text: Her earliest memory in life, was a set pair of blue eyes glaring over her. The pair of eyes belonged to her parents. From the time she was born, she could only remember them watching her. They nurtured her when she was an infant, for she could not move on her own. But when she began to talk they touched her less. And when she could bathe and feed herself, their touch evaporated all together. Her parents still fed her nutritious meals, but they never ate with her. They just sat there, on the other side of the table, observing her with their ocean blue eyes... They never spoke to her, though at night she could hear them mumbling to each other, in a corner of their room. She would sometimes - after they had enough of inspecting her sleep - wake up in the middle of the night and press her ears to their bedroom door and listen to them speak. She would try to distinguish her parents between the set of voices. It was difficult for they sounded perfectly equal in pitch, tenor, and treble. The voices were beautiful in tone, pleasing to the ear, and pure to the soul. In the long run, she never actually paid attention to the words they spoke - just their foggy tones and whispered jargons. She could never tell when one would stop speaking and the other would begin... Even though she was eight-years-old, she lived in a safe enough neighborhood that her parents let her walk home alone from the bus stop. That day when she came home from school and opened the front door to find them hanging from the living room ceiling beam - blue eyes still vibrant in the fading evening and their expressions wore the usual dullness that remind glued to her parent’s visage. She did not see anything amiss. Her parents were staring straight at her. It was just another day to her. So, she walked around her hanging parents and placed her things away in her bedroom. Then exited using the same route she entered and across from where her parents were rotating irritatingly slow - where a dining room table sat and a cleanly placed snack was waiting for her, as that was the norm. However, on this day a thick note card was on top of her sandwich, which read: Our loves, when you finish your snack, please pick up the phone and call the police. Please, you must understand, we did this for you. We love you more than anything in the world. Even more than we love one another. So that the rest of your many lives may not be met with jealously and hatred by us, we took the matter into our own hands before we did something dreadful to you. Remember, we love you and always will. Goodbye . After she read the note, she looked at her second face and shrugged her shoulders, then did as her parents instructed. When she called the number the lady on the phone asked what the emergency was and the girl could not answer the question - because there was no emergency. She told the woman on the phone that her parents instructed her to call the police and that this was the only number she knew for the police. When the lady asked where her parents were? The girl said that they were watching her as they hung from the ceiling: “necks an odd shade of purple” the girl stated. “It looks like a strange bruise,” she finished. The woman on the phone made a sound that the girl did not recognize and then the lady said that help was on the way. When she hung up the phone the girl was confused, why did she need help? About five minutes after she called, there was a heavy banging on the door. She opened the door, after asking who it was, and police officers rushed into the house. The men saw her parents hanging and either gasped and stared at her or looked away entirely. She noticed that her parents’ eyes were a bit faded now and that their skin took on a grayish tone and it seemed strange to her. Then suddenly, she was carried out of the house by an officer who sat her on the hood of his car. The man’s voice was soft, and she realized that this was not his natural tone, for it was still rough and seemed as if he was trying to comfort her. The man asked about the event that took place in the house, and the question confused her. She told him that, “nothing happened. It was just a normal day”. Now the officer seemed taken aback, and he said calmly that their siblings were dead and they’d never see them again. After he said this, she looked onto her second pair of eyes and saw that it was rubbing its sockets as water ran down its cheeks. She told the officer that they were not her brother and sister, but her parents. The officer looked at her with wide eyes and she did not know why. Then, suddenly, her chest began to hurt and the sides of her face were completely wet... It was not long before she moved into her Aunt’s house. The woman lived in a large two-story house that was filled with filth. The color inside was the same as the color outside - brown. The house was stuffed of old boxes that had useless items inside. The air was brimming with the stench of death and waves of smog-like-smoke throughout. The boxes littered everywhere made it hard for the girl to maneuver around without stumbling or tripping over them... Her Aunt was the example of chain smoker. There was never a moment in which she did not see her Aunt without a cigarette in her mouth. As soon as one finished, her Aunt would have another waiting to take its place. The smoke