Doppelganger

What if you could meet yourself? What if life got so difficult that another you popped out to handle the crap for you? I'm not talking about something as logical as multiple personality disorder, I'm talking about an actual double. I'm not even talking about a clone. I'm talking about a gen-u-ine doppelganger...

For some things it could be handy. You could send it to work while you slept in, for instance, or you could call on it to take over with the drudgery of life while you took off for Belize. That would be pretty cool. But what about other things? What if it demanded to take over for you when you were too tired or stressed to have sex with the person you love? That wouldn't be cool.

And what if it liked living your life so much that you got sucked into the place in your brain that it came from, taking over your life completely? Then YOU'D be the doppelganger. Oh, hey! What if you are the doppelganger? Yeah! And what if you're doing a lousy job and you can't remember exactly when you took over, but you really, really want to give the life back to the original?

I know how these things go. I've watched enough Fantasy Island. Having a doppelganger would be cool for a while, but then, like a lot of cool things, it would eventually turn on you and all you'd be left with is a moral lesson.

Hm. A doppleganger might not be such a great idea after all.