Writer Unblocked

by Rachel H Grant

The day dawned clear.

It was a new day, cloudy with doubt …

 

Nervously Audrey checked her watch, 7am on the dot, perfectly on time. It was a day like no other. This was it, the start of her new life. Promotion at work, the Office Manager! At 23, she felt, with a secret smile, that she was doing rather well.

Baker Street. Every morning she traversed its ancient cobbled body, shivering like a moving snake in the early morning shadow. This was her sacred me time, content in contemplation, on this short walk to work. A time to forget…

… To forget the past.

…to remember the future. In another time, a secret place just a few millimetres away, Audrey skipped in time to the erratic beat of her ipod. This was it. The start of her new life. Unemployment retreated, head down, to the past, as the future peeped out from behind the clouds of yesterday. A new job as Office Administrator, reporting to the wonderfully  glamorous Office Manager, she remembered her well from the interview. A brilliant battle to impress beckoned … It was time. 7am. A brand new day.

 

…to run and embrace the future. Audrey walked faster. Her vision blurred. The grey cobbles shifted beneath her feet. The day grew darker as the sun disappeared. Someone was skipping behind her. Slowly she turned round, a dream-like feeling infusing her head with hidden foreboding. A confused face stared in to her own, eyes a question that knew no answer.

She was looking at herself.

The woman in front of her could not be. Mirror eyes confronted her own, accusingly. An identical suit jacket tightly clutched the small frame. High heels nervously rocked on the cobbles.

“Hello.” The voice came from nowhere, then she realised it was her who had spoken. “Hello?”

Suddenly confusion evaporated in to the clouds of tomorrow. This felt right. Of course, she was facing her twin soul, her alter ego. Meant to be … meant to meet, synchronicity in perfect symmetry.

 

The girl was speaking. “Audrey,” she mouthed reluctantly, as growing understanding sighed in her eyes.  “Audrey … is it you?”

Impossibly, feelings of familiarity were strangling her senses. She could have known this stranger all her life. This was her friend, the imaginary friend of her childhood fantasies, the best friend she had never had. Better than a sister, in those eyes she beheld all the understanding, all the self-acceptance she would ever need. Her bridesmaid in waiting, her soul sister, the most loyal of friends … her own shadow.

The girl slowly answered, her eyes floating with the clouds, her smile from the sun. “I am Audrey.” The answer, simple, contained an eternity of explanation.

“I am Audrey too.”

They regarded each other in silent complicity.

“Are you starting a new job today too?” She had understood: this was no mere look-a-like, this was her literal double, this was all she ever could be, all she ever wanted to be … and all she feared.

“Yes – a promotion to Office Manager.”

“Oh!” Disappointment darkened her features. “I’m starting a role that’s not much more than an office junior…”

“Then one day you will be an Office Manager too.”

They stared in to each other’s eyes, an undercurrent of understanding uniting them, pulling them under the surface to a whole new subsea world, a place where the unlikely, the impossible … it could all be.

“What, what company?” The words felt like a challenge to this new world. And it did not disappoint…

 

It was decided. Fate fingered their timid indecision and tossed it ruthlessly aside. They would walk to the office – their office – together.

Clouds gathered above as the day grew darker. The promise of rain touched them, an oath to dissolving their hidden selves, to utterly knowing oneself. In each other, they could find themselves, and they would…

But not today. It was time to work…

… crossing the threshold of her new office. A time to play, a time to cry … a time to clone your career. Audrey hoped she would meet the Office Manager who had interviewed her, who had ignited a fiery admiration, this was a woman she could aspire to be, as she walked next to the woman she already was.

Astonished faces gazed at the twins facing them. “I am Audrey, the new office junior,” she mumbled. “This is Audrey,” her new friend explained, at the same time, speaking over each other, too quick to slow down. “The new office junior, who I will be delighted to induct in my new role…”

Words froze on their lips, as a confident woman with died auburn hair strolled slowly down the middle  of the office. She was frowning, intense with anger. “Who are you both and what are you doing here?”

