And along came an anthology

I started 2025 off with the launch of a book I and twenty-two other writers took part in making a reality. I responded to a contest organized by the now defunct Hungry Shadow Press and its editor, Patrick Barb.

The challenge was to write a story inspired by the music of Neutral Milk Hotel, and I jumped on that. The only problem was that I picked a song and by the time I finished writing the story using The Fool, and when I went to upload it, someone had already claimed it. I went back to the list of songs on their site and picked a second one, wrote it, sent it, and well, it was accepted.

Whew!

I will reprint just a snippet here. The book is awesome, and I really hope you'll check it out.

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Twins

 They were walking away, fast. The same height and the same gait. Their hair bobbing in the same way. I could not be certain it was really them. After all, this did not fit the green legend of their unbirth. That was the story we had always accepted. They were supposed to be not dead, not born, not undead—unborn. Canceled out from the start. We had to drive across three states, but they were supposed to have been nothing more than a blastocyst, and then a thick stripe of dark crimson against the white, white porcelain. They were the right age, and I had a feeling. Twenty years later, error upon error, what could have saved them from not existing? It was my worst nightmare come back to me, to rival what waking anxiety can manufacture in the middle of the night with only slanting venetian stripes against the wall for company. 

Twins were unheard of now. It could not be them, but I could never trust the things I had been told. The unborn twins. The dead zygotes. The twin blastocysts. But what if it were them? Taken out of the bio-waste bin and successfully grown in vitro? I was famous then. I had miraculously conceived twins. It was beyond unreasonable, and my greatest hope.

Had to get closer. I ran to catch up, to know if I had actually committed the worst sin imaginable, on purpose or by accident. Discard my babies. Like marine creatures who vomit eggs and assume no more responsibility towards them. 

I was just behind these two girls—not my twins, or maybe my twins. They were tall, almost freakishly so, and wore matching raincoats under their bobbed hair. They had long necks and fingers. Their shoes were old against the old cobblestones, not worn, just no longer worn. Buster Browns or something like that. They wore trousers that were a bit too short, so their socks and ankles were visible. They looked confident. I could not hear their voices yet, so I tried to keep up with their long strides. They were so fast and young, and I, so old and broken down. I was the scruffy mutt compared to sleek colts. My almost-born twins, or maybe not mine. Never before seen. I had a feeling, as when blood calls to blood. I don’t know if this is a real thing. There are few babies born now.

They turned a corner, and I almost lost them, but they had stopped to look at something in a window. They were pointing and discussing. One of them laughed, and I heard this. It was music. So beautiful. A laugh of pure mirth, without a hint of irony or sarcasm. Without spite or malice. The laugh I would have hoped my children would have, if I had not asked for them to be sluiced down the drain, flushed—or not. I still don’t know.

I walked on briskly, and now I was close behind them, listening to their conversation. They spoke in tandem.

“Goldalynne, my dear, no one is coming to see us.”

“Oh yes, I know. We’ve been stood up, it seems.”

“But we have each other, as we always have, ever since we lived in someone’s belly and then in the brown box.”

“Yes, it’s of no consequence, is it?”

“We know who likes us, don’t we?” 

There was winking and sniggering and looks of pure mischief.

“He wants to come in your mouth.”

“Both our mouths, we are the comely twins.”

They laughed until they were crying.

“He is a gristly brute.”

“And fat.”

“There is no need to torment him.”

“He will give us what we want.”

“With little effort on our part, but we don’t feel any remorse, do we?”

“I should say not.”

“Come on, comely, we’ve come to the spot!”

“Where now?”

“For a spot of lunch, silly!” 

They went in and sat down.

“Oh yes, whiskey for me.”

“And some bubbly for me, if you please.”

Their waiter looked down his long nose and said, “Anything to eat?”

One twin looked at the other, and they both got teary-eyed. 

“Hey there, are you alright?”

The waiter was flustered and rather put out that he should have to sound empathetic so early on; his shift was just beginning, and he was expecting to get slammed within the hour.

“I’ll have the special,” said one twin.

“But bring two forks,” said the other.

The waiter took the menus and went away.

“You were going to cry. Why?” 

“I don’t know. Why were you crying?”

“I don’t know, because you were. I don’t like to see you sad.”

“I was thinking of Dad. That’s what did it.”

“But he’s been dead for years, and anyway, he was a bad dad.”

“I know, I know. It’s so silly. Oh, you kill me. You’re so grown up.”

“No more or less than you, my dear.” 

The food arrived, and I watched them eat. They changed the subject and were back to their carefree banter. I was back to admiring their charm. Now that they had settled and were calm, I would approach them. I would see if I was their mom. The pigeons were eating the crumbs below their table, which was hinky-unstable. One twin was wadding up a napkin to put under the shorter table leg. With large palms on the tabletop, she tested its solidity and smiled with satisfaction. 

“There.”

I stood before them, and they looked up at me, blinking simultaneously. 

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello,” they said in unison.

“I hope you won’t mind the intrusion, but I wanted to see your faces.”

“Why? Are you a photographer?”

“Or a painter? We model at the art academy.” 

“We charge twenty-five dollars an hour for one, or forty-six for both.”

  “We have plenty of experience.”

“No, nothing like that. You see, I think I’m your mother.”

 ❈

AND ONE DAY WE WILL DIE

Format

315 pages, Kindle Edition

Published

January 14, 2025 by PBarb Books

ISBN

9798330470624

ASIN

B0DKKHZN77