Street Twins

“Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys.”
-Emma Bull

When walking with Spouse in Boston, Massachusetts on one occasion last year, I suddenly found that I was being stared at. I was, to be exact, being stared at intensely and there was no mistaking the situation. It was most unsettling, in particular because the young lady was walking in the opposite direction, coming toward Spouse and I, and we had a rather long and disturbing moment in which to observe each other.
I did not know her, and I was almost entirely certain she did not know me.
As she passed alongside us, her head turned; I was concerned about the mobility of her neck, such was the swivel she gave it to see me a little better.
"I have no idea what that was about," I said to Spouse.
I caught sight of myself just then in a store window. I realised we were wearing exactly the same red jacket, identical down to the familiar buttons and stylish belt- the sort of apparel I usually never take the time to buy. I had, in this case, acquired it in Ireland, under the suggestion and guidance of Mater, in a particular department store that sold its own brand.
The chances of meeting face to face a customer from the same store in another country were outlandish, but I revolved quickly in order to see my jacket's twin- and there it was.
Now that I knew what the other walker was thinking, I felt altogether much better about having two eyes boring into my soul.