Short Stories | Fish-eye Perspective

We were born to different mothers 22 days apart in different cities, so we can’t be twins. M is Snow White, I am Pocahontas–both in looks and in attitude. Still, it feels like we share the same soul…not in a romantic way, but the way twins do–we feel each other’s pain and happiness miles apart.

Twenty years back, I met this pretty girl outside our Bachelor’s Painting class. She was a girly-girl who managed household responsibilities and fed the four dwarfs. I was a tom-boyish adventurer who would rather run around than cook. Roughly, you can call it love at first sight. I say ‘roughly’ because our relationship didn’t have a romantic angle. It is the comradery; friendship that belied all logic; the deep need to stick together without reason; and the empathy that crosses the border of sanity.

I remember instances like the sudden pain in my toe while sleeping and limping to college next day, only to meet her limping outside college having stubbed the same toe at the same moment at her home.

It became a habit. Some days, I would feel a sudden urge to laugh. Then, I’d call her to ask what’s the joke. Or I’d be feeling down over some matter and get a call from her to ask why I was sad.

We liked the same things. Her friends were forced to accept me as an unavoidable menace.

We had both behaved like grown ups during childhood. Together, at 18, we found our childhood. Our opinion was always different. But we agreed to fist fight over it and then laugh it off. No hard feelings ever. Our classmates often asked us if we had come from the same school. Some even suspected us to be sisters.

We fit beautifully together like pieces of jigsaw puzzle. We didn’t know what we were missing until we found each other. Life has pulled us apart for a long time, but every time I feel an emotion that didn’t fit the context, I think of her. Every laughter, every pain, every itch, every mood that isn’t really mine, reminds me of the other part of my soul–the one that will return to me once our bodies are gone.

Heathcliff waits for Katherine. Wuthering Heights gives me hope and solace.

Photo by Briana Tozour on Unsplash