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THE TWINLESS TWIN

P. Krishnamoorthy    

-   The air was filled with cold moisture from the intending rain. The overcast indicated a downpour. “It is going to rain. Come inside.”  Robert and  Catherine  called their twin children  John and Mike, who were playing in their backyard. “ In few minutes we would finish the game.” The twins replied and  looked up in the sky to confirm the celestial forecast.

John and Mike were identical twins of eight years old. Robert and Catherine were living in St. Louis in a small own house.  Robert was doing electrical contractor job and  Catherine worked as a school teacher. The twins also attended the same school where Catherine  was working.. The twins were identical in their personal appearance and often people mistook John as Mike and vice versa.  They were  cute, always together and received compliments as inseparables in the school. The identity crisis between them was experienced by everybody.  

After her delivery of the twins, Catherine was more concerned about their upbringing in later years. This was due to her extensive reading on twins’ life. In particular their attitude towards each other, adaptation to various phases in life, mutual interaction, etc. She was  apprehensive on the reflective reactions of the surviving  twin if  any serious sickness or death happened for the other. Psychologists report that the twinless twin would experience psychological difficulties in life that seem to be related to the loss of the other twin; in other words a total ‘incompleteness’ resulting in depression and  psychological agony. Also there had been instances where the twinless twin, however different in personal qualities, lived like his late counterpart. On occasions of every birthday of the twins, the death of a twin was very emotionally felt by the twinless twin to deal with the day. The twinless twin in living for two would end up in split personality.The twinless twin may also be driven even to outshine personally and professionally, to make up for the loss of a sibling's contribution or any unfinished job.

When John and Mike attained adolescent teens, they moved out to high school education. With the passing of time, they became different to each other. John was totally independent with  offensive attitude of superiority whereas Mike was an example for the ideal characteristics of excellent behavior, grace, courteous and kind.  John was an average student academically in comparison to Mike’s brilliant academic scores. This disparity disturbed their parents to a great extent especially when the twins  moved on to college education. The high scores of  Mike  got him admission into a Ivy League  college in the west coast.  Since John got into a local college, he was not interested in academic studies and was a dropout fron the institution.  The parents were startled at his decision and asked  him on his future plans. He replied that he already got a waiter’s job in one of the local restaurants. There he became an addicted alcoholic because of his friends’ influence. When he was in a bar, he got the friendship of Muller, a gang member of the Blue Bull gang. He was enticing him to join the gang as they make good money  by selling crack cocaine, heroin and marijuana. With this incentive John was dragged into the gang and gradually spending all his time in gang’s activities. Also he became a leader in the gang wars with rival groups. Catherine was shaken up on John’s indifferent behavior of indulging in illegal and criminal activities that was telling on her personal health.

Years passed by;  after a long break,  after graduation mike came home. He was kept in dark by his parents about john  as they thought it would affect his studies. it was a great shock to him when he heard about john’s weird full-time involvement  in blue bull gang and its activities as he was aware of the illegal dealings of that gang. he was also feeling sorry for  john’s drinking addiction he was trying to meet john to persuade him to come out of the gang. all his convincing efforts were unsuccessful. he made more enquiries about the gang and even visited them in their hangout in a hope to sever john’s  connections from the gang; but he failed miserably.  the inherent fear for mike and his parents was john should not end up in any violent situations that would lead to the wrong side of the law and its torture chambers as john was involved in drugs and  criminal activities.  they were convinced that  this situation was only due to the influence and pressure brought on john by the gang members.  but there was no change in john’s attitude in spite of extensive counselling by mike and his parents.. on the contrary john  was even agreeable to lead the gang in their next mission. the assignment was to trespass into their rival’s territory to sell the ‘stocks’. in short john became a fulltime gangster. the spectrum of blue bull gang would generally be over  territory, or a deal gone bad and consequent  revenge.

The Blue Bull gang members assembled separately with automatic rifles and pistols in nocturnal hours. at the stroke of midnight in Carr square area,Muller and Scott of the Blue Bull gang came out discreetly  from their hideout  and  trespassed into rival gang’s multi-storey building on the northen side. A there was no resistance initially, they thought they could steadily proceed further. suddenly they encountered continuous shooting from different directions of the building that made them to retreat. Malcolm and Smith, the other two members of Blue Bull fired at the building from the southern side. The rival group in the building  retaliated with shots from automatic rifles on all directions. Finally, John took over the situation and with his 308 rifle sprayed shots at the building  in the exchange of fire that lasted nearly ten minutes, one bullet from the rival leader in the building, directly hit John in the chest and he died instantly. With this the Blue Bull gang withdrew their mission and returned. The cops came to the scene and later visited John’s home in the late night to convey the tragic news. They rang the doorbell and   Catherine was the first one to get up,  followed by others. When she heard the tragic news, she fainted immediately. Mike got the details from  the cops and there was gloom all over. The next morning the funeral and the traditional burial service for John was arranged  in Crescent cemetery. Following this Catherine was bed ridden with multiple health issues.  At the sight of the twins’ childhood picture in the living room Robert was in sobs and tears and could not get over from the grief.

Catherine was recollecting  her past memories. She remembered the earlier days when she delivered the twins and her anxiety and concern on their upbringing as she had gone thru a number of reports about them; especially on the twinless twin when one  dies. She was thinking about Mike who was now in a similar situation. She was disturbed and nervous at the very thought of him. The twinless twin  may in some instances feel  to live for two – a split personality and even driven, to outshine the deceased personally and professionally to fulfill any unfinished job left by the other. With the efflux of events happened, Catherine was more concerned on one finding in the report that  the  twinless twin when completes all his sibling's assignments would die as the other twin. This was haunting Catherine very seriously.

   

Meantime Mike was interested to find out about the shooter who shot John from the building on that night. The police investigation revealed Stephen, the rival’s gang leader was the shooter. Mike decided to wreak vengence on him for John's death, implying to complete the unfinished job. Catherine observed Mike's vast difference in his attitude over his earlier one. He initiated efforts in collecting Stephen's whereabouts and daily movements. He got the information that his father's death anniversary falls on the next day and he would be personally visiting his father's grave on that day in Crescent cemetry. Mike anticipated his coming with his escorts. 

Mike came to the cemetry with his automatic revolver much ahead of time of the arrival of Stephen. He carefully selected a discreet location in the compound and waited for him. As expected Stephen arrived with his guards and wanted them to stay in the car. With a wreath and a bouquet of flowers, Stephen walked alone to the grave and placed them on his father's grave. He kneeled down and prayed for his soul to rest in peace. Suddenly he felt a bullet hit him  on his head that came from a distance and he fell on the grave and died. Mike shot him from the hideout and moved quickly from that location. On hearing the shooting noise, the guards came running from the car  and found Stephen lying dead. 

Mike was happy on his mission got accomplished. He felt satisfied as he completed John's  unfinished job successfully. He looked around whether there was anybody noticed his shooting  and carefully moved from his hideout. One of the guards spotted him shot him with his Malcolm 6X telecopic rifle and Mike died instantly. His happiness over his accomplishment was only short-lived. 

With two successive tragedies in the family, both Catherine and Robert were shaken up severely and could not get over from that grief. Catherine was just reviewing the past events and remembered the psychologist's finding that twinless twin would like to live to finish the unfinished job of the other and when completed to die as the other twin.