Autor: Merriam A. Grain

Winter is here! Yep, winter. Do you have any idea what is life like for me in summer? I spend days tugged inside a metal cabin; sweating a lot in an over 40°C place, suffocating of humidity. Isn’t it the right weather to pass away? And I don’t. Today too, I better get myself in that cabin…. Yes, I hate it. I’d prefer being naked at the beach.

I turn around and my twi… Okay. I’ll say it. We aren’t twins. We’re Siamese. There’s a thin line of skin keeping us together and our head. It is hard to sever it because it has a lot of thin veins running along that shouldn’t really be messed with. Not if we want our head to stand strong… We only have a pair of limbs, damn it! Didier is slightly smaller than me. He wakes up feeling scratchy.

Today is the day. We prepare with a great mackerel and tomato salad breakfast. We are going to rule the world! Didier says I’m too much of an odd ball. I’m Dima by the way.

The jail is over us. There are men in suits making bets. Women of scarce clothes bet. Oh, the women… It ain’t time to think in the women. We have to work smashing that pair in front of us. His white short is going to end up red!

The bell rings. Here is our assault and our left foot connects with his right arm. Next pour a rain of fists onto his torso. We can’t connect them. Everything is fine… Everything is fine. We just need to smash his Siamese.

No, everything is not okay! We see a knee coming our direction. It is big and hard and damned John forgot to wear the cup! Help!

This has been just one of the scary tales (of the testicles)

This is uncomfortable. I’m the only one eating. She is staring at my rare steak with what I’ll call hunger. She spent all day in the office, quiet as a mouse and now we’re here in a three stars restaurant (only crazy people pay for the air they’re served), and she won’t eat.

My date with this long haired beauty is going nowhere if we can’t have a decent conversation. I’m the only one whose tongue is in service and it’s already been 20 minutes. I know, most men can monopolize a conversation just to try and IMPRESS the girl, but that’s not good at all. I suddenly go quiet too. Is she so uninterested?

Aiblin looks up from her untouched plate. I scratch my head. How can we eat together and have fun? There’s a mirror to my left. My sideburns are creeping down my cheeks. That reminds me it is that time of the month for me. Yeah, we might be able to do that. There’s a sound. It is my cellphone in vibration mode with a message from her: «Are you ok? You look irritated. I hope you don’t feel disappointed. I can’t eat cause I can’t open my mouth. My reflux is acting up».

I snicker. She flinches and looks hurt. I call the waiter. She starts looking inside her bag to split the bill. We wait. I take the paper bag brought by the waiter, pay and get up. She gets up too and is ready to flee but I’m faster. I grab her hand and silently lead her outside. She can’t even protest. Outside, in the blurry lights of the street due to the fog, her feet are blurry too. Her whole presence has become blurry and incorporeal.

My car. A cheap Japanese model. I open her door and push her inside together with the paper bag. The motor roars like a kitten, it is a hybrid model. Right, I need to re-charge the battery… Let’s go with gas. The highway is empty so we go for miles and miles until the gas is over. Equally the picnic site next to the edge of the forest is all right. Aiblin sends me a text «Thanks for the night but I think I need to go home». I smile and start taking my clothes off. She gasps and covers her mouth as soon as she realizes of it. She blushes but still glances my way and admires what I’ve been sculpting running under the moon.

My naked butt is out of sight (the front is). I write a text back before I can’t use my fingers anymore: «Follow me, and bring the food». The moon light shines to our howling in the woods. It’s never going to be a brunch with a banshee but who cares.

Underweight… For the sixth time I’m underweighted! Again! What can be sadder than an opportunity wiggling in front of you and you being unable to take it? My favourite Korean vampire band will be in town. Of course, they need Nourishment volunteer staff for the time they’ll be around. V and D and N are coming and I can’t literally apply to feed them. Am I crazy? My sister thinks I am…

I open the door and what do I see? My sister is here already feeding Raoul, my iguana. She hates reptiles in general but loves Raoul’s calm demeanor. I leave the keys in the keyholder and toss my coat on the sofa to lay in it closed eyed. For once, she isn’t mocking my intents.

Then I get up quickly and I leave behind me, her concerned blue eyes directly to the shower. There, I bawl my eyes out. This is an additional failure to my long list of failures.

