Artist: Esme Gonzalez
There’s 2631 euros left in this bank account, and I just want to remember what my damn pin is so I can get the rest of my money and go home.
The truth is it’s not something I can remember because I never knew what the pin was; my other head, my sister, used to take care of this kind of stuff. But she’s dead now, and her head and neck have been removed, and the bones of my sternum and my shoulder have been rearranged to make it look like I’ve only ever had one head, but my right shoulder still is longer than my left and sloped downward in a way that makes me looked crooked and not capable of playing any sport, let alone baller bat, which is what my sister and I used to play and the source of the money I can’t get out of this account.
6 numbers. I guessed the pin she used for her cell phone. The machine beeps its disappointment.
When I was in high school, the gym teacher called all the conjoined twins and asked us to meet her on the field behind the school. There were just six of us in the whole school. In the past, it would be unheard of to have any conjoined twins at a high school, but now, with all the radiation poisoning along with better healthcare, more conjoined twins are born (and surviving) each year.
6 more numbers. Mom’s birthday. My sister always liked my mom. I liked my dad. Again, it’s a no go. The ATM sounds annoyed this time although I know it doesn’t remotely care, which makes this even more frustrating.
The gym teacher gave us some large flat bats, helmets (one for each head), and conjoined twins, adult men with two heads, sauntered over to us in designer athleisure, crossed their arms, and scrutinized the raggedy group of children sitting in the grass. We struggled to understand the accent of the head on the right as he explained the rules of baller bat, a hugely popular game overseas in which all the players are conjoined twins. “Mr. and Mr. Klaus are talent scouts. If you can impress them, you may get offered a spot on one of the most popular and successful baller bat teams in the European League.”
The day Ruffy died. Ruffy was the cat my sister had; it liked her better than it liked me. That date didn’t work either, and I’m nervous that if I put in another wrong number I’m going to get locked out, and then I’ll have to talk to someone in the bank, which I am trying to avoid. I don’t feel like being recognized or pitied.
Me and my sister were really good at baller bat. Once we graduated high school, the Mr. Klauses recruited us to play on a Dutch team. We weren’t super famous, but we were well-known amongst sports fans. My sister, being my sister, learned Dutch and gave all the interviews, even though most Dutch people spoke English and didn’t seem to care that much about foreign players learning their language. When we played, she was the one who batted the stray balls away (if they hit you, you’d have to freeze for a few moments) while I concentrated on our footwork, just keeping the large, bouncy goal ball dribbling between my feet as we ran and navigated around other players, using my arm to push them away, until we finally made it close enough to kick and score. Dutch people liked my sister, were charmed by her. I was the silent, quiet head, the head that was always eating or biting my lower lip, expressing whatever emotion my sister had trained herself to repress.
I debate using up one more try on an idea I’d had from the beginning of this adventure but was trying to avoid. It is ridiculous, but something compels me. The date of my sister’s death. She took her own life. The screen changes, processes, blinks. What do I want to do with my account?
Of course, this is either a huge coincidence or my sister had been planning her death on this date for a long while, for whatever reason. After she shot herself, and I woke up in the hospital bed, people asked me if I’d known she was depressed, suicidal. How could I not have known? Weren’t we psychic or the same person, even? We shared nearly every organ, the same DNA, but still, between our brains might as well have been an ocean of distance. She never told me she wanted to die. They held a funeral ceremony. A charity funded the reconstructive surgery needed for my shoulder. I recovered in the hospital, watched my former baller bat team lose game after game. I failed at giving compelling interviews, even in English, and then weeks passed, and without the charm of my second head, folks seemed to quietly move on from my sister. From me. From the tragedy of star players’ careers cut so short in their prime.
The machine spits out almost all the money, but it doesn’t carry small bills, so my last 11 euros are stuck in this account forever, unless I get the courage to close the account out in person, which would probably be the smart thing to do because I can’t be a baller bat player again, and I won’t live in the Netherlands again, and I probably won’t live in another part of Europe.
Probably. But who can say–there’s an ocean between my mind now and my mind years from now. No one really knows what their future self will want, especially because that self will be alone, a single head for one body, for the first time. For now, the crisp, colorful bills in my hand feel soothing, like lotion, like a mystical balm.
I suppose I really did know enough about her, in the end.
Jennifer writes speculative shorts and lives in New York where she works in animal conservation. Her website: https://jenniferjeannemcardle.blogspot.com/