Numbers and Letters

Hannah Pass

My twin,

Do you know what I am thinking right now? People say that we are capable of such things, of reading each others’ minds, so I squint hard and try to picture you looking down at your hands which must look very similar to mine, just not as brown. I see them opening cupboards, drawing curtain blinds. Things normal hands do, but more peculiar because they are yours and not my own. Numbers came easily to me. My twin, I am the baby in a family of ten. Our Grandmother’s pillow was sewn together with chipmunk skins. I grew up learning arithmetic by counting their backs all arranged  in rows. In a perfect symmetry. Every night I pet them, then lay my head on top of their heads and fall asleep. I am sitting in the center of what I think is: The Universe. Let me tell you, it is an ordinary little place inside a grocery store, between thick rows of canned soup and diapers and adults. All products in the shape of bricks or cylinders. I’m sitting here with paper and crayon while our mother is looking at the expiration date on packages of raw meat. Six twelve, I watch her mouth to herself. Today is six eight. Did you feel that earthquake, my twin? Just now, I thought I felt the ground move. Or maybe it was the vibration of a rolling cart carrying a heavy child. In the car ride here, our mother tells me about her Newest Man. This is a term I have come to hear a lot. He is from Colorado, which I don’t know much about except that Colorado is landlocked. We don’t travel much, but I know how far away we are from bodies of water. Our mother, she has started an accumulation of large mismatched socks. A laundry-list, you might joke, like the unorganized list of food held in her hand. My twin, everything in our house is the beginning and end of a collection.

Most sincerely,
Your identical

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→EMPRISE 16