Fiction | Comedy
The Imposter
Lights camera action
I walked into my apartment with a bucket of chicken in one arm and books with loose papers in the other when I looked up to the sound of someone speaking.
“Um, who the hell is in here?” I muttered, looking around and into the empty apartment.
I hurriedly closed the door with my foot and placed the chicken and books down on the island in the kitchen. I returned to the door and quickly moved the chain to lock it into place.
“I must be so tired I’m hearing things,” I rubbed my temples.
Reaching for a drumstick to bite into, I grabbed the news clipping from the top of the pile of books while I took a bite of the chicken with a satisfying crunch.
I began to laugh, “Imposter Syndrome on the loose from psychiatric facility, ha! What a joke. These people will write anything even if it’s fake news.” I turned around and dropped the chicken on the floor in shock.
“Oh no, I forgot to hide no, no, this won’t do.”
“Who the hell are you?!”
“Who? Me? I’m you but from the future.” The imposter starts to mess with their mustache and monocle.
I looked down at their outfit and saw a name card it read Erin 2.0.
“Is this some type of a joke? you obviously have a mustache, and is that a martini? I don’t even drink!”
“Drat, you got me. Okay, okay, how about we take it from the top. Maybe we need a stand-in? Come over here.” He motioned for me to stand next to him, and for some reason, I felt inclined to do so.
He clapped his hands,the lights dimmed, and a sound of a chain could be heard. I stared in shock as I watched a woman who looked like me, only with really poofy hair like an afro, walk through the door.
As she flipped on the lights, I could see on her shirt a nametag that read Erin 2.1. I let out an audible gasp; my head snapped to the left. A spotlight was on a woman digging into the armchair. She wore a name tag that read Erin 2.2. she pulled out a half-eaten grilled cheese.
“What on the planet Pluto is this,” Erin 2.2 sniffed the abomination sandwich and nearly gagged.
“That’s where that went,” I said under my breath. “ I meant to throw that out,” I stated, looking at Erin 2.2
“Why are there so many dishes in this sink?” Erin 2.1 stated, “No wonder you had to order out. It looks like you haven’t done the dishes in months.”
“I was going to do them, I just got sidetracked,” I said while walking over to the island to start tidying.
“Oh, come now, dear, don’t bother with cleaning. Don’t you have more things to worry about, like that deadline you have to meet by 6 pm tonight?” Erin 2.0 clapped their hands, and My laptop opened on My desk. Multiple notifications were pinging for draft dues.
“Look at this one. It says ‘Challenge for a living Eulogy’ by Sweet Chaos. Says here she challenged you almost two months ago, and you still have not done it?” He took a sip from his martini glass and set it down.
“I can explain that,” I began to say when I was cut off by Erin 2.0.
“Oh, look here, there are three challenges from The Kraken Lore just sitting in your drafts. Should we publish one?” He moved to start messing with the mouse when I threw myself to get between him and the computer.
“No, no, I’ll post them later honestly, why are you all in my house? How did you get inside?”
Each Erin held up a key to my apartment.
“That’s not possible.”
“Sure it is. Aall we had to do is say we lost our key.” Erin 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2 stated in unison.
“Although the Man at the desk said he’s tacking fifty bucks onto rent for the copies he had made,” Erin 2.0 stated as he sipped the martini.
I accepted the “mission” to do this challenge by Sweet Chaos. The original challenger is Jann He has a list of all the takes on Imposter Syndrome on his page as well as his own take on it that I’ll add here. I had fun writing this thank you Sweet Chaos for challenging me and thank you Jann Christoph von der Pütten for creating the challenge.
