From the corner of my eye I could see Ruth. She looked forlorn and distraught; as helpless as a child who had been lost by her mother, she stood, rooted to the spot, unsure as to whether to cry out or simply weep. 

She had watched as the men had, at first, banged loudly upon the door, their voices loud and clear, the most insistent cutting across the others with the full force of authority, before their hammering had broken the door from one of its hinges. She had stood at my side as they had barged their way into the room, huge, burly figures parting as they realised that they were not to be met with male resistance, allowing their leader, a tall, smartly attired man, to approach us. I had stood, as strongly as I could, trying my best to not allow my quaking frame to give me away; to show them my fear. I took a step towards him as if I were trying to stop him in his tracks; as if, by doing so, I would somehow be able to steal the  initiative from him. But, in truth, it was always to provide protection for you. My movements and intentions,  however,  were lost beneath the charisma that hung over him like a thunderous cloud. 

His voice stilled the clamour of those whose surrounded him, as they stood, blocking any escape route that we might have tried to take – even though we knew that such  action would have proven fruitless. The words that fell from his lips were calm and controlled, but could not disguise the vitriol that lay behind each one. As he spoke, I knew that there was nothing that I would be able to do or say as an act of defence; the law that he had taken as his right to enforce had made his word omnipotent. 

Ruth was pleading with the group to stop, to listen, as we walked down the rutted muddy track which led down towards the village. As we turned onto the lane which ran between the haphazard arrangement of cottages and workshops her voice was lost amongst the noise from the swelling crowd. It seemed that the whole village had spilled from the houses and fields which had become our home, drawn to the scene that was beginning to unfold. We were led past the inn and turned sharply down the lane which led gently down to the river. The few travellers and traders who had been passing through the village had left the inn and had joined the noisy throng that was following us. Two of the larger men had hold of my arms, one on either side, but their attentions were unnecessary – I was only too aware of my situation and the futility of struggle. 

The crowd followed the imposing figure as he led  my attendants and me through the sloping field until we had reached the water’s edge. By now Ruth’s voice had stilled as if she too had come to a point of acceptance, her face lost to me as the baying crowd milled about her. Despite our company it was as if she had become invisible to them; as if she had never existed in the world in which I lived. 

A few audible gasps rose from some of the younger members of the village  –  barely more than children – as they gazed upon what lay by the bank of the river. The children themselves were a gaggle of giggles, nudging and shoving one another until harsh reprimands came from their parents and the other adults around them: entertainment, perhaps, but serious nevertheless. 

Ruth had managed to push her way through the crowd which had threatened to engulf her and had emerged on the side closest to the river. As I was strapped to the crude chair my eyes never once left her. I hoped beyond everything else that she could read what lay behind them. 

My tormentor turned now to face the crowd. A silence fell as if a death bell had chimed as his voice rang out over the field and upwards towards the emptiness of the village. The assembly listened, rapt, as if hypnotised by his words as he read out the charges that had been brought against me. After each one he paused briefly, but this, I knew, was more for impact than for the weight of each accusation to become clear. Not once did he turn to face me in order to gauge my reaction. Perhaps he knew that I had no defence; perhaps, leaning on the importance and influence that he had bestowed upon himself, the outcome of his actions was inevitable, and, with a willing crowd behind him, he was merely prolonging the scene. I had been cast the villain of a play which was now entering its closing act; the audience understood the plot, knew each line as if by heart, and were fully aware of the conclusion, yet still clung on expectantly as if there were to be an inexplicable twist.  

I was led now to the chair. The two figures who had guided me this far pushed me forcefully down onto the seat and, producing a length on rope each, began binding my body and legs to the frame. I felt the rope cut into my legs and constrict itself against my chest as if it were trying to expel the breath from my body. My hands, fastened one to each arm of the chair felt suddenly useless unable to reach out and make themselves known as my own. At last the two men stood back, satisfied, it seemed, with their handiwork. They knew that their work was all but complete. 

Only now did the tall man turn and face me. It was the first time that he had addressed me since his henchmen had dragged me from the cottage. As if feeling that his actions needed any further explanation – yet more crowd-play – he outlined what was to come. He had no need; I knew too well already my fate.  

He signalled to the two stocky men who had bound me to the seat. They moved behind and away from me so that I could no longer see their actions. I felt myself lifted, strapped as I was to the chair, and then swung around until I was suspended above the water. I looked down, momentarily, into the swirling dark river. The current here was not strong and yet it looked as if a hundred hands were working to churn the river from its very bed. I tried to turn, to look around, to find Ruth, to let her know that everything, eventually, would be alright. And then the water hit. 

