” I recall saying, slackjawed as I buttoned up my thick deerskin coat. He pushed his way inside the cabin past me and gave my dog a pat on the head. The dog was especially quiet now.

“I’m starving, do you have anything to eat? I’ve been walking for hours, I feel I’m about to fall over,” he said to me and sat himself on my most comfortable recliner.

He kept to himself while I prepared breakfast in the kitchen, unsure of what else to do in such a situation. I managed to glance at him as he peered about the cabin room and petted my do; he seemed nervous, about what I was not sure. When the food was finished I placed our meals at my small dining table, he joined me and he dug in.

He shoveled the food into his mouth as if it were the first meal he had eaten in days. I don’t recall any food even coming close to my lips by the time he had nearly cleared half his plate. He noticed, stopped eating and looked at me, “Not hungry?” I remained silent. “I know this is weird, but you still gotta eat, don’t you?”

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Same as yours,” he said.

We discussed trivialities: parents’ names, siblings, childhood pets, birthplace: all the same. We were two of a kind, existing at the same place, at the same moment in time. The kind of anomalous existence I only thought possible in books of fantasy and tales of amazing adventure and myth. Yet here we were. Eating breakfast.

“How did you find me? Or know to come here?” I asked him, motioning to the cabin around us.

“I didn’t, I just started walking, I guess I was drawn here, I suppose I’m supposed to be here. As you can tell by the way I look, I don’t exactly belong out here,” he said. He took a big sip of his coffee, the steam rose and fogged the lenses of his glasses. With the majority of the food now off the table and in his stomach, I remember the smell of sulfur coming from his clothing, parts of which I noticed seemed to be discolored by some form of fire or heat. But there had been no fires as of late, least of all during these months when the rain seemed limitless.

“What happened to you here?” I asked, pointing out a burnt spot on the arm of his blazer.

He remained quiet for a moment and looked out the rear window of the cabin. “I lied to you, when I said I went to bed last night. I was at work before I arrived….here, wherever here is.”

“Where do you work?” I asked him.

“Real estate. I’m pretty good at it too. Or was. I’m not exactly proud of what I did to get where I did, but there’s winners and losers in every story, right? No sense in crying over it now.”

“You ripped people off? So, I’m a scumbag who fleeces people out of their hard-earned money in some alternate reality?” I remember asking.

“You can call it however you see it. Whatever’s done has been done. Anyway, yeah that’s where I was. Just closed a major deal. Then a flash of light, the whitest heat around me, scorched my clothes, knocked me out. And I woke up here. Then something inside told me to start walking. Then I found the cabin.”

I don’t recall asking him anymore questions after that. He seemed tired and lost in thought after our talk at the table. He said he needed to rest and proceeded to take a nap on a couch in the living room. I decided I’d clear my mind and took my leave of the cabin. I headed out to check on the handful of game traps I had set the night prior.

I arrived a few hours later to find him, myself, at work behind the cabin. Shovel in hand, he was digging a large hole, at the bottom of which was a soft bed of fallen leaves and twigs. I asked him what he was doing that afternoon, he said it took his mind off things when he busied himself. He stopped as soon as I questioned him and went back into the cabin.

Back inside, his weariness seemed even more apparent. “Are you a good person?” he asked me. His question threw me off guard and I remember struggling to find an answer as I sat myself down in a chair.

“I think so, I have done some things I’m not proud of, like most people. Only god can judge me,” I said.

“So you believe in god, you think he’s why you’re here?” he asked.

“I never said that, I really don’t know. I know I needed to be alone for a while,” I replied.

“Is that why you’re out here? What are you hiding from?” he said.

I felt a heat grow inside me and my mind began to race at his line of questioning. I began to worry about how much this mysterious twin truly knew of me. “How do you know I’m hiding from anything at all?” I said.

“I don’t, but this seems like an awfully remote place to be. I just need to know if whatever it is you’re hiding from, it’s for good reason.”

“To me it is,” I said. “What about you? All the damage you must have caused, are you going to tell me it doesn’t keep you up at night?”

“Almost every night,” he said.

