Writings by Zudit

Zero

               Raizel and I had been inseparable since birth. The normal relationship of fraternal twins having somehow become magnified and distorted in the wake of my disability. She was always there to tell people what I wanted, when I couldn't say so myself. She just always knew. She would take these Polaroids of me when I wasn't looking, or when I was signing, my hands in the middle of furious, angry rants. A whole series of photographs with my half of a conversation was taped to her wall:

               Hello.

               Tired.

               None of your business.

               Yes.

               Raizel never took photos of herself. She gave a million reasons: she wasn’t pretty enough, she was rubbish at self-portraits, it was bad juju for a photographer to be in front her own camera. I didn’t buy any of them. Sometimes I stole her camera and took pictures of her when she wasn't looking but they never turned out as good. Still, I taped pictures of her to my walls, blurry and oddly angled.

       Jupiter was in the pictures, too. He was lean and tall, the least Jewish-looking of all of us, with his dark, straight hair falling around his ears. He would stare moodily into the camera lens. Raizel jokingly called him Heartbreaker. He was the protector, the worrier over us twins while pretending the entire time that he couldn't care one bit. He was a master, the perfect actor, for everyone but us. We saw right through him.

               That night, Momme dragged us all from our cheap zombie carnage that played on the television to go to the Purim festivities being held at our synagogue. I held my Haman hat and false beard in my lap and stared out the window of our awkwardly colored suburban, my forehead pressed against the glass, watching water droplets battle the wind. Outside, the city went by in a rush of lights and color. In the distance, the brightly lit Hollywood sign glowed against the dark hills.The skyline seemed to hold a neon halo, beautifully artificial, it created a new twilight. There were no true stars, drowned out as they were in the city's glow.

               It would have been a while until we reached the synagogue. The rhythm of the car was slowly lulling me to sleep, Raizel already reclining against my shoulder. It was something that we did when we were younger, she would come in the middle of the night and crawl under the covers next to me. Always she would sign, Casper, I can't fall asleep with half of me missing. I never argued; her explanation always seemed so logical even if her feet were cold. No one ever told us it was strange for brothers and sisters to be so close, so we kept on being close throughout our teenage years. That night, I wanted to ask her if half of her was missing still, but she looked so peaceful, I dared not disturb her. Resting my head on her's, breathing in the scent of her shampoo, I fell asleep.

                                                                                -----

I awoke with a jerk. My head knocked against Raizel's as my body lurched towards the window-

     -----

I awoke again, days later. The bed sheets on which I was lying were white and smelled like lavender. I was confused. We didn't own white sheets and Momme didn't use scented detergents. Around me, the ceiling and walls were a stale off-white, making the room feel distant and unlivable. The mattress wasn’t at all that comfortable sort of lumpy like mine, but firm and new. One large window let in minimal amounts of light, the tall, Venetian blinds closed. With effort, I pulled myself away from the scent of the pillow, immediately recognizing the scent of ammonia and other things I couldn't name. I could see now, the tubes and wires that were placed in me, under my skin.

               I knew this place.