The Short Story That Piqued My Interest

Normally it would be hard for some people to read a simple book nowadays. Therefore, this is why many writers tend or focused onto writing short stories for a start along piquing the interest of the readers. As they want to quench their thirst for new input rather than overwhelming them. I was not always a fan for short stories however this one story had stood out from the rest in the shelves. The story that I had my hands on was at the ripe age of 15; the title of the story was 'How I Met Myself'. The title itself was simple yet intriguing to any reader including myself.

   The story started off with a young Englishman named John Taylor. He worked as a computer programmer in Hungary. On a wintery evening, John was on his way to work but suddenly was knocked the wind over by a man into the cold snow. It was as if the man was running for a marathon. They both got up and the man apologised to him in Hungarian. However, what John saw made him look as pale as ghost. The man who knocked him was a spitting image of himself. He felt as if he was looking through a mirror. The unknown man ran but the peculiar thing was there were no footprints left behind in the snow.

   As the hours went by, all John could think was about the haunting incident which left him shaken in fear but also in a sea of curiosity. He did several research and findings about the history of the country, in order to find out about the man and the links to any incidents that happened there. He even returned to the area where the encounter happened. John knew it was not from pure coincidence thus something might have happened to bring him to this situation to the extent of his 'doppelgänger' appearing. 

   Finally, he made a break. He found the crucial information from a writing of a tragic event that had happened on the day of liberation. The day where the country received the freedom from the German occupation. The look-alike was identified as Janos Szabo. He was heading back home from a tiring day from work however what he saw was no man had expected. His apartment was on fire and his family perished from that fire. 

   Then everything clicked, he rushed to his apartment and the same tragic incident happened. However, he knew what would go down if he had sat still, so he went through the flames to save his family. All the while John was feeling grateful that his doppelgänger appeared, because if he had not appeared; the history would be repeating itself. In the end, he saved his wife and child and that was the end of the story.

   The story left a good impression on me and has inspired me to write stories myself. Anything related to historical and supernatural content has always been my go-to therefore at some point in time I too wished to have a look-alike myself. I do hope others could feel the same way as myself to be inspired from all these readings to get our imaginations running. You only live once however through books you live thousands of years.