We parted ways that afternoon. He asked if he could take a few cans of food and water to make his way. I obliged him. He didn’t ask for directions to the nearest town or highway, not that I could tell him, as I didn’t know. He just left and walked back in the direction he had come. I read a couple chapters of a book I was working on, thumbed my way through an old magazine I’d skimmed through countless times and sat by the hearth as the evening wore on.

I remember struggling to sleep that night as I had the most vivid dreams. I saw my parents, relived memories with loved ones I had lost, and ones I deprived myself of. My mind wandered from scene to scene as my subconscious made me relive every tableau; beautiful and horrific.

I awoke in the dead of night to something poking my ribcage.

It was myself again. The room was dark, only illuminated by whatever moonlight managed to make it past the trees. There stood my duplicate, wide awake, back in the cabin, looming over me.

“Please, get up,” he said.

I did as he said, he continued to prod me with the cold steel of a rifle barrel. He led me into the living room, the dog slept in the corner, completely unbothered by the events unfolding in our home. He led me past the living room, past the table where we had dined and past the kitchen where I had supplied him. I recalled leaving my rifle by the door that morning when I had met him, as expected, it was no longer there.

Outside the cabin it was frigid and wet. I shivered and every breath brought an exhalation of vapor that glistened in the moonlight. He brought me to the hole he had been working on earlier, now larger. He asked me to kneel. I did as he asked.

It was then I noticed he was wearing my deerskin coat, along with several other items that were far more fitting for the environment I had currently been living in. All clothing pilfered from my closet.

“Put on the clothes in there,” he said and pulled out a flashlight that illuminated the ominous hole before me. At the bottom were his black mudstained slacks, dress shoes, dress shirt and blazer. He had swapped one wardrobe for another.

“Why are you doing this?” I remember asking, “What have I ever done to you?”

“Nothing,” he said. “But we can’t both be here, right now, together. I know why I’m here, you’ll understand soon. I hope you will.”

“I don’t understand, don’t do this,” I pleaded.

“We’re both bad people, I know this. We’re both running from something, somewhere in time. Maybe all of us are running. All of me. But right here, this has to happen. Maybe then we can find peace,” he said.

That cool night I remember losing the will to beg for my life. Something about this chance encounter with my doppelganger had crushed my will to continue fighting. I had fought through what seemed like every moment of my life. From my time as a boy I battled my way through illness. I went toe-to-toe with the kids in the schoolyard, only to come home and fight my father’s hands away from my mother’s throat.

I quarreled with my teachers and those who knew what was best for me; I lacked the wisdom to know any better then. I struggled my way through adolescence and survived several foster homes after my father inevitably won the war for my mother’s life. My endless struggle with violence, followed me like a shadow, on into adulthood and drove me deeper and deeper down a path I couldn’t claw my way out of.

All my past deeds must have put me in the position I was in at that night.

A second chance with the divine brought me to the cabin I had called home for the last few months. I never bothered to leave its isolated confines; I had no reason to. I was grateful for it, even though it always felt like only a temporary layover on the way to my true destination.

So I hid in these woods like a hunted animal. Awaiting something; or someone to come and find me from the underbrush.

I decided to stop fighting just before the gunshot went off. Pain shot forth from my chest, then another shot. Two for good measure and I slumped into the hole my twin had prepared, it fit me like a glove. The blood from my chest soaked the white dress shirt and trickled down along my sides as I rolled over onto my back, dampening the bed of leaves beneath me. I remember staring straight up through the canopy, lost in a trance. There was an opening in the thick tree coverage that gave way to a beautiful view of the star-strewn sky.

Just as I slipped into the ether, the distinct smell of sulfur again, and I was gone.

As cruel as it may have been, I knew I needed to end his, my, suffering. I’ve honestly grown tired of trying to wrap my mind around why I was brought here. I did what I needed to do, we couldn’t coexist, not here at least. Even so, I still hear him sometimes, talking to me, little whispers in my mind. An ominous voice, growing ever more present with each passing week.

I soldier on anyway, because I feel I have been given a second chance, a new means of righting a ship that had gone astray so long ago, wherever that is now. It no longer matters, because I am here now, I have my cabin, my dog, my rifle, my peace of mind. At least that’s what I tell myself to make the voices quiet down just enough for me to sleep.

Some months had gone by when I heard a knock at the cabin door one morning.

I died in a ditch that night, but at least I was staring up at the stars.