A great rumbling sound erupted. She jumped.
Drats it. Why now?
The great rumble turned into a great clatter, one so great it sounded as though thousands of pots and pans were being thrown gleefully down the stairs by an unruly spoilt child. She groaned, swept her purse off the table, grabbed a grey umbrella, and stormed off to work, her mood matching the weather in its foulness.
Work was uneventful. Except for little excitements: irate customers who called about lost phones (couldn’t they just have been more careful), a boss in a bad mood because it was promotion time (he hadn’t been promoted in ten years), and lunch food that resembled green slime. Even the advent of five o’clock did nothing to improve her mood. Nor did a dinner of her favourite foods. Nor a deliciously sweet dessert. Her mood was so sour, everything tasted acrid.
Alone in her room, she fingered the scar. It was long, snaking along her torso. The scar mocked her.
Selfish prig.
Don’t call me selfish! I didn’t have a choice.
Self-serving prude.
I didn’t ask them to choose me! It’s not my fault I had more liver than her.
Murderer.
Her eyes reddened.
She’d always wanted a twin sister because the twins she knew always seemed so at-one, and loneliness never seemed to be in their vocabulary. She knew she had a twin somewhere out there, and that one day they’d find each other. They’d be sisters and soulmates.
One day, she realized she had a twin. She should have been jumping for joy, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. That fateful day, she opened a lavender-scented letter written in her mother’s handwriting. She read how she was one half of a pair of twins joined together at the sides with two hearts and one liver. She read how doctors battled to keep them alive because the smaller of the two hearts had stopped. She had the bigger heart. But as much heart as she had, it wasn’t enough to keep them both alive. Doctors told her parents the twins had to be separated for one to live. Her parents had to choose. They chose her. After the operation, her parents told her she had fallen and hurt herself badly as a child and had to be sewn up. Now, “you’re old enough to understand the situation and our pain as parents.” And so they told her. She was miserable. Her joy at finding out about her twin was short-lived.
Just then, a familiar tone sounded.
Hi girl, are you ok? Sorry I couldn’t reply to you sooner – just saw your email.
Hi girl. No I’m not... It’s my scar.
Girl, you have to stop doing this to yourself. It’s no one’s fault. Not yours that your parents chose you. Not theirs for choosing you.
I know. But that doesn’t erase the guilt I feel.
Yes but it’s been what, a year now? You’re going nowhere with these thoughts. Frankly, I think you’re indulging in self-pity.
*Gasps* I’m NOT having a self-pity party.
Then tell me. Would your twin sister want you to think this way? I mean, come on. And I think that since she died so that you can live, you do owe it to her to live your life to the fullest instead of moping around all day. Do you think she’d want you behaving like an angsty teen, thinking the whole world’s against you?
Some friend you are. You’re not being very nice. I’m going to bed now.
She used an obscene amount of force to shut off her phone. And shut that chatterbox up.
She pulled the covers up and sulked. Turned up the radio to drown out those words. But it was no use.
Am I indulging in self-pity? But if I were, I wouldn’t be calling myself a murderer… would I? No I mustn’t think that. She’d not have wanted this. I do owe her. Maybe… this could be a way to make it up to her. Yes. I carry our heart and liver. I’ll live for us both. God, if you really are there, help me live my life to the fullest, to repay the one who died so that I can live.
********************
A great rumbling sound erupted. She jumped.
The great rumble turned into a great clatter. She peered outside, grabbed her purse and dark grey umbrella, and opened the door. The sharp scent of freshly-washed grass wafted up her nose. She saw her neighbour’s twin daughters skipping by in sunshine yellow raincoats, with fire red boots to match. The little girls waved at her. She felt a twang of sadness, but still waved back.
How happy they look. We could have been like that. Well, we still can. We can live it through me. I’ll be the proxy.
Suddenly, the weather didn’t seem quite as stormy anymore.