"My Doppelganger"

"Ma'am why is it that you are not in your usual room on the tenth floor", murmured a senior hotel attendant when he saw Lucy's doppelganger leaving a room on the seventh floor. Nancy is a

middle-aged black woman, attending a science conference in Abuja, Nigeria. The day had earlier turned into a series of unbelievable events.

Firstly, Nancy met a man who told her she was really fast in changing from her wet tracking clothes to a lovely formal floral dress, he also asked with a smile, if she took a shower before coming to the restaurant as it was just a minute ago that he met her by the restaurant and now within a split second, he meets her in the dining room. Nancy just brushed him off with a smile. As she left the restaurant after breakfast, she was greeted by a lady at the reception, who asked who her hairdresser was and mentioned that it was amazing she had quickly undone her hair into a beautiful afro but mentioned that the singles really looked good on her too. Nancy smiled and thanked her, now she started to freak out as to what these two people were talking about. Little did she know that more was to come, five hours later an old hotel attendant, popularly known as Mr. Emmanuel asked why she didn’t take her usual room on the tenth floor. She started to get infuriated, “Excuse me, Sir, is this some kind of a joke, since morning l have been hearing different stories about me changing clothes fast and hairstyles, what’s really going on here, said Nancy in an almost crazy state. Mr. Emmanuel apologized and said he really thought that she was Ms. Lucy.  Nancy then told him her name and he was puzzled also at the way their names rhymed. “If you are not Lucy then someone has a lot of explaining to do because you really bear a strong physical resemblance to Lucy and to me, she is your definite replica, that is why l was amazed this time around, you opted for a less executive room yet you are always on the executive suite floor”. He continued to say the eyes and the smile, also the way they articulated words was the same. “I wish you could meet Lucy”, said Mr. Emmanuel. He continued to ask Nancy about her country of origin and also if she was the biological child of her parents, fortunately, it was not a hard question to tackle for Nancy. It really astonished Me. Emmanuel to learn that she was actually six years older than Lucy was from two different countries and was the biological first child of her parents. He recalled what Lucy had previously told him about her family background as they would chit-chat whenever they met and from what Nancy was telling him, he was perplexed to learn of this unusual encounter. Nancy was just there for a week so Mr Emmanuel took her details and promised to ease her tension by checking if Lucy was really available as per Nancy’s earlier encounters with the different people who mistook her for someone else. Another day passed and Nancy had similar encounters where one of them was a bit rough, an aggressive and obsessed fan of Lucy grabbed her as she stepped out of the lift, and to her surprise, the delusional man claimed she had promised to go out on a date with him but now she was busy ducking and diving and busy changing hairstyles to derail him. Luckily for Nancy, Mr. Emmanuel witnessed the grabbing incident and rushed to the scene. He told the man that it is a crime to indecently grab a person the way he did and security was on the way to escort him out of the hotel. If he fails, they will open a case against him. The man told Mr. Emmanuel that Lucy(Nancy) has always promised her a date but has not yet fulfilled that promise, so Mr. Emmanuel was forced to explain that Nancy was someone who looked like Lucy and the man was furiously spitting out fire disputing what Mr. Emmanuel was telling him. Luckily the security guards came just in time to take him out kicking and screaming promising that, it was not over, the date would happen come thunder or lightning.

This incident traumatized Nancy, it dawned on her that indeed there must be someone who looks exactly like her for this many people to be saying one and the same thing. She suddenly felt unsafe and reported the matter to her boss as soon as she reached the restaurant where they were to meet and discuss a few key areas of her oral presentation, her boss Petunia was also there to support her for the conference. It shook Petunia to learn of this anomaly and after their meeting, she requested Mr. Emmanuel to assist them in finding the doppelganger as it was now a sure sign that someone in the hotel was really Nancy's double. Nancy’s presentation was set for the next day and she was nervous to move out of her room but the good thing was that since the incident, the defense force had soldiers on shift duty patrolling the hotel. The hotel was an executive, it also hosted presidential private conference meetings. That gave Nancy some bit of confidence to be told there was army patrol. Her scientific presentation was key to global policy and decision-making on public health threats caused by emerging and re-emerging diseases that she was investigating. The next day she went on stage and presented her findings, at the reception there were big screens that showed ongoing activities in the hotel and for some weird reason Lucy saw Nancy on stage as she was coming through the reception, back from her movie scene rehearsal, she quickly asked the receptionist to take her to that room where she had seen her image and really wanted to verify if she was okay or delusional. Luckily the receptionist was also briefed by Mr Emmanuel to keep him posted about Lucy’s whereabouts because he had seen she was also a guest at the hotel and he was very eager for the two ladies to meet. Lucy was then taken into the conference room where Nancy was presenting and she opened the door with a bang such that it disturbed almost everyone including Nancy who just froze like a person struck by a heavy current of electricity, her round big eyes were popping out, it was like her ghost had entered the room, a lot was also racing through Lucy’s mind too, she started shouting that whosoever was playing a joke on her should stop because it was not a good joke. Lucy even forgot that she had gate-crushed a serious scientific meeting, she went up to the stage to confront Nancy, all eyes were on them as many people were stunned by the resemblance, it was something out of this world. This is not how Nancy imagined their meeting that Mr. Emmanuel had promised. Participants and global partners were touched by the encounter such that the Program director announced a fifteen-minute time out.

Lucy stared at Nancy and touched her to see if she was real and she cried hysterically. Nancy cried too, the resemblance was too much, one would say they were separated from birth. Everyone shared the stranger’s sentiments most asking themselves if they were genetically related as they seem to be each other’s doppelgangers.