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                                                    SIAMESE TWINS

               “Sometimes, good and evil have the same face….”

                                                  Margot.

   My first memory was a dream.

Why not the souvenir of my mother kissing me or my father’s voice?

No, it was a dream nor should I say a nightmare! I am not sure myself…

I was flying in the sky; I could feel my gigantic wings flapping in the furious wind, the weight of it upon my back. Everything was so blue, so peaceful, heaven or the make-up of hell?

You see, I do not think I was born…

Back to my dream, everything suddenly began to turn red; the shedding of blood tears, feeding an ocean of carnage. I felt two menacing hands grabbing me.

Next thing I knew, I could hear the sharp noise of the knife slicing through my back. The flapping noise stopped, my wings felt to the scarlet water in a millions feathers. I pushed my first scream and reality took a bite at me.

I knew hell had come for me!

Sometimes, when they laughter’s becomes unbearable, I try to think that perhaps I was an angel and Satan came to section my wings. It helps me when I feel the stare of peoples on us. The mockery of children’s…

My brother usually becomes silent and follows my movements. If I decide to walk, or should I say, if Master Jules asks us to walk, I do, therefore he does. I become the leader during the day, he became mine at night, and thinking about it, I become almost docile to his will…

My name is Pluto; my brother’s name is Jupiter.

We are Siamese twins.

I guess we must be around the age of twenty years old. You see, time is something of which we were both deprive for most of our childhood being lock in a dark room.

Until that was, Master Jules came to buy us for his own greed. At the time, it felt like such a blessing act to us, unaware of his real intentions.

Therefore, it was the memory of our mother, opening that door, her silhouetted frame in the light behind her-a shadow bringing food and leaving without word. Only thick space and the moan we only knew to speak.

It took us a while and plenty of beating to adapt to the modern world. I only found out recently the date in which we are: 1892.may.

This day, my brother and I have a job. We are “Show Freaks” and master Jules owns us. We are his attraction. We have been touring many places, it seems we have become something of a legend and- if I may say so- we could have carried on in this way for the rest of our life, but Jupiter did not see it that way…

What I believed was a miserable life has turned out to be a waking nightmare. My brother and I have a peculiar relationship. We are attached to our side; we share the same liver and one of our lungs. How funny to think we share the same air but not the same mind. The most distinctive thing between us is our size. I am what you would call quite “petite”. Jupiter had somehow inherited the physical side of us and was twice as big. I tend to loose my balance and my feet’s left in the air when he bends to one side, as if a sack attached to him.

As for me I suppose, I do the thinking not that in my eyes, my brother is stupid. How could I say that of my best friend, my only friend…?

After all, there is no one else, I can talk to.

As the years have passed, the pain seems to have grown in both our hearts. Each morning, still and dreading when Master Jules lifts the heavy velvet curtain from the cage and the peoples discover us with a general exclamation. Their eyes usually open wider, their mouths slightly open-The kids are the first one to laugh.

_”Oh, what a hideous creature!” the comments follow…

Each day, standing, sitting, running, dancing, and nowhere to hide.

Sometimes, through the shame, I see someone smiling and the burden lifts for a short while, but too soon, the tumour begins to grow. I guess, behind the passive, waxy mask of Jupiter, the humiliation of it all was almost as intolerable.

Evenings seemed to be the only happy times of our existence. When all the punters had gone, Master Jules would open the cage and let us walk around the fair. We became quite accustomed with the rest of the crew. Our only moment of freedom, well, for a while, until one day we saw the reflection of ourselves in the mirror. It was only then Jupiter decided to go to his roundabout and handicapped by my side, I was left with no alternative but to follow him.

Our first excursion was not so bad, I would even say, I took some pleasure from it. Everything we saw was so exciting! So new!

I suppose our world had been small until then. The edge of our planet stopped at the end of the fair. Different grounds, sometimes more stony than others do or just plain sand. This was the extent of my knowledge of the outside world. The stars somehow never seemed to change, wherever we went, they always felt so far away.

To my astonishment, Jupiter was always back in time for Master Jules. Of course, if he knew, he would have punished us. Have I talked about the punishment?

It became a form of ritual. Jupiter and I were never punishes together. Only one of us was to suffer the torture. For torture it was!

The dentist trick was the most common. I remember the big, rusty clamp in his ageing hands, they look frail, but the strength of a demon was in him. One of us would open his mouth and one tooth gone! The blood in my mouth, Jupiter would say he could taste it. I knew he did not lie. I could taste his…

We are one.

