This selection, chosen by guest editor Kirsten Kowalewski, is from If No One Speaks by Sam Szanto (Alien Buddha Press 2022).
Someone Just Like Me
(excerpts)
On Fridays, Matt and I both work from home, and it’s our tradition to go out for lunch. For our first meal in our new area, we go to the Sunshine Café at the end of the road. It has Formica tables and chairs stuck to the floor, plastic vines rambling across the ceiling and faded photos of Turkey on the walls. Having ordered at the counter from a cheery man with a Turkish-sounding accent, we find a table. On the next one, a woman is spoon-feeding a baby in a highchair. She looks over as Matt and I sit down, her face breaking into a smile.
‘Ah, hello, Anna,’ she says. ‘How are you?’
‘Hello. My name’s Anthea, actually,’ I say, smiling to take the sting out of the words.
‘You’re not Anna?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘But you really look like Anna.’ The woman is frowning. ‘Are you her sister?’
‘No.’
‘Really? You look so similar.’
‘Right,’ I say, fighting the urge to apologise for not being the person she thinks I am. She shrugs and turns back to her baby. I turn to Matt, who is smirking. When my jacket potato with tuna mayo arrives, too much yellow butter puddled on the plate, I’m not as hungry as I’d thought.
The next day, the same thing happens: someone greets me as Anna. I feel as if I’m wearing a skin that doesn’t quite fit.
‘I can’t wait to come face-to-face with this Anna,’ Matt laughs. ‘It’ll be like meeting a celebrity.’
I’m on a South West Train when the meeting happens: on the way to meet my friend Debbie to see a play. As I am settling into a seat, looking forward to thirty-five minutes with my audiobook, I hear a cheery: ‘Hello, Anna.’
As I am about to reply, wondering if I should get a badge saying ‘I’m Anthea, not Anna’, a voice from across the carriage says: ‘Oh hi, Jodie.’
Jodie, standing in the queue to get off the train, calls: ‘We must get together soon, Anna, honey; I’ll call you.’
When she has gone, I look across and meet Anna’s eyes.
‘Wow,’ she says, ‘you look so like me.’
The resemblance is uncanny. We both have long, wavy blonde hair – hers also clearly dyed – tied in a ponytail, blue eyes and aquiline noses. We also have pale skin with freckles across our cheeks. Anna is a little thinner, but apart from that we definitely look like sisters: even twins.
Anna pats the seat next to her. I stand as though a button has been pressed on my body.
‘I need to know all about you right now,’ Anna says. ‘I feel as though I’ve got a doppelganger! Don’t tell me your name’s Anna, that would be too much.’
‘My name’s Anthea. I’ve just moved to St Margarets with my partner, and I keep being mistaken for you.’
Anna asks exactly where I live, and when I tell her, she widens her eyes.
‘We’re just around the corner from Madrid Road. Russell Drive, do you know it? The houses are pretty similar to those on Madrid Road: thirties terraces.’
We talk on, and I learn that Anna is also going to the theatre with a friend. I’m not surprised to learn that it’s the same show I’m seeing with Debbie. That’s not the only thing that is the same, I discover. The coincidences are remorseless as the days of a heatwave, and the more excited Anna becomes the more I feel as though I am disappearing, melting into her. I keep on smiling a sunny smile, however, as we learn that we both: 1) come from Reading, although Anna went to a private school there; 2) went to Nottingham University, she to study English and me to study history, two years’ apart because Anna is younger and had a gap year; 3) after graduating did a PGCE, although neither of us lasted in the teaching profession and 4) work in the civil service now; 5) have partners – hers is Mike – who work in IT and are dark-haired and bearded (‘Matt looks nice,’ Anna says); 6) play tennis and run (we did the Great North Run three years ago; Anna’s time was faster than mine).
‘This is so spooky, I love it,’ Anna exclaims.
The train reaches Waterloo. Anna stands and I do too. Realising that we are the same height, I laugh a broken note of sharp amusement. She gives me an odd glance then takes my arm. We fall into step (both of us walk quickly) and move through the throng to board the Northern Line for Leicester Square. When we are on the tube, Anna puts my number into her mobile.
It is a relief to see Debbie standing outside the theatre. She comes forward for a hug. Then the arms around me freeze.
‘Anna,’ Debbie says with pleasure.
The knotted-tight, layered entity that is ‘I’ vanishes then.
‘Gosh you two, don’t you look alike? Are you cousins?’ Debbie asks.
‘We’ve just discovered each other; can you believe it?’ Anna shrills.
Anna introduces us both to her friend, Dee, who has been unknowingly standing next to Debbie. They too look slightly alike, both with black bobs and heavy-rimmed glasses.
‘Wow,’ Dee says, ‘I need to get a photo of you and your doppelganger, Anna.’
‘How did I never notice that you look like each other?’ Debbie asks. ‘Are you sure you’re not sisters? You look identical.’
‘I’m sure we’re not sisters,’ I say, watching a man in a fedora walking a cat on a lead. No one remarks on this strangeness, so I don’t either. It is, after all, Central London.
Sam Szanto is a short story writer, poet and PhD researcher who lives in Durham (UK) with her husband and two children. Her short story collection, If No One Speaks, was published in 2022 by Alien Buddha Press; her poetry pamphlet ‘Splashing Pink‘ by Hedgehog Press in 2023 (and was a Poetry Society Winter Pamphlet Choice) and another pamphlet ‘This Was Your Mother‘ by Dreich Press in 2024. She won the Charroux Poetry Prize and the First Writer’s International Prize for Poetry. Her poems and stories have been published widely in international literary journals. She also runs a blog to promote independent authors.
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: A Woman in Progress by Barbara Marie Minney - April 23, 2026
- Sundress Reads: Review of The Dog Who Wanted to be a Butterfly - April 22, 2026
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: A Woman in Progress by Barbara Marie Minney - April 22, 2026