Envy

Beginning today is a series of posts about my committing the seven deadly sins. This coincides with rereading some of Dante’s Purgatorio as well as my ongoing internal debate over my fate in the coming afterlife. I must say that since I do not believe in eternal damnation or hell (other than the human manufactured version), I do not worry much about sinning. I have, to be sure, broken all the commandments, save for 2 very important ones, but the seven deadly sins seem to carry more weight with me. Anyway, I hope you (all 3 of you) enjoy.

I see him every week. He is a little taller than I, far thinner and has more defined features. His eyes are sharp and quite attractive, like mine might be were they not hidden behind glasses and constantly turning red due to allergies. His hair is as wild and curly as mine, only he wears it better—slicked with gel but not like a helmet. And he doesn’t cut those curls, he lets them grow messy and long and do as they please. Somehow it works. Mine grow messy and wild and do as they please and it makes me look like a clown.

He wears dress shirts, nicely pressed and rarely white, favoring subtle colors that match his slacks, lingering gracefully over polished leather shoes. My shirts wrinkle in the wind and my shoes seem to develop scuffs like children contract chicken pox—effortlessly and spreading with startling rapidity. He looks Greek.

I like to think I look just like him. I see him walking through city hall or with a cigarette (his teeth are dazzlingly white) making his way to his office, as I make my way to mine (with a headache, longing for coffee and fumbling for a match, feeling as neat and tidy as a hurricane ravaged city along the Gulf of Mexico). I see him and think, damn, that guy looks like me, but after a moment passes I realize he looks a lot better. Is it possible to be a would-be doppelganger?