Across the Pool
The clock strikes 8:17 as I am sitting on the cool stool at our local bar. The bartenders are busy with angry drunks who don’t want to go home. The tables are mostly empty except for old men that slowly drink their sorrows away. The news is playing on the TV in the background. Another missing child. “Stella Davis, thirteen years of age, 5ft 3 and sporting short brunette hair, last seen wearing a baby blue polo shirt and blue jeans” is what they said. The picture the reporters used for her missing person poster makes her look strikingly beautiful. She has now been missing for approximately three days.
Oh well, the clock strikes 8:30 and it’s time for me to go. The dull drive home is short and quick. I arrive at the house, a modest one-floor building with two bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, a medium-sized kitchen, and a spacious basement. All in all, it’s a pretty average home. Perfect for an average guy. Before stepping inside, I brace myself, taking a big gulp of air and using all the will my windpipes can muster to yell, “Honey, I’m home.” No answer
“Sorry I’m so late, traffic you know.” I start shuffling my feet to the bedroom. “I’ve had such a long day. Remember that old lady Mrs. Johnson, she lives just down the street to the right. Well, while I was fixing her internet she pulled out a freshly baked sheet of oatmeal cookies. Begged me to stay and have tea. Well, there went at least three hours of my day.” I jumped in bed and continued, “There was another missing kid on the news today, they showed the picture and she looked just like you.” I turn off the lights, lay down, and finally softly say, “Now get some rest, tomorrow is a big day for us.”
‘4:17 am’
I woke up to the profuse thought of alarming ecstasy. I have things to do, places to be, and things to see. Waking up before the sun allows me the comfort of night. Just as mom used to say every morning ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss’. I jump out of bed with the mobility of someone who had just performed a sweet first kiss. An out-of-body experience that could only be exerted from the grace of youth. Euphoria carries me from the bedroom to the kitchen. I watch myself make a fresh pot of coffee. Next up is a shower. The water is running, steam is clouding the mirrors, and Weezer is on my mind.
“you-heard-me-on-the-radio
About-one-year-ago
And-you-wanted-to know
All-about-meeee”
I jump in the shower and the chorus starts in cue when the water collides with my face, “whyyyy are you so far away from mee????- I need help and you’re waay across the seaaaaa-“. Small and big droplets of revitalizing water roll down my cheeks once again as they did that summer.
*
We were thirteen, in mom’s house. Turned out to be the last day of summer. We spent it by the pool. She was at that age where she was starting to develop breasts, not too much but enough to wear a training bra. It showed on her new bathing suit. She had to wear new padding to match her new breasts. We always played together, always. But after growing her new bosoms, she had now become a young lady. Almost a woman. Which meant she now wanted to indulge in more mature pleasures. I have always loved her, cherished and devoted my being to her. Consequently, this was unacceptable. She must never leave me. She can’t. Across the Sea by Weezer plays ever so softly over the radio for ambience assimilating my own emotions.
’Why are you so far from me?’
“Why would you ever leave me?”
‘I need help;’
“I need you,”
‘And you’re way across the sea’
“And you’re growing up so hastily”
‘I could never touch you.’
“How I long to touch you.”
‘I think it would be wrong’
“Nothing could ever go wrong”
‘I’ve got your letter,’
“I’ve got you forever,”
’ You’ve got my song.’
“You’ve got me always.”
*
The smell of freshly brewed coffee awoke me from this hex. Immersed in a memory that only lasted seconds. It becomes more vague and obtuse as I resuscitate from the past. I now have a mug of strong and fragrant coffee not really being able to recall how it came to be on my hand.
Oh well, it’s 5 am and it is time for me to go check on her. And there she is, laying so loveable in the comfort of the bed. Looking ever so innocent, looking ever so cherubic. Almost as though she is too perfect to be alive.
Mom thought it was an unnatural, or unusual, our bond. Mom always knew it was an excessive kind of love, but then again she wouldn’t expect anything less from a relationship of twins. Although of Mom’s suspicions, she never said anything, I made sure of it.
I drag myself next side to my innocent and naive Stella. I dose her once more with a hearty amount of Rohypnol. Then I douse her with yet another coat of epoxy to keep her flesh preserved as it is. I do it quickly while she sleeps so I do not have to see her face full of agony and repulsion at what I have done. She is now covered with a compact layer of protection all over her lovely soft skin that will never rot. The face is then removed to apply Hers. A delicate mask that has been perfected over the years that makes her face look unrealistically unreal. She becomes herself, again by the poolside on that summer day. Just moments before she drowned. Just moments before I drowned her. Just moments before I chose her everlasting youth. That way she would always love me, and I would always love her. The unforgivable love of twins.
And as for mother, she knew everything. She just never said anything. She couldn’t. I made sure of that long ago. I sewed her mouth shut. Each year using thicker strings to hold it together. Mom would have been proud. That we have always stayed together. You and me, me and you.