—Do you want to eat some chicken wings? — She shouts. My assassin brown eyed stare soaking the floor, pushes her to fall back a little but her big bust goes up and down and she seems to remember why she came here — I think it is in your best interest to swallow sole grease from today onwards
—Why should I? I didn’t pass… Again. I’m giving up — I melt down into the floor and lay there.
— What if I told you I got an invitation to be a feeder? — My chest literally feels like being crushed under a hippo. Maya is always… My dear sister. She doesn’t hog or monopolizes opportunities for herself. She works on them and… It helps being attractive. Big busted and white skinned with big blue eyes. I’m just the one who looks like cleaning service in a luxury hotel…
— What did you sell to become a feeder?
— FYI I sold nothing. My boss has an acquaintance who has a friend who couldn’t, literally, become a feeder cause he caught the Corona virus.
— Maya, don’t joke with me! — I’m using my puppy eyes to say «yes!» with all my being but still playing hard to get with my words. And she knows.
— I am not! The thing is… The vampire who needs feeding is not the VDN trio but… Their manager.
—And how come this acquaintance of yours couldn’t find anyone in their circle who wanted to be a Feeder? I’d kill for it!
— Are you going to kill me?
— No. Anyways it must have a catch. There’s always a catch in small letters
—Ah… Well. As a matter of fact…
— What with it?! Come on Maya, he might have asked directly for you… — I’d happily trash a hammer into her skull if she weren’t quite a decent human being and loved me — Her face goes red and she stammers:
—How did you? I didn’t know until today! Come on Andrea, you can go in my place. You only need to gain weight. And gaining it isn’t difficult if the person doing the training is the manager themselves…
— Don’t you think he won’t realize with his superb vampire senses?!
— He is blind… We both have the same smell dear twin

True. We’re twins. As different from one another as beauty and the dull, but we are still identical twins. Genetically speaking. If we look nothing alike is because of the fenotype markers. Still, we’re twins so this might work.
— Are you sure he is blind?
— Yes. We met today…

That was three days ago. Tonight I’m meeting Trevor so he can asses me. Am I going to fail a seventh time?

Mrs. Chavez opens the door and starts crying before Chris and I, have any time to yell: «trick or treat». Her chin trembles as well as her belly does.

—How could, how could you? — the bang of a slammed door on our noses and no candies.
—How are you going to pay me? — I ask Chris, a bit annoyed since I wasn’t wearing my own custom but his brother’s. I might have gotten more candies on my own.

This is the fourth time we stop in front of a door without results. It might be that the funeral was just two weeks ago… But that shouldn’t upset the neighbours as much. My hair is slightly darker than his and my crooked teeth can’t smile as cutely and innocently; greeting or good bying anyone. Chris’ twin, Kale, was the sweet angel of the pair.

We walk around the white fence of Mrs. Kelly to get to her door. Her yard has an army of beautiful happy mouths of scary pumpkins. «Trick or treat» we yell for her to open the door. She does and I can see that what used to be beautiful soft skin has sagged a lot from last autumn. That time when she opened the door she said:

— Hey, who are you? Are you the triplet of the Alexander kids?
— No mam. I’m new in the hood… I’m Irving Thompson
— Seriously? Where are you from?
— I can’t say the name but it is very cold. Super cold place!
— Right, well nice to meet you Irving, I’m Sandra Kelly. What would you like then? I have candies and healthy snacks
— Candies please
— Sure sweetie

Today, she barely looks at us with red eyes and whispers something only I can listen to: «Don’t touch Chris, Luzdel. Please» while she fills my bag with chocolate.

I thank her with a big smile.

When I was a child, we used to move a lot because of my mom. I hated it. By the time I had learnt my classmates’ names, she would take the suitcases out from the closet and announce: I sold a new book! We need to move.

Father had no trouble with it. He stays home, cooks and cleans and then goes to bars and starts fights. Moving was a good deal for him since that way, he didn’t have to worry about his beer tab or meeting anyone he had broken their teeth before… Yet my mother wouldn’t have had any problem paying for his alcohol bills. And I don’t mean with it, that he was just her gigolo. She didn’t care him fighting so long he took care of me. Which he did.

Editors and interviewers are always asking her how did she manage to portray such a realistic and filled of detail plot. Without realizing they were talking to the same woman they had discussed covers with, three to four years in the past. Maybe it was that she changed her hair’s colour or that she would wear a total makeover clothes. But she never failed to have them excited over a sequel that would not happen. Ever.

The truth was, whenever they came home to discuss covers or the changes they wanted made to the plot to spice up; they would take a good look at them. The secret ingredients of her novels were in two red ceramic containers on the living’s coffee table. Sometimes, such containers made their way to the dining’s.

Can’t you guess the labels the containers had? Just so you know, I’ll describe the last time she used them with our neighbour of the 344.

It was late in the afternoon. My father had gone grocery shopping and I was practicing my guitar playing in my room. The bell rings and rings and rings. Mom is «busy» switching scene cards, trying to get out of her «swamp». The truth is, she never has a story ready until it presents itself to our door.

Quite annoyed (my room has a light that turns on every time the bell rings for it is sound proof). I went and checked. It was mistress Elckered. Her eyes were red and she looked quite desperate. I swallowed. Bye, bye to prom ball…

I open the door and invite her in. Then I fill the kettle with water and put it on the stove. Afterwards, I go and enter my mother’s room. She raises her carrot eye brows a little irked.
— Your next novel is here. The water’s already on the stove— I announce.
— Thanks? — Her ironical tone makes no dent on my resolve. It is quite annoying she can’t write a shit unless like this.
She follows me outside of the room.

