The Other Twin

Prologue

Her skin is waxy, her lips tinged blue. She’s beautiful, lying on the concrete, so still in the darkness, eyes closed, hair splayed out to the side like a dark sunburst, blood pooling around her head.

Shadows from the streetlamp and the shimmer of recent rain make the whole image surreal, like a movie set after the director has yelled cut and the extras have gone home.

I tiptoe around her, careful not to step in the blood, my hands steady, almost detached from the rest of me. I get low, nearly kneeling, lean over, and position my camera so that I can capture her face. So I can get a good image of the main event – the gunshot wound that has ruined her forehead.

My shoes make small, nervous squeaks against the wet pavement. Otherwise, it’s quiet except for the distant hum of a car engine and the snap and whirr of my Polaroid camera.

I’ve been trying without the flash, hoping the streetlight will capture the subtlety, but it’s too dim, the shadows swallowing all the colour. So I switch on the flash and the world jumps into hyper-reality, every pore and freckle and blood droplet seared into each photo.

Still, I’m critical. I think I’m too close. I take a few steps back and move around to the side. Flash, whirr, flash, whirr, the sounds rhythmic as a heartbeat. I feel a thrill, something dangerous and electric, coursing from my palms up my arms into my chest.

I’ve never done anything like this before.

It’s like acting. Like art. It’s a different feeling.

I like it. I’m focused on the details. The way her make-up has started to run, the flecks of mascara beneath her eyes.

The longer I stay, the more I want to correct her pose, to shift her arm or drape her hair more elegantly, to remove the stray leaf stuck to her wrist that breaks the composition.

I think that should probably do it, but I take a couple more to be on the safe side. Better to have too many than too few, right?

I’m weirdly proud of the work, the way an amateur chef is proud of a well-executed soufflé, and I can’t stop myself from shuffling through the photos, choosing favourites already.

There are some good ones here, at least two that could win a photography contest, if only there were a category for this kind of thing.

I nod, satisfied.

Today has been a good day.