|
Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 2
|
Silent Twins
Hi, I am writing a short story for an English assignment, and I've decided to base it on the story of the silent twins (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_and_Jennifer_Gibbons).
And I need tips on how to improve it.
Dear Diary,
I have not touched you since 1987. My last entry is illegible, as was my speech. I only wrote it for her and myself to understand. Here I'm going to document my story, so not to forget it. Marjorie suggested it, and who was I to argue. After all, it was down to her that my sister got what she dreamed of, and it ended with an accomplishment.
All she wanted was popularity and love, acknowledgment of her vain efforts. Everything she did was in aid of eventual fame. This little Welsh town held nothing for us with big dreams.
We were born in Barbados, but soon they took us away and across the sea to the sleepy land of sheep and the red dragon. When younger we were tormented at school for the rich colour of our skin is not the norm here. It was a terrifying ordeal each day, and so we were let out early so we could be home before the other children were released into the biting air. We spoke to no one but Rose. When alone with each other, we needed not to speak. A mere nod, a look, a thought was enough, for we were as one.
Soon she never spoke, and her will forced me to do the same. I was bound to her and every move she made was mine. I felt like every small trouble for us was my fault, and it must have been for there was no distinction between us. The desperation of being trapped together was everywhere, smothering us.
Through those terrible years we were in one single room together. I became so used to her presence, I could not bear to be near anyone else. I hated my family to be in the room with us. She and I needed no one, we were our own tiny ecosystem, totally independent from anyone else. Our mother pushed meals and letters under the door to us.
I could not be seperated from her, they tried that. Only months were we apart, and my body fought me during those frightening days. I could not focus, I was oblivious to everyone and everything, I screamed without knowing why, I cried at no one, and one thousand miles away, she did the same. Do not ask me how I know, but I sensed that we were as one. They called it catatonia, we called it torture. The most intelligent doctors had no explanation, the highly qualified therapists left us as we were when they had come. The much-acclaimed British system had failed us. They said we were beyond help.
They called us selective mutes. They said that it was caused by prolonged isolation. I know better, it was the devil and it was he who bound me to her and forbade me to live. When we were reunited after our disastrous seperation, we lost ourselves in a fantasy world to hide from what was outside. We used dolls, and made their lives dramatic and exotic, everything that we didn't have, they had. We spoke to animate them, and showed them only to Rose. But to see her smile did not make it worthwile.
The Bishops tried excorsisms, they cursed the devil that possessed us, and tried to banish it away. But I knew, through all of it, that it would not work for the devil that possessed me was within her, and her devil was within me. We hated each other, bound together like a fly caught in a web. We were worst enemies. Yet we relied on each other totally like a child to its mother, loved each other more than words can say.
The surgeons tried to cut our tongues. It was the less than dignified treatment for speech impediments, that they believed we suffered from. I was unable to communicate that the problem was much deeper than a mere problem with the lips, teeth, tongue and mouth.
We turned to writing as our creative outlet. I could not speak, and the only way to let out my soul was to write. We wrote stories of excitment and interest, full of new things, set in bizarre locations in our home America with characters that spoke and sang, and expressed themselves by doing evil things. We worked together in silence, all day, communicating through thought. And I could sense a restlessness in her.
Her desire for fame was reaching new heights, and she craved it. When they refused to display her words to the world, she took it back on them, with me. And we burned a building. The fire climbed to the sky, and we sensed accomplishment for this is what my purpose was...and they caught us. We could not speak in our own defence. We had done what had been done, all for selfish reasons. We were taken away to Broadmoor. They called us criminally insane. We called ourselves successful. We were vulnerable, as flowers in hell.
All the time at Broadmoor, we had to be together. If seperated, we withdrew ourselves without intention. They fed us so much medicine that we could not concentrate. It was worse than being seperated, being together and being unable to focus enough to contact each other. We screamed and cried and they reduced our medication, just enough. We were allowed to continue our diaries, but we did not write for knowledge that we would never be noticed by a publisher. The possession was as great as it had ever been, and I resented her. We could not live normally. We were held back.
And she got what she wanted. Marjorie became interested in our history and documented it. At last, in America, our home country, we were known. Yet here in Wales we were virtually unknown. It seems not like home to us, but abroad, a foreign land. She became excited and hysterical. I did the same. But I mourned for I would never have the life that I wanted, for wherever we were in the world, I knew the she would still possess and haunt me. Unless our long term unspoken agreement came into practice.
Which it did, in 1993.
She decided to be the sacrifice.
She died hours after our release from Broadmoor. Still today no one knows the cause of death. It spoke of unexplained heart failure on the death certificate. I grieved for her, but did what I had promised. Oh, I am sorry, my darling mother, and my beautiful other sister Rose, the therapists, psychologists, doctors and friends, for the pain I have put you through. I did not ask the devil to bind Jennifer and I together, but every night I thank God that I was the one who lived free in the end.
|
