The Switch

PART I penumbra ALEX Whenever we switch, I have come to realize that something is wrong with my twin. The feeling is like donning a jumpsuit - made of skin instead of fabric - that is both familiar and foreign. I am used to the feeling now, with it occurring multiple times across our lifetimes. It freaked me out the first few times it happened. I rationalized having an out-of-body experience or astral projection, courtesy of the internet. There was no other way to explain the anomaly. One second I’m inside a classroom copying notes from the blackboard, then suddenly I’m being mobbed and beaten in an unfamiliar alley. Or sitting in front of my vanity table performing a sacred skin-care night-time ritual as I listen to the soundtrack of Goblin, then dropping from the Kanchanaphisek Bridge and free-falling into the Chao Praya River, bones breaking from the rapid impact and blood diluting the freshwater. That was before I even knew I had a brother, let alone a twin. I met him for the first time on my sixteenth birthday. A normally banal celebration that, on that fateful day, was gift-wrapped and tied with life-changing ribbons. Loyal to our tradition, my mother drove for thirty minutes to a Buddhist temple in Ratchaburi. We climbed the stone steps and took a stroll along the small side-by-side bazaars. An array of vendors sold chicken and beef kabobs, Thai iced tea and pandan juice, charms, and protective amulets. But what we sought awaited further down the stone walkways where bucket after bucket, tub after tub, resigned dark green turtles, black eels, and gray-shelled snails, among others. I was an infant when Ma adopted me. For as long as I remember, on my birthday, to make merit she takes me to a temple and donates monetarily so I can free various kinds of captured animals. Two years ago, it was a Nile Tilapia; for money and wealth. Last year it was a soft-shelled turtle; for long life. “What would it be this year, Ma?” I asked. “Songbirds,” she replied, eyes lighting up when she spotted the rattan cages from the distance. We snuck under a tarpaulin tent to hide from the scalding sun. I watched the dust-brown birds thrashing inside their cages as my mother paid the vendor, a middle-aged woman who smiled too much. “This little one is for opening new opportunities,” she explained. Ma handed me the cage and smiled. I opened the door, the bird flapping inside with its tiny wings. Go. Be free, I urged silently. When I was ten, I told my mother we wouldn’t need to free the animals if they weren’t captured in the first place. I don’t remember getting a response. The bird flew away, fluttering across the crowd of pilgrims and beyond the trees. Then I recited the prayers Ma taught me. “May this songbird shy away from danger. May her luck be favored, her burdens eased. May illnesses escape her, traded by safety and repose. With this good deed, may my misfortunes be cast away, and may Buddha’s blessings pour in.” “New opportunities?” I asked my mother as we walked towards the temple grounds, smiling teasingly. “Getting greedy, are we?” The night before, she spoke to my manager and accepted an offer. It was a modeling gig for a newly opened local private college. “More opportunities,” she corrected. “I know you dream big, my beautiful son.” Inside the temple, the smell of burning incense clouded the air. We lit an amber-colored candle and offered garlands of fresh flowers that I picked from our garden early that morning. Ma sprinkled water from an urn over my head. Then we walked around the circuit and rang the fifty-five bells for good luck. After we paid homage, we walked back to the car. As Ma rummaged through her bag for her key, I slipped away with the guise of buying refreshments. I sprinted back to the tent and asked the lady vendor the cost of the remaining caged birds, then bought them all with the money I earned from modeling for a clothing brand. I ignored the passersby who were watching me hoard the cages and released the birds one by one, praying they could escape and break away from this mundane cycle. Later that day, my mother cooked dishes as I waited for the cake delivery. When the doorbell rang, I ran outside and opened the gate excitedly. A middle-aged woman stood there, clutching folders in her arms. “You must be Alex,” she said with a worn-out smile. “I’m Jess from the Department of Social Development and Welfare. I called the house phone earlier, but no one answered. May I speak with your mother?” I nodded despite my pensiveness. Social Services has not visited since I was five. That’s when I noticed a boy standing behind her. ‘Too much bones and not enough skin,’ my adoptive father used to say, except it was usually the other way around in my case. It was not until sophomore year that I shed off jackets of fat by waking at five in the morning to jog and breaking my heart by completely cutting off sweets and desserts. The oversized maroon sweatshirt he wore made his weight, or the lack thereof, more obvious. A hoodie cloaked his head, overgrown, silky straight hair masking his eyes. His hands were buried inside the kangaroo pocket. When he finally looked up from his feet, I flinched. It was like one of those moments - walking around the city and catching a glimpse of your reflection from a*****e’s glass window. Your likeness, fuzzy and unfocused. But despite him looking like a reflection in a mirror misty from a warm shower, my mind couldn’t process that he is my twin. Even as I sat on the stairs and listened in on their conversation in the dining room. It was difficult to grasp - to discover so suddenly that I have a twin brother. That our biological mother died just a month ago. That the two of us were once two cells (dizygotic, as the internet would tell me later that night), two sperms that fertilized two eggs and shared a womb. Born just a few hours apart, our mother keeping one and giving away the other. Jess explained that with my brother turning sixteen, the chances of him getting adopted were slim. And with the law encouraging orphaned twins and non-twin siblings to be housed under one roof, she asked if my mother was willing to take him in. Ma’s answer was instantaneous. My brother excused himself and asked where the bathroom was. He stepped out of the room and saw me eavesdropping, his eyes red and puffy. He swiftly wiped his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Turn right in the corridor,” I instructed. He mumbled incoherently and went his way. He stepped out a moment later. “What’s your name?” I asked. “Zander,” he answered, eyes glued to his feet. I waited for him to ask mine, but the question didn’t come. “Mine’s Alex.” A pregnant pause. And then, “I know.” It has been five years since then. We lived under the same roof and moved out to the city at the same time to pursue our college degrees. But even these days, I still feel like he knows me more than I know him. Sometimes, even more than I know myself.