Microfiction

Whatever Happened to Aaron?

Ivan had been thinking a lot about Aaron Leggatt lately. He hadn't seen or heard from Aaron in over a decade, and he wasn't sure why he was thinking about him now -- except that he'd been thinking of himself as even more of a misfit than usual lately.

He'd known Aaron only slightly in college; they were both philosophy majors and had taken several classes together. Ivan had always thought they had much in common -- both rather standoffish, and they even looked a bit alike, with dark hair and glasses -- but they had never become more than acquaintances, despite some overtures on Ivan's part. Still, Ivan felt an affinity for him. He was one those mirror people, an altar ego.

What had happened to Aaron? They had seemed to be on parallel tracks in college. Was Aaron successful today? Married? Happy? Everything that Ivan wasn't, at the moment?

One Saturday afternoon, with nothing better to do, Ivan decided to Google him. It was fortunate the Aaron had a fairly unusual name. Not many Web pages came up. Those that did were obscure: a membership listing for a bicycle club in Sephora, Illinois; a geneaology page about someone with the same name who lived in the 19th century; and several pages in a foreign language Ivan couldn't identify. There was also a page for a bookstore in Sephora, Illinois, owned by someone named…Aaron Leggatt.

It seemed to be an odd bookstore -- one that specialized in "hard to find, out-of-print science fiction," according to the page, which consisted of a single paragraph and a picture of a dusty, rundown storefront. There was an e-mail address and a phone number at the top of the page.

So.... Aaron had moved to Illinois, over a thousand miles away. He'd gone into business for himself -- not a prosperous business, by the look of it, but it was more than Ivan had been able to accomplish. He wondered if Aaron would remember him. He wondered if it might still be possible to connect with him, maybe start an e-mail correspondence with someone he thought of as a double, a doppelganger.

Feeling mischievous, he dialed the number, thinking he would probably hang up if Aaron answered. But instead there was a recorded female voice: "Leggatt Bookshop is closed until further notice, due to the death of Mr. Leggatt. Thank you for your patronage."

Dead. The mirror shattered.

Ivan sighed. Later that evening, he joined an Internet chat room devoted to out-of-print science-fiction books. He had to choose user ID for himself, and after several seconds of indecision, he decided on one: Aaron L.