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I watched the string of clowns bobbing up and down along the cables
from the window of the car. I was seven and my mother would
occasionally take the back road to the capital city. Along the way
were the usual utility poles I had grown up seeing in the nineteen
sixties, but these had oddly shaped clips holding the bottom four
bundles of cables between each passing pole. From a bulging center,
four tapering ends swirled round and each held its bundle of lines in
a little circle. I fancied the shape as a clown, wearing a bent over
conical hat with a fuzzy tassel at the end, riding a unicycle while
holding its mittened hands out to either side for balance, one facing
up, the other facing down. And these clips repeated around six times
swaying up and down the cables running between the poles.
Watching the up and down flow as the car moved onward, my mind
wandered and I mused about the recent addition to the second grade at
my school. Twin girls had joined us, one for each of the two second
grade classrooms. But at lunch time we could see them together
sitting side by side and marvel at how similar they looked, though
wearing different clothes.
While forced to sit at the little kids' table during first grade
lunch period, for second grade our class size had grown and there
were no longer enough of the smaller tables for all of us to sit at.
The teachers would allow us to pick from the few surrounding big kid
tables when lunch started. My friends and I vied for the chance to
get one of them and let our feet dangle as we ate and visited amongst
ourselves. One of these times a boy pointed to the twin girls
sitting at a nearby smaller kid table as one of them was bulging out
her tummy to pretend she was pregnant while telling a story.
I told my mother of this recent event as the drive continued and
mused that it would be neat if I had a twin, someone who would share
the same interests as I, always be there for company and to play
with.
My mother drilled back that it would be appalling and I would hate
it. For if I had a twin, then I would come to realize what a
terrible, horrible person I was and I would learn just how much I
should hate and loath myself. I was a terrible person and I should
live in constant shame of what I was.
This was the first time I remember her saying something like this to
my face. It would be another five years before it became routine...