I watched, powerless, as Eleanor was plunged into the river. I had no voice, no words that I could scream loud enough to make them stop; no hope that I could resist the injustices of justice. She had disappeared now, held below the surface by the weight of machinery and the strength of those commanding it. I desperately wanted her back. I wanted her to hold onto the breath within her lungs for as long as she possibly could; for a lifetime, for eternity, for me. And yet I knew, deep within my heart, that this was no more than a wild hope. Even if she were to emerge from the water, whole and alive, it would be for no more than a fleeting moment in our lives. And could I bear the torture of seeing her frame, devoid of life, dangling like rotting catkins from the tree? For both of us to die twice? 

Breathe, Eleanor, breathe, I whispered beneath my tears.  

The machine whirrs, clicks,

Confusion of truths,

Gears grind

Reluctant reversals

Stuttered movements forward

A sideways glance,

Where left is right

And right is wrong

And perspectives pile

Like bonfire kindling,

And voices echo

In caverns we cannot reach.

My ears had shut down. They refused to listen any more as if, by closing themselves off, they could change reality. Unfortunately for them other senses were still hard at work, trying to fit understanding to the messages that they were receiving. There was a familiar taste and scent to you, one that I wanted desperately to pass off as coincidental, but one that I was undeniably aware of; a scent that could only have emanated from one place. When you had reached out and held my hands, held them briefly in your own, my ability to feel seemed to temporarily desert me; my brain told me that I was holding the hands of another, but my sense of touch buzzed with contradictory messages. It was as if, rather than holding your hands, I was holding my own; as if two rogue hands, ones that belonged solely to me, had curled their fingers around the hands that I knew were attached to my arms. The arms that hung, somewhat loosely now, from my shoulder; the arms that were screaming out their confusion.

But it was my eyes that I could not deny as they stared from your own eyes to the rest of your face and then back again, the magnetic pull far too strong for them to resist. I had wanted to refute it, to try to find the words to deny what I knew was true, to invalidate all that you had said, but what my eyes were telling me was indisputable: I could not contradict what I knew was the truth.

We had met at an art gallery in the city. A chance encounter, or perhaps fate or destiny? I would never know but, on that first meeting when I saw your face staring through the paintings which hung before us, it was as if I were seeing an old friend. A cliché perhaps, but none less true for that being so. It had been you who had made the first move, as I had just stood, rooted before the works of art, watching as the space between us diminished. You had introduced yourself – although somehow, to me at least, that had seemed almost unnecessary – and I reciprocated in kind. The usual formality of pleasantries scattered themselves between us, bridging the gap between the unknown and the familiar, as we walked from room to room. We discussed the merits and the failings of each painting and sculpture that we saw, astounding ourselves at how alike our tastes were. We talked about our own creative impulses, marvelling at the power and importance of Art in all its glorious forms; my heart lay in music, yours in the written word, but for us both it was the power of communication that was that was at the centre of everything.

We shared a late lunch at a nearby restaurant and, as we ate, shared two life stories that read as one: both of us had been born in the same hospital in the same part of the city and in the same year; we both had one older sibling, a brother, and both of us had parents who were now dead. The food and drinks that we enjoyed sounded like a repeat order, and our taste in music, literature and art aligned perfectly. We even shared the same star sign.

You talked with passion and enthusiasm about your great love for anything literary and how your dream had always been to an author. The drive and desire to achieve your dreams was obvious behind your eyes, and it was clear that it was this, coupled with your passions, that had led you into a career in literature. You had joined a small publishing house where you soon procured the task of sourcing new talents. It had not taken long before you had garnered quite the reputation for sorting the wheat from the chaff, and many of the authors whose work you promoted were now pursuing illustrious careers. It hadn’t been long before you had managed to set up your own publishing house – needless to say not as large, but, in its own way, equally successful – and it had already attracted several quite well known and highly regarded authors. With a strong and trusted team around you, you had also been able to begin to fulfil your next dream by having your own work put into print.

As you talked the difference between the depths of your passions and the drive you had to see them to fruition and my own had become glaringly obvious: yours had built one upon the other leading you from goal to goal whilst mine, in its frailty and fragility, had seen my ambitions move from bedroom to backroom and a catalogue of tunes which would go no further than the walls in which it had been created. Success, as the saying goes, breeds success, and talent (assuming that I had any at all) goes nowhere without a driver.

You leaned forward: ‘Do you know who I am?’ you asked, although it was more a statement than a question.

