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Iron Quill (Identity) - A Year At Work


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June
 
Every morning I wake up before it’s really morning and I head out to the docks to work. I’ve never been a hard worker, so it’s a stumble and a crawl, but the foreman is there and loud and so I trudge along.
 
I’ve done the math and if I save up well and work hard I’ll be able to buy my ticket back home by January. I already hate it here.
 
July
 
It only gets hotter here. I don’t know how long I can stay out in this sun without passing out. Every day I feel like I’m on the verge of keeling into the cold water and just letting it happen. My foreman doesn’t care.
 
I ran through the numbers again, and it looks like July of next year is more realistic for my ticket home. There's so much more I could be doing at home.
 
August
 
The foreman has definitely put me on his list. If something goes wrong, he yells at me, whether or not it was my fault. If something goes right, he congratulates everyone else.
 
He looms over me all the time, watching what I do. “Someone’s got to be your mother,” he snarls at me.
 
I told him about my plan to buy my ticket home and he’s promised to “help me.” Turns out what he meant was holding back the better part of my paycheck, telling me he’s saving it for me. I think he’s keeping the scrip for himself.
 
Still, if he’s on the level, I’ll be home again by next July. Maybe even June.
 
September
 
The foreman has been happy with me all of the sudden. I hid in the barrel room to sleep late this morning, because I was so exhausted, but this time the foreman treated me like I’d been working hard all day.
 
He told me he saw me stacking everything late into the night. I have no idea what he’s talking about.
 
October
 
I’m starting to feel like I’m tricking everyone somehow. I’m working half as hard and getting twice as much credit. It’s a life of luxury out on the docks now. Good money, and the foreman keeps giving me little bonuses. Tells me that he’s saving up and I should be ready to buy my ticket Earthside by April. I don’t know what I’m doing right, but it’s going well.
 
November
 
I finally bumped into him. My Doppelgänger. He looked just like me. Bumped into me at the latrine, the ugly bastard. Gave me a nod and a wink, like we were working on this together.
 
I was terrified: afraid I’d get caught, afraid I’d get eaten, afraid most of all that I’d get replaced.
 
I told the foreman about it and he laughed. “You’re just being humble,” he declared. Then he bought me a bottle of honey mead. I took the honey mead without further complaint, because who doesn’t love a nice bottle of free honey mead? I’d told him everything, and he didn’t seem to care. Or even believe me.
 
Still, something’s bound to go wrong here soon enough.
 
December
 
It’s gotten cold in Malifaux, but the barges still carry plenty of soulstone ore downriver from the distant mines, so I’ve still got plenty to do.
 
My Doppelgänger and I seem to have worked out a system so we can do plenty of work without getting caught, sleeping and working in shifts, being in different places at once. He’s doing more of the work than I am, I think, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
 
My coworkers like him better than me, too. I can tell. They mention it here and there. Still, I’m getting along much better these days.
 
The foreman told me he expects I’ll still be able to buy my ticket home in March. Maybe even February. He showed me my account, so he really is keeping track.
 
January
 
The Doppelgänger insists that he’s the real one. That he’s going to be the one heading back Earthside with that ticket. We had a shouting match out in the town square at midnight when no one was around. It would have looked awfully funny to anyone watching, but it probably wouldn't have gone well for me. He's the responsible one, after all.
 
Still, by the end of it, we came to an agreement. We’ll be okay. I’ll head home in April, save some extra money, and he’ll move on and get more work to come back Earthside afterward.
 
I’m glad we got that settled.
 
February
 
I woke up tied up to my bed. My Doppelgänger was there, wearing a crazy version of my grin. He had a nice big satchel full of scrip that he stole from the foreman. He told me he'd just blame it on me, but what does that mean anymore?
 
He also had a big box of matches. He doused the bed with some strong spirits — gin, by the smell of it — and lit me up. Then he left with a sweet thank you and a bitter laugh.
 
I barely survived. I’m going looking for him now. I guess having it so easy was just fooling myself. Getting someone else to do all your work for free isn't for folks like me. Just for folks like the foreman.
 
March
 
Can't find him, and I can't take off much time to look. I hear he made it Earthside. The foreman’s been nice to me because it was my money (that the foreman was “saving” for me) that got stolen. He’s letting me take the time off. Barely seemed to notice.
 
I’ve been looking around for him at the train station, the Quarantine Zone, the graveyards. Any lonely place where a madman could hide. It’s getting to me. I’m forgetting more and more.
 
It’s not good for my spirits to be so desperate. But I need my scrip back.
 
April
 
I don’t know where my Doppelgänger is. I’m I’m guessing he made it Earthside by now. Haven’t found him on that train manifest roster, but how would I? He could be anyone.
 
It's amazing how few trains get booked going out of Malifaux with passengers. Trains back are more expensive, because you're competing for space with the soulstones. People in, soulstones out -- if you try to go in the other direction there's just not much space for you.
 
May
 
The more I think about it, I don’t think I survived that fire in February. I’m pretty sure I don’t have a body anymore. That I’m just haunting places where he might be, trying to find him. I think I must have died in February.
 
I’m pretty sure I’m the ghost. That he’s the Doppelgänger. Could it be the other way around?
 
Someone’s got to be me, I guess. Sometimes when things get bleak, I imagine him back home Earthside, living it happy. It’s a little bit of a comfort to think that at least a copy of me made it back home.
 
But I’m still stuck here at work all the time. The other workers can’t even see me anymore. After work, I wish I had time to drink, but I can’t help but to keep investigating my own death.
 
Good luck out there, other me. If I find you I’ll kill you, but until then... well, good luck.
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I'm glad someone used a doppelganger!  My first story centered around one, but it was garbage so I wrote a second.  I thought a doppelganger was the perfect character for a story about identity.

 

Your writer seems pretty chill about being doubled and murdered.  Is the flat emotion a function of being dead?  

 

The last entry in May was my favorite - the realization that he's dead.   My favorite line in it is 'Somebody's got to be me, I guess.'  Something about that line just tickled me.

 

One minor typo in October:  the foreman gives giving me little bonuses

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