A Moment of Empathy (Fiction)

Anger did not suit her features for two main reasons. First, Leila was beautiful, and second, she was a girl. Temper tantrums had suited her as a child, but now quiet disapproval seemed appropriate. She had learnt to rearrange her scrunched mouth into a pretty pout, manipulating her facial features and with it, her circumstances. Nobody likes to see a pretty face unhappy, and Leila had realized that beauty always wins the bargain. 

Bottle green eyes, cascading copper hair, and a set of straight white teeth decorated a heart shaped face. It was around the time her chest swelled in size, neatly separating into two pieces did Leila understand the power she had. At first she was annoyed at having the burden of carrying them around. They jiggled uncomfortably, feeling awkward and completely unnecessary. The boys didn’t have them, so why did she? Her irritation faded when she realized that the boys loved them. If somebody loved you, you could get them to do whatever you wanted. The world didn’t seem so unfair anymore, not when you could use the unfairness to your advantage. Smart people did that, and Leila was smart but nobody noticed. So she believed that boys loved breasts better than brains, and when she grew older that was how she understood men. While Leila had many love affairs, her primary one was with her body. It defined her as much as she defined it, and the only love she knew was the love that she could use.

On the other hand, Samantha or Sam as they called her, was ugly. Her ugliness was magnified in comparison to her sister, Leila’s beauty. What made it worse was that they were non-identical twins, with the exact same birthday, family, neighbourhood, culture and nationality. It was as if God had created perfection and separated the imperfect bits out of it, the bits that made up Sam. Deep set ordinary brown eyes, an aquiline nose, and unkempt curls hastily added to the experimental mish-mash of her face. The truth is that Sam could’ve been considered beautiful under different circumstances.

The circumstances didn’t matter because Leila changed them. Leila was lucky. Leila hated that word. Lucky. It was condescension disguised as a compliment, a well-meaning excuse for someone who didn’t actually deserve what they had. Sam hated the word too, because she possessed none of it.

Since Leila had claimed the role of beautiful big sister, elder by a few minutes, Sam assumed the position beneath her. Samantha would’ve liked her name had she looked feminine. Her strong jaw, humped nose and short hair, decided that Sam fit her better. Since Sam didn't win the look lottery, she sharpened her other skills for survival, the ones she had control of. Smartness followed in line with these masculine traits. Categorization assumes synonymity even when there is none. The funny thing is that Leila was more intelligent than Sam, but nobody noticed, not even Leila herself. So Sam assumed she was the smarter one, and this equalised the hierarchy. There was peace for awhile. 

The equilibrium was thrown into imbalance when both girls attended high school. Sam fell in love with muscled boys and bearded chins but was devastated to find that it wasn’t reciprocated. This made Sam question the conditionality of affection in a way that Leila never did. Sam could play better football, outwit the boys in verbal sparring, and drink a whole pint of beer in seconds. These qualities seemed highly appealing to Sam until she realised they were only highly appealing on men. She accepted the brutal truth at a young age, the ugly side of human nature, but it took Leila a bit longer.

You see, pretty hides the real person inside, and it simultaneously hides the intentions of those who chase after it. Leila’s life was smooth in its superficiality until the cracks started to appear. It got ugly when Leila found out that her best friend was secretly jealous, her boyfriend was actually married, and that her high school teacher wanted to kiss her. 

A force of resistance began to build up against the ideals each epitomised, a hatred so strong that it gave birth to the most destructive emotion of all, anger. 

Anger suited Sam’s features and so she raged, feigning an intellectual arrogance and physical dominance. Leila learnt to lie and manipulate, her sweet deceptive doll-like face hiding the darkest demons inside. When narcissism and hypocrisy join hands, it brings out the worst of empathetic ability. Empathy is value neutral and can be used either way depending on whether it serves the ego or the greater good.

Sometimes people mature fully when they are young, sometimes they never mature even until they are old. Coming of age can happen anytime, and until it does the ego matters. It matters a lot. It is on the brink of coming age that the boundaries begin to blur. It is the time of early dusk when the soul begins to separate into tiny pieces. The essence of the self-comes into question, and takes on multiple identities. It searches for a cohesive whole in the black of the night. Sometimes it matures into dawn, and sometimes morning never comes.

It is analogous to a compulsive shopping trip, trying to fix together the perfect outfit. A perpetual conflict between what one wants to be perceived as, and what actually is. The hard part is that both images are constantly changing, influenced by the dynamic nature of transient surroundings. The key to mastery is not to find a great outfit, nor one that actually looks great, but to make it appear as if it is.  

It is a dangerous game, a fine balancing act and one that must be played with utmost care. It is at this stage it becomes necessary to question originality, and that was precisely where the twins were at. To understand the nature of authenticity, there needs to be a resistance against all that is not.

            Now the secret about twin souls is that they are inherently dualistic, falling carefully at two opposites of a spectrum. When both souls are at the same time and space emotionally, mentally and physically, they re-enact that boundary-less, sensory, pre-linguistic state of their mother’s womb. This oceanic feeling of wholeness is known as Nirvana or Transcendence. 

It was at their sixteenth birthday party in the midst of a gathering with family, neighbours and friends, when the clock struck midnight. The time was right for a rebellion. 

Leila was suddenly Leila, and also her mother. Sam was Sam, and also her cousin brother. 

At first, Sam was shocked, but she got accustomed to it sooner than expected. It felt comfortable like she was meant to be there. She was tall, dominant and in control. Anger pushed everything else down. She didn’t have to be nice. She could be mean, and it would be okay. Actually, it was more than okay, it was desirable. She turned to look at herself and thought such a mean thing the other Sam was brought to tears. She watched her crying, feeling only apathy at the apparent weakness of girls. She cautiously explored more, going deeper. There was some sympathy, empathy even, but it was almost non-existent and unrecognisable. Then, she was her classmate, a sweet, quiet boy who had always been kind to her. Sam looked at herself and thought a nice thing.  Sam is smart. Sam is attractive. Sam was desirable and undesirable. 

Leila liked being her mother. She had always wanted to be older and wiser. The world felt predictable, but also safer. She liked it. She looked at herself and saw not a pretty young girl, but a child growing into a strong woman. Leila looked like a real person, not just a thing to be possessed. Leila is strong. Leila is intelligent. 

         Then, she was the boy next door, and Leila felt an overwhelming desire to kiss herself. There was an unpredictable jolt in the upper half of her pants. It was a strange sensation, a kind of narcissism that had nothing to do with love. Leila looked so beautiful that for a moment she despised her own face, and the superficiality in its perfection superseding the human inside. Leila was desirable and undesirable. 

Suddenly she was Sam, and Sam was Leila. Leila looked at Leila, and Sam looked at Sam. Leila was pretty and ugly. Sam was pretty and ugly. They were both lucky and unlucky. 

          For the first time, the twins understood that they had everything and nothing in common. 

          The clock struck twelve and eleven minutes. Leila was Leila again, and Sam was Sam. It had felt like a lifetime, not one but many lifetimes, conjoining into a cohesive whole. 

          It had only been eleven minutes. 

          Eleven minutes of magical transcendence. Eleven minutes of unconditional love. Eleven minutes of the exact time difference between the birth of the two twins. 

Sam smiled at Leila, and Leila smiled at Sam. They blew out the two candles and made one wish.