Doppelgänger

A Memoir of Mirrored Selves by David K. Leff

One: A First Doubling

He grabbed my arm and swung me over his head like a human lasso. Dizzily I went round and round, the world contracting to the tightness of his grip, the vortical breeze of rotation. Like the carnival Tilt-A-Whirl ride we’d shared a month earlier, everything around me seemed to spin in a fleeting, woozy blur—gray and black checked couch, glass-top coffee table, the television’s small green rectangle in a large blond wood box.

Suddenly he let go and I flew through the air, slamming against the plaster wall. I don’t remember the impact or falling, but when finally I opened my eyes my mother was standing over me screaming hysterically, tears streaming down reddened cheeks. “You’ve killed him!” she screeched at my father. “You’ve killed him!”

I was barely six years old. With the wind knocked out of me I couldn’t talk or move. The world slowly spun as I looked up at Mom, her face a trembling knot of fear and pain. I saw two of her. For the next couple of hours, there was …