I know I haven't posted anything for a while. The truth is that my life hasn't really been all that great recently. Some pretty bad things have been happening, and it didn't seem appropriate to turn it into a blog post. It isn't anybody's fault- all of my friends have been great- it's just something I had to go through alone. I think that sometimes you feel as though you're in control of what's happening, but then life punches you square in the gut. Then it does it again and again and again. Anyway, fuck it, this is what's been happening to me recently.
The whole thing started around the middle of February, when I was walking out of the bank. I went out during my lunch break to pay my rent, and somebody held the door for me as I was leaving. I turned to say thanks, and was amazed by how much the stranger looked like me. The stranger noticed the same thing and it wasn't long before we realised that we were long-lost identical twin brothers. For the sake of keeping the police from knowing too much too soon, I'll call my twin 'Peter'. We agreed that we'd stay in touch frequently, and he invited me round to have dinner with him and his wife, Mileena. It was great getting to know Peter at first, catching up on each other's lives, and discovering all the things we had in common, like enjoying a 1/9 food/salt ratio at mealtimes. We speculated over how we had been separated, but since our parents had been dead for several years, we were forced to leave it as a mystery.
I'm not sure exactly when I began getting a strange sense of foreboding about my relationship with Peter, but I do remember the day I realised what was causing it. One weekend in early spring, Peter invited me over to look at some paintings he had recently finished. They were important, he said, as they completed his study of the European aesthetic relationship with somethingorother. His flat was stacked with canvases depicting the most insightful views of the continent's architecture. As I looked over the various images in his studio, I jokingly asked Mileena which painting was the most important for me to look at. Pointing out an abstract portrait above the fireplace, she explained that Peter had painted it to commemorate the moment when he had proposed to her. It was only when she mentioned the date of it's inspiration- March 3rd 2006- that things became eerie for me. Bad memories suddenly rose up, which otherwise would have remained stagnating. On that particular day of that particular year, I had been in the process of dumping someone. It had been ugly. No, worse than ugly- sloppy. I had called the police at one point, then had to ask them to leave again because I had been embarrassed at my own overreaction in calling them. Police officers don't like people doing that kind of thing, and they will chastise you in one ear while your now-ex girlfriend calls you a cunt in the other. It was when Mileena mentioned the date that I began thinking about what different days Peter and I had been having on that particular March the 3rd. Peter lived out a Mills and Boon proposal of passionate love, with paintings to boot. I had been apologising to a police officer for panicking at my partner lifting a colander in a threatening manner. What stayed with me from the comparison was, while one party had enjoyed romantic bliss, the other had experienced angry humiliation.
After that incident, so much fell into place. On every criterion Peter seemed to be far better than myself- not better in the sense of skill or accomplishment, but in the underlying nature of his achievements. Everything he'd done had an air of wholesomeness and goodness which my own related successes lacked. What made it painfully clear was that we'd done so many of the same things, but with fundamental differences. We had both been sponsored to climb Mount Kilimanjaro during university; but while I had done it as little more than a free holiday posing as charity, Peter had raised the money himself and covered his own travelling expenses. We both shared the same introverted social manner; but while my awkward handling of everyday situations was often interpreted as a sign of imminent kidnap, Peter was known for being endearingly modest and reserved. No matter what area of life we discussed, in everything that Peter had done there was always the glow of intrinsic goodness outshining my own debased version of a personality. Some people might have expected me to begin showing signs of jealousy, and I dearly wish that had been the case. I would have happily maintained a petty sense of envy for the rest of my life than endure the realisation which came to me a few weeks ago. I remember it clearly: I was on the phone with a friend, telling them about how Peter had once saved a child from drowning. They jokingly said something like, "thank god the right brother was nearby; you'd be more likely to throw stones than a lifebelt". And suddenly a violent string of words resonated through my head:
Oh my god, I'm the evil twin.
I was staggered, but it explained everything. When identical twin siblings suddenly reunite, one of them always turns out to be evil, and between the two of us there was no doubt that Peter was the less likely candidate. No wonder all my attempts at being a good person had felt so hollow and half-hearted. All this time my natural inclination had been towards wickedness, but nobody had ever told me my role. As someone who was raised Catholic, the realisation that I was evil should have been old news, but I surprised myself by how hard it hit me. I spent a while in a fairly deep depression, resigning myself to the fact that I had a whole new direction in my life that I'd never wanted. What eventually got me out of the slump was the thought that my purpose might be to destroy my twin. That at least was something I could devote myself to. Besides, once my opposite number was out of the way, there would be no good twin hanging about to define me as evil by comparison. After Peter had suffered his downfall at my hands I could go back to being like everybody else, and only appear morally inferior next to people like foreign aid doctors and Emma Watson. But even as I grimly accepted the new mission, I wished for a fresh start, some time to gather myself. I thought about other evil twins, who would suddenly appear cackling at vital moments. They always seemed to have had lots of time to brood over an ingenious plan. Why hadn't I been allowed to do the same? That's what was so frustrating. I was already in the role before I knew what to do with it. I anxiously began researching old episodes of Star Trek, and they both confirmed and aggravated my suspicions; as a morally-compromised duplicate, my primary duty was to appear out of nowhere and bring about the undoing of my despised sibling. I found myself faced with two main problems regarding this mission: First, I didn't particularly dislike my new twin brother. Secondly, even if I did, then I probably wouldn't do anything about it. I know that some evil twins deal with their vendettas by shaking a fist and making long speeches about how they'll rue the day and so on, but that had never held much appeal for me. In the past I've simply avoided people I didn't like, which seemed to work better than constantly plotting their demise and going out of my way to seek them out. But the conclusions drawn from the evidence were unavoidable, and so I resolved to fake it until I could make it. From what I had seen in the course of my research, a good starting point for Peter's eventual destruction would be replacing him in everyday life and ruining everything he held dear. Technically that should have meant killing his wife, but on reflection I decided that was a bit much. I mean there's evil, and then there's just being silly. As an alternative I opted to take his place at work and ruin his reputation.
