The Tornados That Pass Us By.

This is a story I wrote recently.


They say we all have a twin out there. A ‘face-double’, so to speak. A myth ? Perhaps. Naina had always wondered and often reflected on what her reaction would be if she ever met hers.
Would there be a reunion for the ages, like in old films – tears and all ? She pictured something like this. After all, you were conditioned to believe what you saw, though the rational side of her quipped up as always, with a far more logical observation that you would hardly run to embrace someone you had never met before, even if they were your ‘twin’. Hell, Naina would probably turn and run in the opposite direction and demand to have her prescription for insomnia checked.

Pulling herself out of her reverie, she glanced at the blinking monster that startled her awake every morning and observed with dismay that it was already two o’clock in the morning. She has to be awake AND fresh in four hours from now to prepare for presentation and she hadn’t even finished it yet.

Feeling a need to push her mindless thoughts away, Naina padded to the kitchen and whipped up a tall glass of cold coffee. Ah, caffeine – the necessary evil for all these late sleepless nights. She looked out f her window while drinking it and watched the colors flickering outside. It was fairly filled up considering how late it was. People strolling up and down, cars crawling along at their own pace. There was a certain languor in all their movements, sort of dreamlike. It was quite entrancing to watch.
She finished her coffee and after managing to finish her work, fell into a deep slumber, dreaming of falling down a shaft of swirling color.
- *****

It was the Saturday afternoon after her presentation for her film class which had gone off brilliantly. Naina was in high spirits and decided to head to Sarojini Nagar market and brows around a bit to blow off some steam.
Oh, how she loved street markets ! In the bursts of color, the calls of local vendors, the bargaining and the throngs of people, there lay a certain alluring Delhi charm, found nowhere else.
She amused herself by looking at scarves and some other kick-knacks. More than the clothes, the melting pot of people grabbed her attention.
Where could that tiny yet surprisingly loud foreign girl be from ?
What was that young east-Indian boy’s story?
If it wouldn’t earn her strange looks, she would definitely ask.
As she strolled on, taking in the hustle and bustle, woven together with all the color, she spotted at antique store. The store display caught her attention and she ventured in to check it out.
It was an ancient store, but that only added to its beauty. Quaint and forgotten, it was filled with antique clocks and artifacts, along with a section filled with books at the back.
Naina made a beeline for it after wandering around in the shop for a bit and took in the familiar smell of books and smiled to herself.
She was browsing through the shelves when upon hearing a voice, she froze. It wasn’t what the person said that caught her attention, but more what the voice sounded like. It was uncannily similar to her own. Burning with curiosity, Naina peeked through the shelves to catch a glimpse of the speaker at the front desk and almost fainted.
She felt like she had fallen into one of her bizarre dreams. She was currently looking at a mirror image of herself. A face-double. A twin.
Naina stood there, a thousand questions dancing around her head in a wild frenzy. Her numbness kept them at bay and she could barely process what she was seeing. She sunk to the floor eventually and stayed there long after the mystery girl had gone. She wondered who the girl was, should she have confronted her and finally left the shop, chuckling at her own stupidity. The girl was nothing but a manifestation of last night’s musings combined with sleep deprivation.
She hailed an auto, and sat enjoying the cool monsoon breeze on her face as she went home. Little did she know that this very auto had hit a young woman just fifteen minutes ago. A young woman who was now at the local clinic, tending to her leg – the twin she had almost met.