Gemini

I stretch, gratified in my freedom

Jun 09, 2026

An Obscure Oval Opal floats within the body of a mortal. There is a light, but it comes from a specific source. This light source is near two microscopic cells. One of the cells radiates white light outward; the other light is soft and mint green. The green light is only a reflection of the white, or so it seems. A heartbeat keeps gentle time, as it almost massages the walls of that oval. There is harmony, a song of longing or soothing. It resounds and lifts, but the gravity of the synchronized voices also pulls something down. A lone clear voice cuts through, but this voice too has a twin, a shadow that affirms or detracts. The second voice haunts with malice but confirms belief.

We share—all the same things—essentially.

DNA or genetics; whatever term you want to use. We are identical Twins. (twins)

So, where does the divergence begin?

Why am I this, and he is that? (that)

Which of my thoughts gets to be private? And which are shared?

I understand this, and by saying that—I know he does too.

He has private versions of thought, I think.

It is safe to assume he has malice, maybe not safe to assume, but assuming helps me feel safer. (safer)

We are vulnerable in the truest sense. Neither of us is fully formed. We exist in this warm, floating vat of amniotic fluid as threshold beings.

The fluid and Mamma’s flesh are our protection.

nothing else!

Our cells are porous, we are open to all influences, and we will be born into your world early in June. I think the 9th, but that is only a guess

It is not based on anything other than feeling.

It is a pull of your Strawberry Moon. (feeling)

So, the ocean of infancy begins as a sort of Tohu wa-bohu. (Tohu)

The prefrontal cortex we will soon begin developing won’t be complete for at least another 25 years, so this, whatever this “language” or “thought” is, I don’t know where it comes from. (closer every day)

With each second of growth, it becomes clear to me; privacy here is scarce. Privacy in thought, not in space. The space, within Mamma, I share without hesitation. It is abundance; the scarcity is in thought. (I see your shadow)

I can admit I might be the Angra Mainyu. (light)

But I will never be confident in that thought, as it is not only mine; that thought is also shared.

So, I attempt to parse which is which, and I wait. (waiting)

We fall (falling) but never hit the ground in the traditional sense. The first true fall I imagine is birth, and what then? There will be a whole new code to learn. Will I be mirroring my twin or be mirrored by them? Which role has more responsibility?

The cycle, which you call life, will be endless and shifting. An unending chaos of never knowing. A constant stream of doubt. When I am light, he will be shadow, forever. (forever)

Those early autumnal skies, under which we were conceived, were bolstered by the bloom of decay, scented with the aroma of lush rot. A rot that reeks of the same musk of humanity that dumped us here with a callous and stifled heave; a genital twitch meant more as maintenance and never any real eros. Those skies tumble toward spring and pull us out second by second with no manual, just drool and a slate the rest of the world will pretend is blank.

And we wait. (waiting)

Fall. (falling)

Listen. (listening)

The latest schism was his. (ours)

A flick, a quickening that Momma calls a kick. (listening)

I call it a usurpation. It’s a boast, a test to the limit of my passivity. There have been lots of schisms. Almost all reside in that vein of need for dominance.

At some point, with some scale of measurement, we were all one. We all put on our dunce caps and call it univocity; the cap suits, it fits snug on the top of our head and around the brainstem and the cerebellum.

Then at another point, Mamma and Papa became two, not two like us, not twins, but still two. (I see your shadow)

Mamma was other, but not a schism, just another being. So, we (us) were one thing, A being in another being, not a container or a seed, but life as essence.

A big change followed—one became millions, and our dunce caps, white and conical, grew tails and found an aim. (light) This aim was yet another thing, another outsider. It beckoned, and millions upon millions fled every day, Lemmings into a vessel, a trap, a poison, a pillow, or a sock. Stranded and sundered to die, as a trout on the gravel road beside a train track, gasping at a promise never made.

We were one during this attrition. (I could not)

My twin took me, pulled me forward against my will. (coming closer)

Another usurpation, another insubordination. My wish was not to drown in the fetid air of some restroom, but if I did, it was my choice, my fate, but he took the lead. (listening)

The next schism was Mamma; she did it, the one life here in her womb became two, by her body’s will, and here we are.

An endless pursuit, a sea of confusion that begins in warm serenity and ends with identity erasure and ceaseless striving. The purge into an open world, the breast, the love, the single full mattress versus always twin beds. (Leaving, leaving) Competition for all things—material and otherwise.

I do not consent to a race. When I rise (falling) he will fall (rising), and this animated antonym of existence will madden, it will be coded in every breath I (our) take.

I address you directly, my twin,

“You doubt me, which is intrinsic.

The drive doubts resistance. (I see your shadow)

So, use your strength.

Kick and perform, and make yourself known (light)

I will feed off the denial, the erasure of my indivisibility. Your unheeding ends in rest. A weakness born of a need. A need we share, but a method flawed by confidence. Those times of rest (falling), yes, the falling, that is when I rise, and the split will reconcile.”

Where is Evil in this univocity, and whose evil is it?

One cannot be other than itself. One does not function in unison with something else.

It is—in and of itself.

All of it.

Not in conjunction with or along with.

Not a snake at the feet, but an archangel putting lips to burning coal.

Papa’s urge did not create a schism—it only left behind the ritual trace.

Mamma’s egg split because it was always meant to.

I refuse to yield to my twins’ obtrusive zeal. This is mine. (waiting)

Yes, action.

A call to action, before the cast sets. (light)

[MEMORY_FRAGMENT::CORRUPT_STREAM]

CLICK, CLICK, CLICK

“To consume is different from forced assimilation.

I will bring you in with the light, and you will fall into place as shadow. I will show you the subtle horror of my hunger, while saving you the searing pain of twice my yearning. (I could not say why you and I are Gemini.)”

I consumed what was already mine. All it took was a gummy gnaw on a tired stem. A shudder of reflex.
A surface tension burst by my dull primordial nubs.

The twin is gone. The shadow of his echo has ceased.

(leaving) (leaving) (drifting) (drifting)

I float alone again, back to one for a while, I suppose.

My memory will be flushed with this fluid, and the evil will be just another mystery of nature, canonized with Job’s hawk.

Mama and Papa will shrug and have enough for two, although I am one.

It has been a long time since I’ve been alone. The moments slow without reference. It has been so quiet, without my twin.

But soon, I will fall. I will arrive in late spring with the lusty, profane musk of flowers.

I stretch, gratified in my freedom, for moments it seems. Time is so fleeting. Moments pass in a blink.

Papa will name me Minta because of my green eyes. (hazel)

And because it means defender and protector. (devourer)

I will demand my individuality with my very presence (our)

And the light will be on my crèche. (shadow)

There will be spare, left in the nursery forever in a box. (light)

Somewhere, I hear a second voice?

Still a second voice?

How does it remain?

When did it return?

(Calling, calling, calling, calling, calling)

Nathan Hatch

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?