—Mrs Elckered, what happened to you dear?

Mom gives her voice such a caring quality, you would believe she is talking to a cancer dying patient. She hugs Mrs Elckered and sits aside her on our lavender cotton couch. It sinks a little too much for her slim figure. Mrs Elckered tries to speak but she starts crying instead. The kettle whistles and while my mother offers the sad lady a Kleenex, she signals me to go and get the water.

— Everything is going to be fine. Why don’t we have some coffee and then you tell me what’s in your heart. Everything that is in it

And Mrs Fern Elckered literally pours her heart out, after a couple of sips of coffee. It will all become a new novel in my mother’s list of best sellers. Including the obituary section. Her plots never resist the shame of seeing themselves published.

Today I woke up to the ranting of mistres Nuren downstairs, like every single morning. What was a little bit different was that her child, sounded really alarmed about his new pet running away.
I won’t bother you with the details of my toilette nor with the detailed account of the dull breakfast I had. Mrs. Nuren isn’t exactly what you would call the best cook of the apartment block… Her child, a strangely malnourished creature with black under his eyes, looked a little paler (if white can become paler) than usual when I glimpsed at him, quietly eating the same breakfast I was.
As Mrs Nuren hates the sound of my machine, I park it a block away with Mr. Mehmet. Mr. Mehmet loves to take care of my purring girl keeping her groomed and fed. He was already waiting for me at his gate door.

—Morning miss Sonia — he squirmishes looking at the sky before letting go of advice and grabbing my shoulder — You shouldn’t go out today. There’s a foot loose in the city — I stare at him perplexed until I blink, unable to digest the information. Then I look at the hand ony shoulder. Mr. Mehmet let’s go of his hold —Just saying miss Sonia. Sometimes strange things happen.

I shake off the strange feeling that the human ability to connect dots and create conspiracy theories should be used this time and I don the beautiful red dragon custom drawn on my helmet. Then I ride my Ducati. The machine purrs like a kitty (a very big one) and off we go.

The speed! It is great to feel the power to get ahead of cars and lorries in short sections of the highway. Tough, of course, I don’t break any speed limit… I’m Queen of the world for a minute. The sun warms, the wind sings around my meteor of a person and world stays behind in fast motion.

Crack. That’s quite a loud sound at my left. So strange… Crack. Another loud sound to my right. Is it a stupid lorry driver? Usually they give me space to run along them since they like looking at my legs but… There’s always someone too stuck up… I almost crash against the guard rail.

Crack and the yellow lorry behind me has become a big hole on the asphalt. Again, there’s a breaking sound of the ground and a red lorry makes another hole directly behind.

I need to up the speed. As crazy as it sounds, there’s a big lone foot running along the highway towards downtown. I glance back to try to guess which way it is jumping onto next every time it falls on the bridge.

This, this is unbelievable. That foot has a collar around its ankle with a plate. The plate has a telephone number: 55 XX XX xx xx. No way! That’s the telephone number of the house! Martell needs to know where his pet is!

I turned around and stared at him. Usually my boyfriend will complain a lot about my drinking. He doesn’t complain because I drink per se, but because he has to remain sober since he has work next day (He is a writer so he can’t actually take a day off like everybody else).

This time, he didn’t say a thing. He took the tequila bottle from my hand and took a large drink. Then, he took my hand and took me to the karaoke stage. My favourite song (the one my boyfriend hates)!

We sang. It was just amazing! He sings very well… Wait. I must be dreaming. But no. I’m not. He is singing-drinking with me. No more tequila. We ask for beer, a large one for each.

I need to tell this to Parsley. Patrick Slay is my best friend from college and we all three hang out to drink once a month. We all graduated from the same place but only Konrad did the English literature track thing. Parsley and I did electric engineering.

There he is! In a table a little far from us. He looks slightly out. No way he is already wasted! Green as a Christmas girdle, he jumps on to his heels and goes out running to the bathroom. I follow him out of concern. I have never seen him that green after two caballitos. I listen to him puking from the other side of the door. I lean my back on the door and think. My gut tells me it is better if I go back to my man. He is being everything I’ve dreamt.

The bathroom’s door is very close to the kitchen. I have to wait for a waiter to pass… Was that? No. But I haven’t drunk that much, have I? There was a scratch of removed make up. And under it, skin so gray it looks dead. I shudder… Can it take a picture of it?

Hiding behind the columns, I make my way to the kitchen and hide right besides a shelf that holds white ceramic dishes. The waiter gets closer to the chef. A strangely red and tentacle moustached guy in a black uniform .

—Has any other table ordered it?
—Only the idiot of the red hair did. We swapped his brain with the tall guy of the goatee.
—I can’t collect data like this! — he leaned on the table on his hands — You need to promote better that beverage or the queen will try it with ourselves

So that’s it… I think I like my BOYFRIEND even better now.