Winner January/2 2009 The Crappy $5 Tim Horton's Gift Card of Writing Prowess™ (by default, but nevertheless…)

CHS January 24 Prompt: After having breakfast, your protagonist hears the doorbell. Upon opening it, they find waiting for them someone standing at the door that looks exactly like them.

"Mmmm… I loves me some waffles."

Yeah, that's me talking. What are you going to do about it? If I have waffles, I'm going to express my love of waffles. It's not like my evil twin from another dimension is going to show up at my front door to correct my grammar or something. That would just be silly.

*DING-DONG!*

Wonder who that could be?

So I get up, and walk out of the kitchen, and to the front of my place. I open the door.

That's it. No more foreshadowing for me. I'm done with it. If foreshadowing is going to pass me in the street, I'll cross over to the other side. I won't return its calls, either. We're through.

"Hello, Randolph. I know this is going to sound strange, but-"

"Yeah, yeah, you're my evil twin from another dimension."

"Close. Actually, as far as I can determine, you're the evil twin."

Buh-wha?

"Buh-wha?"

"You see, I was-"

"Don't care."

I slam the door in his face, and turn around to walk away.

*DING-DONG!*

I open the door again.

"WHAT?!"

"Er, sorry, but what I was saying is kind of important for both of us if we want to keep, you know… living…"

Okay, he has my attention.

"Okay, you have my attention."

"May I come in?"

"You don't have that much of my attention."

He nods.

"Well, the thing of it is, there's someone out there hunting down every version of us in every dimension. A few of us, the good ones, have grouped together, but that seems to have just made us easier targets. We decided to come to you, an evil version of us, to see if you can help us out."

"So let me get this straight. You, the self-professed 'good' twin, want me, the apparently 'evil' twin, to help you and a bunch of other so-called 'good' twins out of a jam."

"Yes."

"Can you think through that statement and tell me what the logical flaw is?"

I wait for a moment, for that moment of realization to show on his face. As he opens his mouth, I take an inordinate amount of pleasure in slamming the door in his face. Heh. Good times.

*DING-DONG!*

Okay, this is starting to get old.

"What?!"

"Please… We're willing to pay you in your own currency if you help us…"

Sigh.

I open the door again.

"Six million. Any less, and I'll kill you all myself."

"Deal."

"Alright. You'd better get whoever else is involved with this over here. For six million, I guess I can put up with a few whiny versions of me for a while."

"Um, actually, when I said 'a few…'"

Oh, no…

"That may have been understating things a bit."

"How many of you are there?"

"About three hundred…"

"THREE HUN-! NO, deal's off! You can go help yourselves!"

"Please, we don't have anywhere else to go!"

"Are… are you crying?"

He sniffles.

"Get a hold of yourself, man! You're embarrassing every version of you in existence right now! Look, just… just get them all to this address…"

I grab a piece of paper and a pen from the hall stand, and quickly scribble the address of an old theatre nearby that I know is empty.

"…There, and then wait for me there. I'll take care of you guys. Remember, six million!"

"Thank you!"

"Now go away, before anyone else sees you!"

Yet again, I slam the door in his face. That never gets old.

Hmm. Maybe I AM the evil twin.

Nah…

After I'm sure he's gone, I walk back through my place, heading to my bedroom. Once I get there, I cross over to my small safe, and press my thumb to the scanner while speaking the eight-digit code that opens it. Once finished with that, I reach inside, and pull out the small detonator.

I'm not the evil twin. That would imply that there are other versions of me. And after all of this, that will no longer be the case. You can't be the evil twin when you're the only twin.

That is, after all, the whole point of this little exercise.

THE END

Word Count: 696