Ofterdingen and Kropotkin

Spoil 1.67

In college I knew a young man and woman, twin brother and sister, remarkable for their affinity: they were both slight, blond-haired and handsome; spoke with the same emphatic rhythm; walked with a confident, long-legged stride; and like the same music, food, art and film. They finished one another's sentences and were adept at games of pantomime, during which it sometimes seemed each could read the other's mind. The two were inseperable, and could occasionally be persuaded to tell the story of how their birth parents were killed in an auto accident, and how they came to be adopted by the dean of our college and his wife. They had been a campus fixture since their infancy, and were well known and loved by students, faculty and staff alike.
When they were about to graduate, the twins were gravely injured in their own auto accident. Though they survived, it was discovered in the hospital that not only were they not twins; they were not even related. Repeated blood tests confirmed this fact, and the story briefly became a national news item of the 'strange but true' variety. After a few years, however, the story vanished, as did the twins.
Many years later I learned, from a mutual acquaintance, that the twins had married. They invited most of their closest friends to the wedding, but few came, or even responded to the invitiation.
The twins send out a news letter every year, complete with photographs and news. They have adopted a number of children of various races and nationalities, but have had none of their own. There is no consensus among their former friends about whether this is due to some fertility problem, or if it represents a final taboo that not even the twins themselves dared break.
J Robert Lennon. "Twins" in Pieces for the Left Hand, 57-58

posted by Geist @ 12:49 pm