Identity
By Jeff Sieniewicz
Copyright 2011 Jeff Sieniewicz, All rights reserved.
Identity
by Jeff Sieniewicz
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com http://www.eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0609-1
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
— Carl Sagan
“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.”
— Douglas Adams
Chapter One
Ultimately, the most oppressive element in life for all of us is the inability to control our own path in this world. Throughout each of our lives, external forces that rob us of command over our own destiny frequently shape the way. Often this personal injustice is carried out by events that at the time appear minor, yet subsequently have crucial consequences.
If any of these uncontrollable events in our lives were to take place in a different order, or not at all, each of us would then find ourselves navigating a completely different path than we otherwise do. Sometimes these unintended changes in direction work out for the better, sometimes for the worse, and other times they result in a mix of each. In the case of Frank Dopler, the outcome of his life’s sudden and uncontrollable shift in course would apparently be all for the worse.
At the time, this sudden shift for the worse was in the immediate future for Frank Dopler. At least for this particular Frank Dopler it was, but being completely unaware of these impending changes, he went about his Friday morning groggy due to lack of sleep, yet as always he was filled with an underlying serenity and happiness. Feeling precisely the same as his cosmic twin was while going about his own morning in the same manner. And much like every other morning in recent memory, the happiness of each of these Franks was fueled greatly by having his newly wed wife and young child with him.
Both Friday mornings progressed together perfectly in sync, with pancakes and a running conversation between spouses. Each morning matching the other’s in every step with precisely the same pace, and both Franks were equally happy with their lives as they began their day.
In fact, life for both of these Frank Doplers had been on a constantly ascending plane for quite some time now. Both were frequently discovering newfound heights of success, especially recently, and each doing so at the same stage in their life as the other. This was not surprising since their lives had been duplicates of the other’s from birth, both constantly riding along the identical wave on the surface of existence, all the while clueless someone else was matching them every move of the way in a world eerily similar to their own.
This second Frank Dopler is not better, not worse, but unbelievably a biological facsimile of the original, if not the original himself.
While traversing the same river through life, separated by less than either would have ever believed, they had been carried by the same current around every bend and over every rapid side by cosmic side. So far the journey they had taken together yet separately had been more than just pleasurable, it had been ideal. This Friday, however, as they both went about their most similar of mornings, they were nearing a fork in the river of life. For the very first time, they would part. Our Frank Dopler would go left, the other right, neither having had any say nor awareness that up until now they had a cosmic twin, and neither doing anything now to propel themselves down drastically different paths to their separate and ultimate fates. Yet, that is precisely what would happen.
Each Frank would soon kiss his wife named Sarah goodbye as she left on her hiking trip. The difference being that one Sarah would return in a few days, and the other would not. This divergence would be set in motion merely by a step or two over the course of seconds, yet the result, impossible to anticipate, would be felt forever.
Proving once again how we don’t get to control which way the winds of fate blow us, who or what comes along with us for the ride, or sometimes more importantly, who or what doesn’t.
In this gust of fate providence would apparently go right, making it most regrettable for our Frank Dopler that he was just that. The waters waiting for him to the left beyond the fork in the river would be nothing like those before. They would be rougher, more hazardous, and in places in danger of drying up altogether. Everything for him was about to change, while his counterpart’s journey to the right would certainly continue on as smoothly as ever, undoubtedly moving onward and upward as it had always done. Just as it had once done for our Frank Dopler, all the while implicitly promising to do so forever.
A promise that would soon be broken, as his path was about to contain the sudden death of his newly wed wife Sarah, as well as the loss of their cherished young son Johnathon, leaving Frank a life filled with despair and without purpose.
On the bright side, however, our Frank Dopler need not fret. Not only because doing so would be as useless as it always is, but because in the grand scheme of things it will not be long before he will have the chance to take the place of that second Frank Dopler. The one who went to the right beyond the cosmic split. The more fortunate one.
An opportunity that will be given to our Frank Dopler by none other than a servant of cosmic law enforcement.
Chapter Two
To the left, the course was set early and often, and it took merely one moment and one step to go chillingly wrong.
“Just one moment, I’ll be right back,” Sarah had called out to her friends and the rest of the group that afternoon, while she took just one apparently innocuous step off the marked path.
Away from the group and unknowingly away from Frank, her son Johnathon, and the life she had quickly grown to know and love. Yet, at the time, who could have blamed her? The view that she had been drawn to was one of the most spectacular she had ever seen. And besides, she would be gone only for one moment, and so she took just one more step toward it.
Then another step, followed by another, with her eyes focusing on the ever so soft yet ever so hard, the ever so warm while ever so cold view. The view of the sharp jagged edges of the nearest mountain jutting up, the sunshine brighter than she could believe reflecting off the snow covered tops causing it to melt and form streams under the snow. Streams that flowed continuously down the mountain until they emerged from the snow above to run down through the greens and browns of the lower slopes. Finally they would deposit their water in the river that lined the ravine between the two mountains. All of it had taken a transfixed Sarah’s breath away.
Sarah had just kept walking that afternoon for only a few minutes before attempting to turn back, without a thought to how she would. But, who could have blamed her at the time?
Regardless of blame, that one step is all it took for Sarah to be gone. Gone for good, except without the
