Attached

1

You smile, and they all fall in love with you. They place you on the side of the bed where the sun bathes itself, with light draped across you like a blanket, and your beautiful little grin glows in the midst of it. You’re like a painting of the ideal human being, high up on the living room wall in a golden frame. And they all love you. They forget I’m here too, lying stiffly next to you. I’ve seen the looks they give me, if they even bother to glance across. They try not to. Because I make you look less perfect; tacked on to the side: the excess. But you’ll never get rid of me, no matter how you beg me to go away. And every time another towering relative totters in to see the new little miracle, I’ll be there as well – I’m the reminder that everyone has faults, even you. And you’re stuck with me. Always remember that. We’ll be together forever.2

I didn’t ask for the complications, all those noisy beeping boxes and cables and wires, as if we weren’t human. As if, from the very start, they had to repair us and rid us of the imperfections. But they couldn’t. Not quite. There I was, the biggest imperfection of them all, and stuck to you to glue. So then they had two lives for the price of one, like a grotesque distortion of a supermarket deal, and I’d crawled into the bag with you, still holding on. 3

That’s all I know how to do. Limpet-like, I found myself attached to you, and I’ve never let go. You’re comfort, and warmth, and – especially here, when the sunlight never reaches me, as though you soak it up – light. You brought light to me in the dark and the fear of that endless ocean in which we began our lives. Why would I want to let go? 4

It all started with a drone of voices, slowly sifting like sand, in layers over one another. It sounded as though a huge crowd of people were chanting, an indecipherable rhythm of consonants and vowels all merging in the air above our heads. I remember those noises being there before I ever saw where they came from. Our eyes were scrunched up against the light that was beating against them – a mass of unbearable pain after so many days of darkness. But the sounds were steadily becoming easier to understand – a low mutter of voices, sounding anxious, controlling panic, swallowing despair like a particularly sour piece of fruit. But that despair was stuck in their throats, and it choked the edges off their words.5

“What do we do?” someone was saying, and they seemed to be right over us, casting a shadow for a second that almost gave me time to open my eyes, before it drifted away again to the sound of a shuffling step backwards. 6

“I don’t know…” another voice, more gruff this time, replied, “I mean, I don’t get how they didn’t see this on the scans, it should have been obvious… Have you checked for a pulse?”7

“Both of them?”8

“It’s not much good only doing one, we need to know whether they’re both going to…”9

“OK, wait a second… Look, what do we do if…?”10

Something cold and rubbery suddenly brushed up against my neck. The shock of it made me scrunch my eyes up still tighter and I remember trying to pull away from the strange new thing that was touching me. But you stopped me, like you always do. I couldn’t move, and my brain was sending out terrified messages to get away, pounding inside my head as I lay there, helpless. Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you help me? 11

“There’s a pulse there too,” someone announced, loudly, as if they were trying to make themselves heard above an intrusive noise, “It’s fainter than the other one, but definitely there. I think we can safely conclude that these two are thoraco-omphalopagus. Can we get that written down?”12

“I’m on it. And I think we can be sure that they share a heart, considering the fact that one half amounts to little more than a head,” said another voice. What were they talking about? What did they mean, little more than a head? What were they discussing?13

I turned to look at you, as if perhaps you’d have an answer or an explanation as to what was going on above us, but you had turned away from me. Enjoying the sunlight, perhaps: soaking it up so it never reached me. Why had they placed us on the bed like this, with you nearest the window? I was the one who felt like I shouldn’t be there. I was the one who felt like everyone wanted me to escape. So that they wouldn’t have to look at me. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Well I’m not going anywhere. You’ll just have to put up with me, won’t you?14

Later, and the hot sunlight has faded and muted, becoming a far more mellow pool of moonlight. Just for you, as always. You luxuriate in it, strengthened by the subtle warmth it radiates onto your skin. I am still in darkness, and more darkness than before. I try to wriggle over so that I can soak up some of that heat for myself, but you gurgle – in that way you do that makes all the looming shapes emit strange cooing noises and sighs of approval – and softly push me back where I belong, outside of your circle of light and joy. I wish I was strong enough to wrestle you for your favoured position, but my struggling never seems to get me anywhere. I envy you your power to persuade with just those little guttural chuckles and soothing smiles – to persuade them that you deserve their full attention, and that I should be ignored. 15

But maybe it’s not your fault, after all; perhaps it’s mine, since I don’t do enough to demand that they look at me like they always do at you, with glittering eyes pressing down towards us to get a closer look. But I have tried so often to mimic your charming giggles, and my throat won’t obey me. All I can come out with is a rasping, scraping sound that has the exact opposite of the effect I’m aiming for. Those eyes go cold with the abrupt realisation that I’m still there, spoiling the view, and pull away, reduced to blurs as their distance from my eyes increases. I hear them mutter indistinctly, more than likely expressing their disgust at my unearthly noises, and I feel you shudder beside me; a juddering shiver travelling down your back. I appal you too, and I have caused the attention-givers to leave. Spitefully, you roll over, and I am forced to roll with you. My face digs into the cotton beneath us, and you allow it to remain in that burning position for a few moments. You know it hurts me – it’s my punishment for not being like you. But I try. I try so hard, and you don’t even know that it’s not the feel of the blankets rubbing against my face that causes me pain at those times. It’s the knowledge that I can never live up to your standards, that you’ve set the bar too high for me to vault over it. You make me feel like nothing with your effortless perfection.16

