10

Until the Last Breath

Until you see yourself in the video, you can't really understand the meaning of being “On the brink of death".

The transparent bag, wet from my labored breathing, prevents me from seeing but it reminds me of something, a déjà vu, a twisted mixture of emotions and memories.

“Playing with death is my forte.”

I was born in a competition for space.

My mother's uterus wasn't designed for twin girls.

It had been designed for a male child and, then, possibly for a girl.

That was a bad spermatozoa’s joke. Who knows what's on their minds.

And so, you had to compete from the beginning of this troubled existence, before you even knew who you were and how you ended up in there.

And the more time passes the more you had to struggle to feed more than the other, the twin sister; you had to fight for space inside that gelatinous bubble, which resembled the transparent bag wrapped around my head and tightened around my neck.

But don't panic, everything will be alright.

In the gelatinous bubble, time flows fast, at least that's how I imagine it. The space available is increasingly disputed, with twisted tiny feet and hands and umbilical cords.

But don't worry, at least for the first few months, it was more a minuet than a Charleston.

“Playing with death is my forte.”

He is a lot like my father, not only because he is older than me but also for the contempt he has for women, whom he hates but can't do without.

He has the same disturbed look my father had at the news of the twin baby girls. Nature's joke at his need for recognition in a mini-self.

And what about my mother, where does she stand in all this? Well, she is in her own world, made of dreams and self-denial, where her only victory is giving birth to two daughters, as a bequest to carry on herself.

“Playing with death is my forte.”

The first round is won by the other twin. Too strong and quick for me.

Too much haste to be born, doctors say to call it that, a seven-month birth.

Too much want to get rid of us, is the thought that comes to me from our parents.

He records the scene on his smartphone, to show his power.

Too eager to get rid of me, I tell myself iconic, thinking back to the incubator where we had been parked awaiting judgment.

“Playing with death is my forte.”

Being stronger and faster, the other twin is the first to crawl to Mom. It is a law of nature to privilege the strongest and leave the weakest to their fate.

...

Extract from the book “We Cannot Escape from Ourselves”.