Will Williams
By Namwali Serpell, first published in Amazon Original Stories
Will Williams, a young Black man, recounts the moment the trajectory of his life changed —when he met his doppelgänger, who became bent on sabotaging Will's life.
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Plot Summary
One day in middle school, a boy walks into the classroom with the same name and look as Will, prompting him to start going by Will Williams and leave behind his dead name, refusing to even mention his past identity. This boy always irked Will because of all their similarities, so he decides to start beating him up regularly to teach him a lesson, and his doppelganger never fought back—he simply took the beating. Becoming increasingly violent, by the time Will got to high school, he was already well-versed in delinquency, however, when his teacher shows him a video of someone with his look curb-stomping another boy and leaving him in a wheelchair, even Will is shocked at the violence. He proclaims his innocence, saying it is the other Will Williams, but the teacher has no idea who he’s referring to. Will is sent to juvie for his accused crime, and in his time, he becomes even more hardened. Because of his good behavior, Will is set to be released in a week and as he takes a bathroom break from his small celebration, he hears Will’s voice whisper their name in the darkness, but he vanishes as quickly as he came. The next morning, the warden calls him in, having found drugs in his possessions and added more years to his sentence, eventually winding up in the state penitentiary. Once he’s released, the only life Will can turn to is one of crime, so he begins dealing. While meeting with a local supplier in the VIP section of a club, Will senses the same presence in the darkness, and before long, chaos breaks out in the club, with patrons yelling that someone has a gun. Security guards grab Will and find a gun in front of him, asking if it is his. Although it is a replica of the gun he possesses, Will has no idea how it got inside; this only becomes more mysterious when Will returns to his car, finding his duplicate of the gun there, confirming that the other Will exists and is following him closely. Eventually, Will winds up back in jail, finding himself getting high with another man in the laundry room. Before he knows it, Will recognizes the voice and the rose tattoo that matches his own. Will drags his doppelganger into a supply closet, interrogating him. Whatever happened in the closet can only be guessed, since Will remembers nothing, but the guards told him that he broke a mop in half and stabbed the other Will in the neck. Now, he finds himself serving life in prison for a crime he doesn’t remember committing, trying desperately to clear his name to anyone who will listen.
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