I wonder when those people will come back, with their cold hands pressing against me, pressing down, feeling for signs of something I don’t understand. The thought that they might return stops me sleeping, as though by staying awake I can keep them at bay. They are predators, bearing down with clammy fingers and alien words, snarling and prodding. When I close my eyes, images of fangs dance across my trembling eyelids and I’m forced to gaze into the darkness of the room in a foolish attempt to dispel my fear. In the dark they could be anywhere. And imagination is no friend, shoving me into paranoia. I don’t know how many of them there are, and that frightens me too. They could be massing nearby, and in the blur of the dark air I could never be certain. My eyes strain to see them, but they must have folded themselves into the walls, like pieces of clothing, but spring-loaded, ready to leap out and loom over us once more. 17

And yet you are still able to sleep, comfortable in your warm light bubble where nothing can get you. I want to shake you, to force you to share in my terror, but I can never make you do anything. 18

Morning comes, and your eyes open to meet mine. I am a mass of weary shivers, which started out fierce and became more measured as my mind wearied. The brain shuts down long after the body gives itself up to sleep, and so it was last night. My fearful thoughts wouldn’t give me peace. I think you stole the calm; the sleep that should have been mine… but it’s not stealing, somehow. It’s as if that peace belongs to you, and I don’t deserve to share it. I am the dark terror of night, and you are the sun that banishes me. 19

I scarcely have time to wriggle up against you, in a feeble attempt to show my anger, before the smooth skin of the hands returns, probing my exposed neck once more. They press down on me, feeling for something, and the fingers tense when they find my pulse, as if this was unexpected. What were they thinking they would discover instead? That I had slipped away from the grasp of life during the night? Not possible, when my constant fear made my heart drum out its feverish rhythm against my skin all night long. Sometimes they reach over and check you too, but not today.20

“Weaker, yes,” they mutter, and that’s all I hear before they shuffle away from the bed. That, and the scratching of a pen. Why are they noting this down? What have I inadvertently proven to them? You giggle beside me, as though you know what they have written. It makes you happy, the fact that they didn’t touch you. The threat is only hovering over me now. The threat of what? 21

Maybe they will be back later today. I can never tell. If you know, you don’t let me share the knowledge. That would be comforting, and comfort fits in to your side of things. Physically, there’s not much separating us, but you know that we’re really a world apart. And that makes you smile too. You’re glad you’re not like me. 22

Something metallic scrapes against another piece of metal, quite close by. I watch as you crane your neck over the side of the bed, attempting to work out where this sudden noise has come from. It annoys you that you can’t, because it prevents you from being able to keep the knowledge from me, one of your favourite pastimes. I’ve seen the smirks, as you catch on to something before me. 23

You recognised our parents before I’d even managed to acknowledge that anyone was there. You lifted up your chubby little hands and clutched your fingers as if wanting them to pull you into their arms. You murmured something that could have been construed as “mama” and the two hazy figures, towering above us, sighed contentedly. You were the child they’d wanted for so long, and you were even more perfect than they’d imagined you could be. And then, as always, there was me. An unappetising side dish, when everyone was happy with the main meal. They would never sigh like that for me – I could only ever expect looks of disappointment, and then they would shift their gaze back onto you. 24

They’re back. A wall of soft green cloth approaches, leans over, and the rest is shadow. Darkness, and they’re clutching at my skin again. Not just my neck, now, they pull so hard I think I’ll come apart. And you know something is wrong. Your body tenses next to mine, and your hand reaches across in an attempt to find mine. Their - bigger, stronger – hands push you away. They are here for me. Too late, I realise what the sound was, where it came from. Maybe you already knew. Perhaps that was why you had tried to protect me, as best you could. 25

The metal touched my skin, colder even than the hands that had just done the same. I felt the edge of the knife tracing my chest, where it met yours, and felt you shudder against me. I felt like screaming, tearing myself away and taking you with me, anything to stop it happening. I couldn’t force the sound out of my throat. The cold touch of the knife left me desert-dry, as though all the water had been drained out of me and up into the metal blade. 26

Instead you cried out. Just once. Though I was the one with a knife pressed to me, just below the neck, you were the one who made that sound. Like a cornered animal, one that knew it was trapped but couldn’t, wouldn’t, give up hope. And you did my struggling for me, trying to wrench me over to your side of the bed. Maybe you didn’t hate me after all. We had lain so close together for so long, and somehow I’d never understood you. Or was it just a last-ditch attempt? At reconciliation? I’ll never know. 27

It wasn’t a knife after all. The glass felt like metal to my trembling flesh, but it was something far worse than a knife. With a metal blade, you know the pain that it can cause, and you know it will hurt you. This thing they held was different. In a way, it was the very opposite. It sank into me, like something drifting down through water, and it took the pain away. The last thing I heard was that cry of yours, so full of anguish. You put into sounds what I was feeling. I knew it was the end, and just before my eyes closed and I fell into sleep, I saw them delving into your arm with the same object they had pierced me with, and we both drifted away at the same time. 28

They saw it as a successful operation. Of course it was a success. You survived. That’s what everyone wanted to happen, and it did. So, a success then. And you have to make sacrifices. There’s always a victim, isn’t there? Nobody would have chosen to save me over you. I was the parasite, the limpet, the ugly thing clinging on that had to be forcefully removed. Oh, they knew what they were doing. There wasn’t room for both of us. I don’t hold it against you. Don’t think I hate you. Maybe I did, once, when we were together. But now that we’re apart, none of it matters any more. You have your life, and it belongs to you and you alone. Why should you have to share it with me? Nobody’s to blame. A freak of nature. Such a rare occurrence. Sheer dumb luck. They knew that if they let me stay with you, I’d tug your life away, bit by bit. And our parents’ smiles are enough to tell them they made the right choice. It’s what they decided on, after all. To keep you. Just remember, please. Remember me. Your twin. 29