This first piece of work was born as an exercise in “show, don’t tell,” in which I had to represent the characters’ emotions only through their actions. This is a really hard skill to master, and I am still working on achieving it in writing.
The story I chose to tell is a bit odd. The protagonists are Amber and Edward, twin brothers. Edward suddenly dies, and Amber is so devastated by the pain that she goes crazy. While Edward…well, he’s there with her, blocked forever in transcendence.
Amber turned her head, looking for Edward’s eyes. For a moment she thought she would find him behind her, ready to laugh together at the cartoon she was watching. For a beautiful, split second she had forgotten Edward was gone. She turned back at the tv, tears burning in her eyes. She made a little moan and hid her head in her hands, breathing deeply trying to hold the tears. She and Edward were crazy fans of that cartoon, they quoted every line perfectly, finishing each other’s thoughts: they were twins, after all.
She tidied her hair and clothes, trying to get back together; drying her eyes with the wet back of her hand she caressed the right side of her face, in a gesture that was automatic by then. How many times she did that in the last days? After her twin’s death, she couldn’t stop frantically touching her face, sighing every time she found it intact. Right before they told her about Edward’s death, something weird happened: she was doing her homework, and her pencil dropped. She tried to reach it with her right hand, then realized she was paralyzed; suddenly, she felt a thousand arms pulling and ripping off her limbs and her face, splitting her open, her entrails exposed. A second later everything went back to normal, and she didn’t think about it the whole day through. When her mother came home and broke into tears on her shoulder, she knew why she felt that way: Edward was dead and he took a part of her away. He fell while playing soccer and hit a pointy rock with his head. Her right arm had ceased to function right there. Amber could only stand still, then, staring in front of her, while her mother held her tight, shuddering and sobbing. She barely moved her arms, wanting to hold her mother too, but she dropped them right away. Comforting words died on her tongue one by one. She didn’t know what to say or how to react, all she knew was she couldn’t save him, couldn’t tell him how much he loved him, couldn’t quote their favourite cartoon one last time, do their secret handshake… Edward was dead and he took a part of her away. She stood up and dropped on her back on the couch; she looked at the pillow with their picture, a present for their parents, and held it tight, releasing a sigh. Their dog, Sharky, kept spleeping peacefully. Amber scratched the back of his ears and hugged him too. The dog woke up and stretched his head back to lick her cheeks. She stood like this for a while, crying, while Sharky whined. She grabbed the remote with her left hand and started zapping frantically, without even caring for the shows.
A second earlier, before she turned her head looking for Edward, she had felt like herself again. She moved her right arm to drink from the can she opened and was sure, surer than she had ever been, that Edward was sitting behind her. Dismayed, Amber threw the remote at the back of the couch and grabbed the drink. She went to drink it, and then noticed the missing lid; Edward would always remove the lids from drinks, to give them to her. He said that one day they would use them to make the world’s biggest sculpture. Amber laughed and mocked him, but she kept them all in a box hidden under her bed. And yet, she was sure she hadn’t removed that lid; but if it wasn’t her, then who did? She was home alone with Sharky, then.
“Did you remove the lid, Sharky? So you’ll get sick and leave me too?”, she asked the dog, who answered leaning his head in a questioning way.
She took a sip. An extremely sweet taste swept her mouth, making her spit the drink. It was sweeter than usual. Amber stared at the can, horrified and hopeful at the same time, breathing heavily. It was another one of Edward’s bad habits, secretly adding a spoonful of sugar to his drinks. Amber took a sip once and was disgusted; it was like drinking honey and sugar-sweetened maple syrup. That taste haunted her mouth for a week, she nearly considered eating a spoonful of salt to counter it. At that moment, though, it was the best taste in the world.
Amber’s mind turned to shrapnel: the lid, the sugar in the drink, the feeling of him, her right arm finally moving…those weren’t coincidences. Edward had to be there with her. She jumped up and startled Sharky, covering her mouth. Her hand clenched the can so hard the aluminum started to cave under her fingers; she threw it on the floor, splashing liquid everywhere and staining her shoes. Her mother would have scolded her because of that, but she didn’t care.
“Edward?” she whispered. She waited, without getting any answer. “Edward?!”, she repeated, raising her voice. Saying his name had been like unplugging a huge pool filled with desperation. Her head spun and she lost her balance, stumbling upon her own feet, falling face first in the puddle of sticky liquid. She stood there a while, holding her breath and waiting for a sign.
It had started by then: she jumped up and started running around the house, screaming her twin’s name.
“Edward! Edward! Answer me, please! Please, I know you’re here, answer me!”
Her screams faded slowly, turning to a long, desperate howl. Her throat hurt from so much screaming and when she dropped to her knees she hit the floor so hard her head spun again. She started crying and couldn’t stop anymore. She was kneeling in the middle of the living room, her head tilted back, her back arched so much it hurt, and yet she couldn’t move. She could only cry and howl so loud the dog started howling with her. She curled up and started swinging while Sharky licked her face, whining.
Edward had seen the entire scene: Amber taking off the lid, sweetening the drink without noticing, losing control.
“Amber, I’m here! I’m right here! Can’t you see me? Can’t you hear me?”
She remained curled up on the floor, her eyes red and swollen, her mouth clenched.
“Amber…”.
He instinctively tried to reach her with one hand but realized he had no hands. He tried to scream, but there was no air in his lungs; actually, he didn’t have lungs. He would have cried, but he couldn’t feel a face tears could run across. Only Edward’s mind was left: he understood everything, heard everything, but couldn’t do anything. Thinking and feeling were now his primary functions, as breathing and eating are for human beings. His sister’s suffering crushed him with unbearable strength, and yet he couldn’t escape it, even if he tried. He was doomed to bear that burden, in solitude.
He had hoped he could be with Amber once again, he was so close. In life they were as one: now they were two parallel entities, alike but divided by an abyss. They moved in the same direction but on two different tracks, and Edward knew what Amber would find at the end of her track: madness. What he just saw was only the beginning.
He knew he couldn’t stop her; he would bear silent witness to her defeat.
Locked forever in transcendence.
MARTINA RAICO 