The Man Who Copied My Commute

On Monday I noticed the coincidence: a man at my bus stop in a navy coat like mine, roughly my build, holding the same reusable cup, mustard yellow, same brand. City life; those cups were everywhere that year. I filed it under nothing.

On Tuesday his coat had the same brown elbow patches mine has — mine are repairs, sewn by my aunt, not a product anyone sells. I stared. He looked politely through me, the way commuters do.

Wednesday: same messenger bag, same fraying on the strap, and — I moved closer, feeling insane — the same three enamel pins on it. One is from a bookshop that closed in 2016. He also, that day, wore glasses. I wear glasses. On Monday he had not.

You understand the direction of it. He was converging. Every day one or two corrections, closing the distance between his appearance and mine, in order, methodically, like someone completing a checklist from surveillance notes. Thursday he had my haircut — MY haircut, the specific asymmetric fix my barber invented to hide my crown scar — and when the bus braked hard, he steadied himself with his left hand while holding the rail with two fingers only. I do that. It is a weird thing my wrist does. Nobody does that.

Friday I skipped work. I am not ashamed. I watched the stop from the cafe across the road. He arrived — as me, complete, indistinguishable at that distance — waited, checked a phone in a case like mine, and when my usual bus came and went without him boarding, he looked, slowly, across the road, directly at the cafe window, directly at me. He raised the mustard cup slightly. A toast.

He never came back. Three weeks later my building's concierge mentioned, unprompted, that my 'brother' had been by one evening to collect my spare key, and had signed for it, and the signature in the ledger is mine — better than mine. I changed the locks, the route, and the barber. I kept the scar. I check it in mirrors more than I used to, to make sure it is still where I remember.