SECOND THOUGHTS.

Edward and Rosemary were childhood sweethearts, hand-in-hand since the age of twelve. When adults they intended to marry. When they did everyone said it wouldn’t work. The pessimists were crawling out of the woodwork like death watch beetles. Not one member of either family gave it a cat in hell’s chance of survival. But Edward and Rosemary knew it would work and oh how it worked, producing the strangest and most sinister combination you could imagine. I have asked myself what it was that could have combined from each set of circumstances to produce what it did.

“I’m sorry”, said the doctor to the Blacks, “it would seem you are both going to have to think about something like artificial insemination as a way of having children since you, Mrs. Black are unable to conceive by natural means. Well perhaps unable is a bit strong, let’s just say it’s unlikely.” She knew though that despite the unwelcome periods which served to remind her that she’d not become pregnant, and the miscarriages, she’d not conceive by any other means than natural ones. No way would either of them tamper with nature like that. Only God should decide who should become parents. They were devout Christians and that was their belief. They didn’t even believe in abortion except in the direst of situations where the mother’s life may be in danger. They both told the doctor, a short stout man with glasses who seemed to look right through them, that they were in full agreement with each other. If it’s meant to be it will and if not it won’t. “Maybe it is God’s way of telling us that, either we should consider adopting one of the thousands of children who need a home and parents or that we should direct our attentions elsewhere and focus on other things in our lives.” She and Edward rose to go and as they did so the doctor looked contemptuous of them as they were closing the door behind themselves, thinking them stupid pious people with their silly Christian principles. It was all mumbo jumbo. He was so annoyed with them that he almost forgot to dong his bell so his next patient could enter his plush, posh surgery.

Three years later Rosemary was on pins as she did another pregnancy test. She expected, as usual to see the colour that indicated a negative result but this time it was a positive result. She rang Edward at work, wrenching him from a meeting like a cork from a bottle. Breathless and slightly irked he came to the phone: “What is it, Rosemary”? He barked. “What the deuce is it”? Her words tumbled over themselves as she explained with equal breathlessness that it was at last going to be all right that their dreams were going to come to fruition, that the couple that they were would soon turn into the family that they wanted it to be. At the wonderful news his voice deepened and calmed – All the crossness gone. As well as his favourite newspaper, he carried home that night a bottle of Champagne. He’d at first thought of Rosé “for Rosemary” but then decided that only? Champers would do to mark the special occasion. He was walking on air, walking so fast he almost passed his own house. He even smiled at old Simkin, the crusty old varmint who lived next door. He thought of his mother’s irritating maxim: “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again”. Well they had and it was about to pay off. His mother would have been pleased and it was with the only twinge of sadness he felt that night that he remembered she would never know her grandchildren.

The scans showed that they were going to have twins. They’d have to buy two lots of everything – A double helping of joy to make up for all the crushing disappointment of the past.

Imagine then their consternation when they were told that they were parents of conjoined twins or to use the more familiar term Siamese twins. Dawn and Deborah were joined at the hip and shared some of their bowels and intestines. In a complex operation they were finally separated. What nobody knew or could even guess though was that they were still joined inexorably, linked telepathically, bound for mutual destruction and that they’d take the rest of humanity with them. These girls shared their thoughts. Each battled with the other throughout life to have their individuality recognised and their will fulfilled, speaking in a strange language which they called “twice” which stood for Twins in Communication Exclusively.

At first their strange thought play began as a game. Dawn would will Deborah to draw on the curtains. Deborah would try in vain to resist and then get into trouble for carrying out a destructive act. Her feeble protests to the effect that: “She made me do it” came to nothing since her parents had seen these acts carried out sometimes when Dawn wasn’t even present. Dawn was the dominant one, the destructive one and paradoxically the more innocent looking. She was the one with the original thoughts which Deborah “received” as it were. Only when Dawn was tired did Deborah’s will over ride Dawn’s and of course, having put benevolent magnanimous thoughts into her head, she got the praise for the kind acts she carried out which meant Deborah could never win and Dawn’s sinister side was even less apparent. Again Deborah’s protestations that: “I made her do that”! Were met with derision and ridicule till she gave up trying to explain how she was being manipulated by her sinister sister. She gave up the task of telling people how she was in fact a helpless puppet dangling on Dawn’s destructive mental string. In desperation she once tried to will Dawn to walk under a bus or onto the railway lines. Then, as Dawn successfully resisted, she later gave her sister hell by invading every thought process she had, deciding for her even to the point of what she’d have for tea. This was worse than being bullied in the ordinary way. At least though ordinary bullying is most demoralising and crushing to the spirit, eventually even if you have to wait years you can at last escape your tormentors. Nothing to be done though for the person who can’t even will their tormentor to die or have a single thought to themselves while they are living. Like all bullies Dawn was basically inadequate and insecure, being the less academically bright and sought to exert and gain power over another as inadequate people do. Eventually though she worked out that Deborah’s talents could be used to Dawn’s advantage.

On those rare moments when Dawn was not invading Deborah’s head, they both realised that Deborah had original and interesting thoughts of her own. She was a natural orator. This led Deborah into politics where she truly longed to enhance the lives of the less fortunate. She had a natural affinity with the oppressed. Well she’d been one for long enough hadn’t she? On bended knees she begged Dawn to stop homing in on her mental frequency – To let her thoughts rise like yeast filled dough and not be killed in the heat of Dawn’s destructive mental oven. Amazingly Dawn agreed and henceforth directed her thoughts to acting.

This may have remained the case forever but Dawn met and fell in love with an ex-actor. He had no eyes for her, treating her with contempt and considering her of little talent. His acting career was over, his political one beginning. At another meeting, this time for heads of state, he met and fell in love with Deborah when she became Prime Minister of the U.K and he president of the U.S.A. On hearing of their mutual affection Dawn was white with rage. Deborah could feel Dawn’s evil forces draining her will again, could feel the mental screws tightening until the pips squeaked. In a zombie-like state she was vaguely aware of giving the order to launch a nuclear strike at the Soviet Union, whom we’d had no cause to fear since the end of the cold war. Naturally they retaliated and the resultant devastation laid waste to the civilised world

How have I survived? The answer is simple. I am the designer who has watched the struggle between good and evil, as first played out by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, thus turning the earth into the garden of need. Now this final conflict of good and evil encapsulated in the Edwards twins has meant I have seen humanity in its death throes. However, I am not disheartened for everything is cyclical and circular and there is nothing new under the sun and although the civilised world has been obliterated and humanity blown off the face of the earth, it gives them a clean slate, the chance to try again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a little creating to do. “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again”.