from the cigarette circled around her, always, as if a cloud followed her whenever or wherever she moved. Her Aunt even slept with it in her mouth. The girl watched her Aunt once while she slept on the recliner. The woman held it in between her dried cracked lips throughout the night, and it never fell... Everyday, her Aunt would look at the girl with disgust, and she never knew why and never cared to ask. Her Aunt never spoke to the girl, like her parents, but unlike them her Aunt would not feed her. The woman would only glance at her as she walked into the kitchen, in the torn and stained nightgown that she wore always; her Aunt would go into the fridge, which was filled with cigarette cartons and tapioca pudding, and eat the pudding right in front of her. The girl would watch her Aunt take spoonsful of the pudding into her blackened mouth, the cigarette hanging on the edge of her crusty lips. The girl would, of course, always eat her breakfast and lunch at school and stow away some food from the cafeteria in her bag so that she could have something for dinner. But when the weekend came, she would sneak into the kitchen at night and take a pudding and share it with her other body until Monday came. It was not until two weeks after living in her Aunt’s home that she had finished exploring the hovel. She found in her Aunt’s unused bedroom a purse lodged underneath the bed that was full of crisp rolls of twenty-dollar bills. The girl counted over five thousand dollars. Therefore, when the weekend came around again the girl would sneak into her Aunt’s room and take two twenties, then leave her Aunt’s and head for the convenience store two block from the house. The girl would get whatever she wanted to eat, but always made sure to get a fruit and vegetable like her parents advised her to always do... Her Aunt never left the house nor would she ever go up the stairs where the girl slept, in one of the less stocked rooms. The woman would always have someone deliver a mountain of cigarette cartons and tapioca pudding once a month. The male that brought her Aunts toxins would always, after organizing them into the fridge, give the girl a little pouch of candy and take her to get a hot meal wherever she wanted. As the year passed on, the girl always wondered why her other faces cheeks would gradually always become a bright red when it looked at the overgrown boy, but her own checks never turned the same shade. Her Aunt would speak to him only when they argued about the woman’s unhealthy way of living, and the male would sometimes tell her that what she was doing was not living at all. He would yell at her Aunt, saying that she was not even taking care of the girls, that they were taking care of themselves and that children should not have to do such things to survive. He carried on, saying that he would claim custody of them if this continued. Her Aunt would laugh at him with her ash and gravel infused vocal cords, saying that he was not mature enough to take care of the girl. Then the boy would storm out like a tornado that blew together out of nowhere.... On one of the days the boy was to come by and drop off another load of her Aunt’s poison, three weeks had passed since her 11th birthday, the girl had just come back from the convenience store and was in her brown Tetris room. She was sorting out what she would eat throughout the day when suddenly she heard a booming sound, that was followed by a foreign screech, originating from down stairs. She walked halfway down the stairs before she saw the boy. The front door was almost off its hinges and the boy was seated on top of her Aunt, a pointed silver kitchen knife in his hand, which he repeatedly brought down into her Aunt’s chest. Red liquid splattered onto the male's face and raked down as he repeatedly continued to stab the immobile woman’s body. The blade entering her Aunt’s flesh sounded squishy at times and hard at others. The audio of the blade’s motion was stuck in the girl’s mind. She walked down the rest of the stairs and slowly headed toward him. The girl’s feet were bare, so when she felt the warm liquid between her toes, it surprised her. The male noticed her suddenly and then smiled the warm smile he always gave her. He said that she was free to do whatever she wanted, her Aunt could not do her any more harm. She wondered about what he had said. The girl did not understand him, because her Aunt had never harmed her in anyway. Her Aunt did nothing for her. The boy looked away from her and continued with his stabbing of her Aunt’s now open heart. She did not know what to do, but she was starting to feel hungry, so she went back upstairs; however, her other body did not move. Her other body stayed there, watching the boy stab her Aunt's body. She was shocked at first, because that had never happened before. The girl had to pull her other body up the stairs and then when she was in her room, she ate what she had bought from the store. About ten minutes after she went upstairs, she heard sirens towards the front of the house. So, again, she went down the stairs, and saw that police officers were trying to pry the boy off her now unrecognizable Aunt. When the officers finally pulled him off her Aunt, one explained to another that a neighbor heard a loud noise coming from the house and called the police. One of the