Twins (a Modern Myth)

A bizarre, surrealistic vision of an imagined encounter with a "twin flame."

“How can this be?” were the words I heard inside my head, but I could not utter a single word. The house was familiar; I recognized it as my own, but there was one little detail that didn’t fit: I was on the outside, looking in, and I had no memory of how I had gotten there. I remembered taking a shower the night before, wiping the steam off the mirror and staring at my face for a long time observing the tiny wrinkles, the lusterless iris of the tired, pale-blue eyes and the emptiness that yawned behind them. It filled me with terror, and I had to look away. After that, I went to bed, and that’s all I could recall.

 

I had no time to stop and to think, as I realized that I was naked, and that all the windows, as well as the door of my house were locked. I pushed against the hard wood of the door in vain - there was no way in. It didn’t just feel like that I was locked out of my house, but that somehow I was locked out of my life, and out of my own mind. The early morning sun was just below the horizon; its first rays were already piercing through the thick fog that was winding, slithering through the streets like an enormous white serpent. I could hear the rhythmic flow of blood in my eras, felt my face melting, dripping off my skull like molten wax. My eyes began widening and continued until they were the size of dinner plates. I didn’t understand what was happening. Was I losing my mind? Is this what a “psychotic episode” was like?

 

I wanted to cry, but there were no tears, only the oppressive pressure of terror and confusion. I wanted to shrink, disappear, run, fly, become a cloud, or air, but the laws of physical reality would not budge. I cowered at the door and peered through the keyhole, though I knew there was no one on the other side. The keyhole was a mile-long tunnel with a two-lane road, blinking yellow lights, and cars coming and going in absolute silence. After a while there was no more traffic, and the thick fog found its way into the keyhole, obscuring my vision. The fog became foam; the foam gelled into a thick white paste that poured out through the keyhole quickly covering my feet, rising up to my knees, my thighs, and my waist, encasing, trapping me.

 

I felt a sharp pain in my chest and looking to see the cause of it, I saw a dark spot under my skin. It was like an inkblot that spreads and soaks a white sheet of paper when a bottle is overturned. The blot took on different shapes: first, it was a skull, then a bat, a leaf, a tree, and a snake, before it started shrinking and became what looked like a keyhole - just like the one I had been peering through earlier.

 

I instinctively touched the keyhole-shaped opening in my chest, and immediately pulled my hands back, throwing them back in disgust and terror. As I did, my arms flew far out toward the sky like elastic ropes. I tried to pull them back, but they only undulated like a length of water hose fixed to an invisible hook in the sky. My fingers stretched and became a branchlike structure. Rain started pouring down, the earth shook; there was thunder, and lightning ran through my limbs giving them a web of fiery veins. There was a wild thumping in my chest, and a voice echoed through the keyhole-like opening screaming, “Let me out! Help! Let me out!” This voice that I recognized as my own became the creaking of branches growing out of a tree I was becoming.

 

The earth opened up and swallowed the floodwaters. Soon, there was nothing left of the town, my house, my world, or myself. Standing on the shore of a primordial sea, I felt my roots sinking deeper and deeper, breaking through rocks, fusing with the warm, wet, muddy essence of the earth. I was life itself being born, the planet, and mankind in the making; I was Adam embracing and kissing Eve, while the Seraphim hovered above waving lightning bolts as their flaming swords.

 

I closed my eyes; all went dark, all went quiet and calm. When I opened my eyes again, the face of the sea was smooth like a mirror. It was a time before Time; eternity was still a pearl slumbering at the bottom of the waters locked safely in a shell. A ray of light from above pierced the darkness and at its lightest touch the shell opened and the pearl, a shining sphere, slowly rose to the surface, illuminating all around it with a soft, warm, golden light. It kept rising, rising, it broke through the surface, kept rising, rising and became the sun in the sky.

 

All was at peace for millennia, then fire rained down from above, burning the tree till it was no more than a charred stump. Embers glowed in its core for millennia more, shaping it, forming it, pulsating, flowing, dripping with a substance that looked like blood, like lava. This continued until all that was left was a handful of matter: a perfected, four chambered artifact.

 

Each chamber held a universe; each universe held millions of stars, suns, moons, and planets, all teeming with life inside, growing, evolving, breathing, waiting, searching for a purpose. Each world was sealed by a door, a solid, thick wall of silence unmarked, save for a tiny keyhole that broke the monotony of each monolithic surface.

 

After millennia more, moss and grasses grew around the warmth of this crimson heat, this solitary human heart.  Rain, snow, ice, ashes, dead leaves, and stardust piled up on top of it. At the touch of a ray of light from above, this heart buried deep within the decaying organic matter came to life with a shudder, a squeeze and a jolt. The galaxies in each chamber started revolving, creating a humming sound -- music indescribable that flew, and spread out all over the world, across the sea and found its way into the innermost core of another solitary tree standing like a sentinel on the other side of the great water.

 

The wistful melody filled its silent chambers and lonely halls, awakening the blue bird that slumbered there since the beginning of Time. The bird slowly opened its eyes that sparkled like rubies, spread its wings that shimmered like gold, and stretched its delicate neck revealing a tiny key in its beak. Following the humming sound, the melody of the wistful music, it flew across the sea and with the key in its beak it opened the doors of all the chambers of the crimson heart, releasing myriad stars within that rose toward the firmament.

 

Finally, there was only a blue bird - one very much like the first one - left in the emptied out innermost chamber. It opened its eyes that sparkled like rubies, spread its wings that shimmered like gold, and stretched out its delicate neck to intertwine it with that of its twin standing next to it.

 

“How can this be?” were the words I heard inside my head, but I could not utter a single word. The house was familiar; I recognized it as my own, but there was one little detail that didn’t fit: there was a beautiful woman, one that I couldn’t recall ever meeting, sitting on the front porch. She had eyes that sparkled like rubies, hair that shimmered like gold, and around her neck she wore a necklace with a key-shaped medallion.

 

She was a stranger, and yet, every cell in my body seemed to recognize her from an eternity of lifetimes before. Seeing her made my head spin; I saw a primordial sea, two solitary trees on its opposite shores, fire raining down from the heavens, a crimson heart coming to life with a shudder, a squeeze and a jolt. I saw Adam and Eve in a blind embrace with a serpent coiled around their thighs and waists, and two blue birds with their long, delicate necks intertwined.

 

Reviews

[Lola Voyage]

that was amazing...its the same ancient story...the twin pillars of Manifestation. THANK YOU>

[Dave Brown]

I am not sure I have displayed that much imagination over an entire year
Very enviously entertaining

[Laz K.]

Thank you, Dave!
You always manage to make me smile.
As always, your time, and your comments are much appreciated.

[Amber Stone]

am still 'swimming' and 'flowing' through these magical colored so well filled lines...but more than lines: landscapes, eras, waters, gems, trees, seas, dreams, rooms, halls, passages, skies, colors, creatures... chambers, sacred places, fragile anatomies, virgin bodies.... that seem to have been the very raw material of Universe's Creation. thank U L.K. letting me (letting us) to fly with, dream with, being with...imaging us there.....as from the very beginning of time! this is a marvelous story, a beautiful literary work. numbers are merely routine, and my review is no need, but i felt i had to express it somehow, how much i do admire your writings and your free spirit. thank u so much, L.K.