Before I go on, I want to make something clear: being evil is hard. There's a reason why people who commit truly abhorrent crimes come from certain upbringings, and that reason is practice. Like gymnastics, you can only be really good at evil if you start practicing in childhood. For this reason my attempt to undermine Peter's reputation did not go smoothly. Getting into his office was easy enough, since he happened to come down with the flu the same day I started trying to destroy him utterly. Claiming a sudden recovery, I strolled into the office as 'Peter' and soon found his desk. My plan had been to use his work computer to access some risqué online material, and use his company's HR department as the instrument of my wrath, but it never occurred to me that I would need his login details. This threw me somewhat, as it was exactly the kind of situation which can reveal an evil twin's identity. To deflect suspicion, I began roaming the office with an intent look on my face and soon found my way into the stationary cupboard. Yes! Stealing office supplies would make a perfect alternative to the Brazzers website. Cackling to myself, I began filling my pockets with boxes of staples until my trousers bulged with illicit supplies. As a final masterstroke I emptied a couple of boxes onto the floor, ensuring that Peter's co-workers would notice the theft quickly. For the next hour I sat in Peter's chair, legs jiggling with anticipation and eyes locked on the stationary cupboard door. After several people had come and gone without raising any kind of alarm, I grew impatient. I started opening boxes of staples in full view of everyone and sorting through the contents with a self-satisfied air. Finally a bewildered voice sounded behind me.
"What are you doing?" I looked up, preparing to boldly launch into the uncaring admission of guilt I'd been mentally rehearsing all day, but stopped dead at the sight of my brother. Peter, ever the hard worker, had decided to struggle into the office anyway, and here he stood, while I sat in his cubicle, lap peppered with staples. My mind raced. If I'd been caught in my attempts to destroy him, then tradition dictated that I should reveal my agenda with an evil laugh, and vanish mysteriously. I leapt to my feet and raised my arms dramatically, a box of staples in each hand. This was the point where my nefarious speech should have begun, but I was having trouble getting my thoughts in order. To cover the pause I began cackling fiendishly, then continued doing so, as thinking of something to say proved difficult. I don't know if you've ever cackled fiendishly for a full minute, but let me tell you, it kills the throat. With an air of concern Peter led me, still cackling, from the office, and out to the car park, where he began phoning an ambulance. I was still struggling to find a place to begin explaining myself, but I knew I couldn't let myself be both unmasked and apprehended on the same day. As a feeble substitute for a villainous declaration of hatred, I threw a handful of staples at him and ran away with his phone.
So that's what's been getting me down lately. I still feel like I'm in over my head with this whole evil twin business, but writing it all down has done me a lot of good. I can see from reading over this that I'm trying too hard to fit society's prescribed idea of how an evil twin should behave. In fact, I'm starting to think that the whole good/evil binary is far too rigid, and doesn't allow for situations like mine. Peter might be a decent person, but he's hardly going to be given a sainthood for it. So if my nemesis is only slightly good, then it makes sense that I should be only slightly villainous. From now on I'm only going to be a generally-discourteous identical twin, turning up out of the blue to malevolently borrow a DVD which I won't return for ages. My only worry is that Peter might start getting even more wholesome, and I'll have to respond with a lot of time-consuming fiendish plots. He mentioned giving some clothes to a car boot sale the other day, and it was only my quick thinking which convinced him that the event may well have been funding a human trafficking ring. I'm having to improvise a lot of my plots, but things are basically under control. At the moment, I'm trying to get him involved in online gaming. Somebody like Peter normally wouldn't waste their free time on something so unproductive, but I can tell he's starting to show an interest. All I need is for him to spend a couple of days on Xbox Live and pick up some of their mannerisms over the chat feature. After that, the rot should set in, and he'll be morally compromised just enough that I shouldn't need to do anything to counteract him. Of course, his wife has taken a dislike to me ever since I started influencing Peter towards sitting in front of the TV all day, but I don't mind all that much. If she gets in the way of my becoming morally neutral again, I can always kill her.
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