Flash Fiction by David Margolin

A doctor colleague and friend referred his “identical” twin brother to me for neurological consultation. The brother was having episodes of dizziness and disorientation. When I walked into the exam room and first laid eyes on my new patient, I wondered if my friend was playing a joke on me–if it was really him in disguise.

The fundamental components of their faces were indeed identical, but the non-structural details were starkly different. My friend was well groomed, clean shaven, and healthy looking, while his brother was shabby, bearded, and hollow in appearance.

How could the same sperm and egg have given rise to such different people? It made me think of comic book alternative reality fiction in which two versions of a person exist in parallel. They were raised in the same household. Why had they turned out so differently? Maybe it was just like a coin flip. It could be tails, it could be heads.

Meeting his brother permanently altered my perception of my friend. In my mind I now see their two faces as mutually exclusive alternating images, like in Rubin’s Vase, the optical image in which one sees either a vase in the center, or two faces in profile looking at each other; it isn’t possible to see the vase and the faces at the same time. The components of the drawing can’t be shared; it’s one image or the other. The components of my friend and his brother are too discordant to be shared, they cancel each other out, and there’s no way of predicting which one I’ll see next.

Text © David Margolin