Half smiling I repeated your name back to you.

‘Who I really am?’ you said, your eyes staring into mine, deeper and more intense than I noticed before; and, for a moment, it felt as if I were staring into a mirror late at night, darkened shadows giving lie to the face reflected there.

You reached over and took my hands in yours.

‘I am,’ you said, slowly and purposefully, ‘all that you never were. All the hopes and dreams that you wished would open themselves up to you; all the doors that you prayed would open but that you lacked the courage to try the handles of. I am impulse to your reticence, intuition to your caution, action to your lassitude. I am the heads to your tails, the white to your black, the sound to your silence. I am the you that never was.’

My ears had shut down, but it was at that moment that I knew the truth; that you were my twin. The twin who had died at the moment that I drew my first breath.

To me it was always obvious. I could see it behind your eyes as clearly as a full moon in a cloudless sky. No amount of grey could disguise the truth that I knew you had always worked so hard bury. And, to much of the outside world, for all its general indifference, it seemed that you had succeeded. No bad words were uttered either at your arrival or upon your departure. To those with whom you brushed shoulders you were the epitome of charm and politeness; not from you bitter words or vitriolic jealousy, hatred or intolerance. If anything your accepting and forgiving nature made you a person of admiration and respect; a person to whom others would turn for advice, support and a listening ear. You had garnered, without ever wishing for it, a reputation for being a point from which nothing moved on any further; a trustworthy soul who could be relied upon to hold the darkest of secrets, secrets that their owners knew would follow you to your final resting place.

For yourself, it appeared, you carried no great or ambition or drive to achieve anything other than the happiness of those around you. That and an acceptance that you were who you were and that your altruism hid no ulterior motive. Of course there were almost certainly those who would not accept your demeanor as the normal behaviour of a human being – surely everybody was merely self-motivated and their actions, no matter how they may have been presented, were always designed for self-gain and reward. But then, for them at least, you were nothing more than a blip in their lives, something they might have side stepped on the pavement and given not a moment’s more thought to. Perhaps even those who thought that they knew you well felt the same way, and, once doors were closed, you became nothing more than a memory to them. And yet there was always a shadow behind your eyes; a shadow that now, I realise, could only seen by me – a shadow so dense as to all but obliterate what lay beneath.

I could see it every time that I looked into your eyes. It was hiding, or at least doing its best to hide, behind the veils of darkness that layered themselves like a defensive fortress deep within. There it lurked shifting from shadow to shadow, lurching like a caged animal, its constant mutterings echoing within your head. I watched it, on a daily basis, sowing seeds of destruction, fear and doubts; seeds that would sprout and then die in an instant leaving only rotting roots. Of course there was nothing that I could do; after all, what purpose would there be in pointing out something that you were already more than familiar with – something that you had grown to accept as a guest who showed no inclination to move on. You had grown together for such a long time that, by now, you had no recollection of when your paths had first crossed, and it had become impossible to discern where you ended and it began. Behind the facade that you wore you had become inseparable; neither could not depart the other.

Even as you closed your eyes I knew that you could not shut out that which had grown within you; you could never sever the limb, and I was left wondering at what point would you would turn yourself inside out.

Ice angels danced delicate designs across the midnight blue which had, by now, swallowed the sky. Their patterns pirouetted and spiralled down where they settled in silent deaths on beds of white. Winter was clinging on now by its finger tips as if it were aware that a change was drawing ever closer; in its death throes it had cast its purple-grey cloak across the sky. The day’s blue had become white and now the black was tinged with rich plum hues; snow continued to fall softly icing the carpet which had long since covered both green and black alike, brushing away any signs that anything had been this way before.

And for us it was as if nothing ever had. The virgin crispness which stretched out before us was a canvas onto which our oils had not yet spilled. We had no need for instruction, no cause to call upon the saints or spirits of those who had come before to be our guides. There was no reason to fall at the feet of the Fates and have them foretell our futures; the picture was ours and ours alone to paint.

You held my hand that night and I clutched yours as if it were the most precious treasure that I could have found. I held you gently, delicately as we walked, never wishing to release you to the night, cradling your hand like a new-born as our feet crunched their prints into the snow, which glistened like a bed of diamonds beneath us. Our breaths cut ribbons through the ice intertwining as if they had been expelled by one being; if was no longer possible to discern where I ended and you began. We slipped through the silent night like a whisper, like a dream that the gods had once had, long before we had either shape or form. A dream within a dream; a dream that could only be dreamed by the gods; and yet here we were, side by side, heart in heart, our footsteps, soundless in the darkness marking jewels in the dust.