“I work here!” Audrey squeaked next to her. “And today I’ve become the Office Manager…”

“You are no Office Manager!” shouted the woman. Her eyes were their own, her features what theirs could be with a layer of lipstick and mascara. “I am Audrey, the PA, and I know everything about this office, all the new staff there ever were, and I can tell you, you’re not on the list. Who put you up to this? Freak out Audrey day, send two look-a-likes to her office to stun her. Was it my ex George? And how did he find you?”

Anger arced from her eyes, and blinded them.

 

It was time to leave. In her first day as Office Manager she must take control. “We are going,” she declared, taking Audrey’s hand and rapidly retreating towards the door. “This is just a mistake…”

“How dare you come here to trick me!” Audrey of the heavy make-up screamed.

But the door was behind them, a world of sanity in the street beyond.

She hoped. They were both in the wrong world, an alternate reality where they did not exist, where this woman with her dynamite glamour had taken their place. There could only really be one Audrey … and it was not them.

“What do we do now?” she asked gently, seeing the pain in her sister’s eyes. “We wait,” was her answer. “Somehow this will resolve itself…”

“But how…?” As if in answer, the light grew brighter. The sun was out, suddenly and completely. “Audrey …” But her friend was no longer there.

She looked back at the office. A sign proclaiming “A New Job!” hung in the window. That had not been there before. Slowly she walked to the glass door and looked in. There was no sign of Barbie Doll Audrey. A young man near the door noticed her and waved her in. Cautiously she crossed the threshold. “Audrey! Welcome to your new job!”

Her normal world was back. She smiled. “I didn’t think anyone would go to all this effort for an office junior…”

The man laughed, his green eyes grinning. “That’s a good one, coming from our new Office Manager! Welcome to the world of promotion, Audrey.”

She stopped smiling.

 

THE OFFICE CHANGED BEFORE HER EYES. PEOPLE HAD MOVED, THEY WERE NOT WHERE THEY HAD BEEN TWO MINUTES AGO. AND THEN NORMAN SPOKE. “OUR NEW OFFICE JUNIOR! I DIDN’T SEE YOU COME IN…”

AUDREY WAS TOO ANGRY TO LAUGH, THEN WITH CUTTING CLARITY SHE REALISED HE WAS NOT JOKING.

A WOMAN WAS APPROACHING HER. “I AM MELANIE, THE PA TO THE DIRECTOR HERE.”

A SCREAM STARTED DEEP INSIDE, DRUMS IN HER HEAD, AND THEN HER MOUTH OPENED AND SHE KNEW SHE COULD NOT STOP.

PERHAPS IF SHE CLOSED HER EYES … THE SCREAM WOULD END.

Audrey entered her office. Norman jumped up. “Our PA! I’ve been waiting for you, there’s an urgent matter to …”

“PA?” repeated Audrey.

And then she began to smile. The humour in her head died as it touched her lips.

But she kept smiling anyway.

 

The next day dawned cloudy, but today no doubts remained. She had a new life, and she would embrace it with all her soul … she would do her sister proud.

Audrey awoke the morning after to a stunning sunset, reds and oranges throwing a child’s paint across the sky, singing with glee. She smiled. Life could only get better.

SHE AWOKE IN HER UGLY APARTMENT – WHERE WERE ALL HER HOME IMPROVEMENTS? THEN SHE REMEMBERED. SHE LOOKED AT THE SUN SHINING THROUGH THE CURTAINS, AND SCREAMED.

It was a new day, a new street … and two twin souls in separate universes were destined to meet. Life continued on its crazy course, humour in its curving contours, fate in its firm hands. The sun shone on a reality so frail you could almost perceive the hidden worlds at its edges … but time ticked on, solidly, as if nothing were wrong.  They say everyone has a double, but that you should never meet. Destiny had a hundred days to play with … and she had chosen this one.