One day, the laughter became too unbearable for Jupiter and he decided to turn the table. That night he felt quite agitated, hardly talking to me, just wandering the streets in a hurry.

I remember so clearly, the alley was falling under the spell of a silver, dusky light. She looked about ten, probably from a good background, such a pretty dress, lace on the sleeves, silk around her waist, curly blond hair, so purely genetic. The joy of parents who were not standing far away.

Jupiter picks up the metal bar from the floor, before she could utter a word, the deadly instrument fell on the side of her head.

My eyes closed. My soul felt like running from my body. I wanted so much to be in my cage, listening to the laughter of the little girl, starring at me. I was left with no choice but to open my eyes again and witness the hand of Jupiter holding the bloodied bar. Looking fragile yet with a flame of contempt filling his dark pupils, a sparkle of life I had never witnessed before.

I knew, me, Pluto. That my brother had finally taken life into his soul disconnected from the holiness of his emotion. Suppress, not even reborn, awake from that sleepy state he had chosen, when the pain had become near intolerable. He had found a purpose to carry on and make sense of the penitence.

The first victim of many. Laughing at us during the day and slaughter like pigs into the fading light. Revenge in his mind was accomplished.

Moreover, what thought Pluto of this?

I hate red. That was to become my first excuse to stop him, explaining my dream. Nevertheless, my weak tears did not make him stop, to the contrary, he felt even more frenzied. More active in general. As If I had finally given birth to a child, that the soul had come to life.

Killing spree carried on. Metal bar. Spike. Knife. Anything Jupiter could get his hands on. Jules was always too drunk to realise what was going on. Broken skulls, poking eyes lay passively upon a stone-like, rosy cheek. Their faces so still, so wax like…

Still when Jupiter committed his murder, all I did was close my eyes and look again at the carnage.

Sometimes I wonder what our life was to be. I tried to give logic to it, find a clue. Something to give sense to my faith and all I found that was a cloudy answer. I then started to fall off with the disease of faith – was there such a thing as good and evil?

Since the murder occurred, my brother and I seem to get even closer. Jupiter became more talkative, we, somehow, started to get to know each other’s minds.

After been condemned to spend the rest of our life together.

Of course, no mention of our secret evenings was ever spoken during the daytime. Murder became the essence of our developing friendship…

I remember the wooden crucifix hanging inside the caravan of master Jules. Very briefly, I had a glimpse of it, as our compartment was a simple shed fill of straw.

However, when my eyes felt upon the object, I suddenly felt the disease dying inside me, the agony of the man crucified on the cross.

Portray of my fantasy that somehow, someone had suffer and knew what we were going through. The weight of my sorrow was lift and an overwhelming sense of belonging came over me…

It will be twenty nights since I felt like this, and in this twenty nights, Jupiter had murder fourteen more children’s.

I guess the law of this society will put one and one together- city, murder, fairs…Pluto, Jupiter equals one in some illogical ways.

The fear of being caught has never been the issue.

Jupiter is my god, my blood brother, my flesh, and my reason to live. My prayer is I will never judge him because somehow the dream has suddenly become clear. It was not the hands of Satan, who hold the knife, which cut my wings, but the claws of purity, I deform angel was not to belong…

The seed of guilt had set in my heart and I knew, there was only one door left to open…

The balance of justice appeared, big, dark, and somehow sparkling at the same time, waiting for me,

Pluto, to become the judge. The cards were in my hands…

The balance felt in one side and I knew, what was expected from me, somehow at this stage, it was not anymore a question of choice, but a simple answer, I have been longing for a long time…

Jupiter had become the answer of my prayer, in some twisted way.

We came back from another nocturnal killing, at this stage the all situation as turn into a black and white movie, projected on the mutilated screen of my mind…

Passively seating at the first row, watching the all tragedy.

At the usual time, back from our little sinister excursion, we were been lock into our shed of straw…

There we laid, a faint smile on my face, it was not long before I could hear the deep sound of sleep coming from Jupiter mouth.

Very calmly, I took hold of one of his hiding metal spike. I could hear the melody of the rain beating hard against our barrack, playing with her crystal fingers the requiem of our soon ending life.

I firmly grab the deadly weapon on top of my chest and for the last minute, concentrating I listen to the heartbeats of my brother Jupiter.

I push hard and felt the pick going through me, the warm of the blood invading my chest, red Carnage Ocean…

Jupiter did not take long to die after me.

I could have never struck him first, is flesh was mine, is evil too!

                                                  COPYRIGHT@2006.H.NAUDET.