We walked along streets silenced by the snowfall; I laughed when you lay on the ground and made snow angels, and you smiled at my jokes. Our voices, so quiet in the night, rang loudly inside our heads, echoing the words we had spoken and those we had no need to air. They hung between us as we strolled past houses that had long since lulled themselves to sleep. To us they seemed to huddle even closer than usual as if they were seeking to keep one another warm. But we knew we had no need for such actions, such comfort; what we held between us was enough.

We turned the last corner and I walked the final few yards and stood outside the house where you had lived.

It had been more than thirty years. A lifetime. A lifetime which, like most, had begun with so much promise, so much positivity; so much surety that no obstacle existed that was too big to surmount; no argument too challenging to overcome. And yet, as time had rolled by, there had been a steady, almost imperceptible, unravelling of hopes and dreams and ambitions. Life had slowly seeped into each day until it had silently smothered living and only a sense of existence remained.

Gone the comfortable house in an affluent neighbourhood; the expensive car, the holidays to exotic places which had once dwelled only in dreams. Gone, too, the relationships upon which a life had been built – friends, lovers, partners – all lost to the breeze like fleeting clouds on a summer’s day, dissipated to the blue with barely an acknowledgement of their departure.

The car drew to a halt outside the house – a spacious, immodestly designed semi-detached property whose rooms looked to spill out onto the small patch of gravelled frontage which lay between it and the pavement. It was a far cry from the tiny, rented one bedroomed apartment from which the car had come; one hundred and forty miles but a world, a lifetime, away. For a while all was still; the silence broken only by the steady tick-ticking of the slowly cooling engine. A door opened and feet stepped out of the vehicle and into the past.

The others had gone. Illness and injury had seen to that, and both now walked a different path. Only one remained, a visitor from afar; a prodigal returning to claim what had fallen into their lap. It was not a question of merit or justification, merely a matter of legality and sanction: an inescapable truth.

On the surface nothing much seemed to have changed. The road still stretched away in both directions from the house, almost as if it were, itself, trying to affect an escape, until it disappeared from view, in one direction downwards and in the other around a sharp turn. As far as could be discerned the houses maintained the same facade as they always had; a disguise as to what ever took place beyond their thresholds. They were still giving nothing away. The house itself, outside which a long figure now stood, seemed both welcoming and menacing in equal measure, as if it wanted to both welcome and smother at the same time. Behind its door lay both the future and the past, and both seemed equally uncertain.

A further step and a key slipped almost soundlessly into a lock. It was turned and the door pushed aside as if it were the present. A dull scent of nostalgia encircled the figure, wrapping its icy tendrils around it, as if sucking its prey into a web. No-one was there to notice the door slowly closing.

The past is nothing but a falsehood, a collection of memories which are either romanticised or exaggerated in their significance: fears found under rocks and dreams formed from the imagined lives of others. Nothing remains. A return is simply a movement from one place to another; any hopes of rewriting history, of re-living distant days, are nothing but pipe dreams for the lost. Everything was as it always had been and yet nothing had remained the same.

As the door slowly closed a curtain fell, replaced by a shroud.

Kyss meg nå

Før det er for sent

Før ulvene spiser hjertene våre

Og fortapt er vi

Fordi uten elsker din

Jeg er men

Et barn mistet

Til vinden

Kiss me now

Before it’s too late

Before the wolves eat our hearts

And we are lost

Because without your love

I am but

A child lost

To the wind

So I said to him, ‘Robert’, I said, ‘will you quit your messing around? The only reason I have to keep re-starting this is because every time I get three parts through you sweep something away. Yes, I know it may only be a strand or two, but sometimes it’s the whole damned thing and I’ve got to start again from scratch. It may only be a joke to you, sunshine, but for me it’s my livelihood. You need to stop taking your frustrations out on others and get yourself sorted.’

Well, as you can imagine, he wasn’t too impressed with that! Here he was, a supposed king (although, to be fair, I didn’t know that at the time and could only surmise his level of importance by his fancy dress) hiding himself away in a dark and dank cave occupying himself with a bit of housework whilst having a good old whinge to himself about something I could not make head nor tail of.

And I wouldn’t have minded his being around if it weren’t for two things; firstly that he was quite loud (particularly for a person who was clearly on the run from somebody) but moreover for the fact that he seemed obsessed with destroying my efforts. I don’t know, perhaps he had an overbearing mother who constantly nagged him about keeping his room tidy? All I can say for sure is that he was terribly irritating.