two officers put handcuffs on the boy and screamed, “how could you do this to your mother?” The boy just laughed at the officer as he was dragged out of the house. The other officer noticed her and looked at her with wide eyes, the way the other police officer did, the one who told her she would never see her parents again... The next day the girl was brought to her Uncle’s house. It somewhat surprised her that so many of her relatives, that she has never meet, lived in the same region she did all her life with no interaction until now. Her Uncle lived in a beautiful one-story home encased in large glass windows that could be controlled to darken into black when privacy was needed. When her Uncle first saw the girl, his face twisted slightly and then told her to remove those rags that she wore and get in the tub immediately. She complied with his demand, but internally she was alarmed by his sudden agitation. Afterwards, she stepped out of the scented bath and her Uncle dressed her in colorful outfits that, in his mind, expressed her personalities... Her Uncle lived with a man named James. Her Uncle and James were business partners and very close friends. James would always feed the girl delicious homemade meals and pat her on the head. The warmth she felt always made her feel uncomfortable and confused her. As her weeks turned to months the girl noticed that James, unlike her Uncle, was a very quiet man with stoic expressions and her Uncle would sometimes stare at him with bright hungry blue eyes. At moments like these the girls’ chest would feel tight and constrict her breathing, the opaque color her Uncle’s eye would shine would in turn remind the girl of her parents, and water would stream down her cheeks... At times James would ask the girl to help him cook, and she would always be bothered by her other bodies actions. She enjoyed it partly, because James would look at her or her other face calling out names, and then tell her to do two separate things. She found it to be perplexing. Her Uncle would do the same thing; he would ask Jacky to get the clothes out of the dryer and Janet to clean up the room. It always amused the girl that she could separate from herself, and not do or even think the same things, but have two detached thoughts. The girl would watch her other body clean her room with a frown on its face and wonder if it wasn’t happy because it was not a part of her at that moment... In the middle of the night, sometimes the girl would get up to go to the bathroom or get something to drink, on the way she would pass by her Uncle’s and James’ room. On random occasions, she would press her ears to the door and listen to them sleep. Other times, when they were still awake she would hear strange sounds coming from the room. One night when she was going to the bathroom, her Uncle’s door was slightly open and she peeked inside. The girl was confused by their actions. Her Uncle was in a chair half dressed in tight black shiny pants that had holes cut out of it and James was standing next to him in the same outfit. Then James would put a ball in her Uncle’s mouth that tied around his head. James would lock her Uncle’s hands and feet to the chair, and then kneel beside him and inject a golden liquid into her Uncle’s arm. Her Uncle would unexpectedly slump down into the chair, and his eyes would fade, like a light bulb losing its charge. The girl watched with confusion and fascination, but soon realized that she still had to use the bathroom and left. When she came back the door was fully closed, and she could hear strange noises coming from the room... One day when the girl was walking back from the bus stop, thirteenth birthday candies chiming in her bags, she suddenly smells the invading sent of smog and smoke toward the direction of her Uncle’s house. When she reached the house, the girl saw her Uncle outside, watching it burn down. There were two red plastic containers on the illuminated grass with him and a pistol in his hand. The girl watched him. Tears raking down his face as he talked to himself. Her Uncle said that he couldn't live like this anymore. He said that he loved James, but he could not give James the kind of love that he needed, and said that it was time to end it. The girl looked at the house when a sudden scream came from inside, then she saw him. James was in the living room with everything inside on fire, including him. James ran straight for the large window, his blackened body hit it. The clear glass then faded to black, instantly, and cracked in three parts. The screaming stopped promptly, then the glass warped and shattered. Her Uncle dropped to his knees then took the gun and put it to his temple. He looked back at her and said that he was sorry and pulled the trigger. Red droplets splashed on the girl’s cheeks. The girl looked at her other face and saw water running down the sides. “What are we going to do Jacky?” the face questioned. The girl grabbed her other body and said it was going to be alright, assuring herself, as she held the body to her. “But we’re alone again,” the face mumbled against her chest. The girl said that she would always be there for it, and that could never change, they would always be together. “Forever?” her other face asked as it looked at her. The girl said forever and squeezed her other body. Forever...