So, yes, after the umpteenth time of his messing with my web, I snapped (if you’ll pardon my unintentional pun) and vented my annoyance upon him.

Not surprisingly he seemed a little taken aback – hearing me speak was probably the last thing that he had expected whilst he had himself secreted away – but everyone has their breaking point (again, sorry for the pun – once they’ve started coming they seem impossible to resist!), and I must say it showed on his face!

So, yes, I began my rant and I’m not sure whether it was through shock or genuine interest, he did actually appear to listen. Or, at least, not swat me away completely. For a while we sat observing one another in silence. Then, quite elegantly for a man of his stature, I thought, he stood up and muttered the last word I was ever to hear leave his lips. ‘Mmm.’

That was it. He picked up his sword which he had propped up against the wall and stomped off out of the cave and down the flank of the mountain with my own final words echoing after him: ‘And don’t go telling anyone else about this,’ I called out, ‘I could do without a horde of busybodies clambering around my home!’ But I doubt that he heard, or was even listening.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Always told in the victor’s voice with barely a nod to us little folk who are behind it all.

They sat, staring into the space occupied by one another, eyes raw-red as if it had been only yesterday. In brief moments their eyes met but each no longer saw the other; words that had once been unnecessary haunted their minds, but were lost now, trapped in labyrinths with exits forgotten.

The table between them was the Andes, folding upon itself as they sat, in precisely place chairs, one on either side. It grew, and now towered above them insurmountable, shadowing each in turn with its presence: she, on one side, with her guilt and doubt and disbelief, he, on the other, with his unshakeable faith and conviction.

She wanted to confront Chronos; to challenge him; to force him to alter his ways, to turn back the sands to earlier days, to a time before.

He wanted to make her see the design in everything, the purpose and reasoning that lay behind it all. To understand the glory of what would be. The profit that underpinned the pain.

She wanted her grief to permeate his skin until he was dripping with her pain and his emotions matched hers. She needed to feel that he was she and she was he.

His soul was filled with silent prayer, a prayer that he knew would grow between them and draw her to his certitude. With no words spoken he could feel it cutting through his pain, his anguish, reaching out to hold her in his arms, his comfort.

She wanted to scream out loud, to scream in his face: ‘Where’s the God in all of this?’

He was standing in exactly the same spot as always. Each morning and every evening; standing without movement; still, statuesque – in the most literal of senses – as if waiting, always waiting. And then he would be gone as if he had vanished into nothingness, dissipated into air that surrounded him; gone as if he had never existed in that spot, at that point in time. Gone, and his presence forgotten, at least for those hours when he existed in some other place or time, until his return the following day. At precisely the same time. And in precisely the same spot.

In earlier days there had been those who had wondered at his presence, concerned their thoughts over his reasons for being there; for standing in a silence so complete that one might have wondered whether or not he was drawing breath into his body. For others he became a topic of discussion, of idle gossip and chit-chat; theories postulated and bounced between those interested as they stood, gazing from what they might have deemed a safe distance. There were still others for whom curiosity grew to become concern, distrust and even fear: how dare such an individual invade what they might have deemed their own personal territory, a place that they considered as a possession for those brief moments that they themselves passed by. Comments were heard, disgruntled, angry and fearful, and there were even those who went that one step further and sought to approach the man, to demand an explanation for his presence. But each voice, no matter how persuasive or raised or forceful was met by the same stone wall of silence. It was as if the man himself were made of granite, impervious to the ravages that came his way, or, at the very least, dumb and mute to their demands.

But, as time moved ceaselessly on until it had arrived at a point where no-one could recall the exact moment when they had first noticed the man, interest had waned, and even those who had harboured concern had either decided that their worries had been pointless or they had come to accept his presence as harmless. People passed by, seeming almost to no longer notice him as he stood in silent stillness, staring, unmoved by the life that swirled around him; people going about their daily routines, moving to and fro with a sense of purpose which they believed unique to them, without which their lives would carry no meaning. A stranger standing, motionless bore no bearing on their existence. And what if he did keep returning, kept up the same routine? As long as he caused them no concern, as far as they were bothered, he could just get on with wasting what life he might have left. Where he came from and where he went were no longer issues of conversation and debate, and his presence had become so expected that it when passers-by returned to their own homes they could sometimes not even be sure that they had seen him – more that they had expected to have seen him so therefore assumed that he actually had been there, standing, as always, silent and ever watchful.

Day followed day followed day. Weeks slipped into months which bled into years, and each day, relentlessly, at the allotted hours the man stood, still, statuesque and waiting. Until, one day, he didn’t.