he crumpled the card. flung it. headed for the garden.

seeing him, his mother flinched. this wasn’t baldwin. but why wear baldwin’s clothes? even baldwin’s red hair?

—joey!

—i’m now baldwin. no longer joey. i come to say ‘no birthdays anymore!’

—whatcha doing, eh?

—we’re fine wi’ddis, mum.

his mother wiped tears. groaned. —baldwin’s dead, joey. stop this.

Adopt imaginary twins; cry when they say their first word (“quarantine”); ransack new recipes to quiet their insatiable hunger; crank open doors and windows; demonstrate how to run fingers over wild, overgrown grass; bike them to beach; build castles, mermaids, moats; inhale salty ocean air; watch fire-red sun sink into horizon.

Lift face to pale moon and marvel, “Isn’t it crazy that there are more stars in the sky than all the grains of sand on earth?”

And they loved Hannah.

At least until tonight. Tonight I find the babysitter’s back gnawed down to her spine. Karen lays legless, dead mid-scream, a broken doll herself. Samantha’s face is chewed to tattered strips of scarlet skin — wet ribbons staining hectic red hieroglyphs across the carpet. Her eyes and scalp are gone.

I find Hannah looking up at me. Her painted eyes are flat black coins. Her plastic teeth, still moving, are soaked in violent crimson.

The scene ignited Mairong’s innermost despair and he took to the jungle again. Their father dead since last July, he untied the dupatta around his daughter’s neck.

I visit my Doctor as little as humanly possible. In fact, last Monday was the first time I’ve been here in ages. He told me to go to the hospital and take the tests. He said he’d call me back when the results were in.

I got the call an hour ago from the practice nurse. She said the Doctor could see me as soon as I arrived.

That was a long time ago. The Greens are no longer green. That’s because the sheep attracted wolves, and the berries attracted bears, and the honey, well they brought the bees. Plus a developer chopped down the woods and built a row of high-end condominiums.

You could say this story is just like The Prestige, but in outer space. The one astronaut does in fact have a twin brother, who’s also an astronaut, but they keep this fact a secret until the end. The other astronaut flies a special space ship built by David Bowie.

He considered himself fortunate, married to a sober woman, and the father of twins.

“You have got to be kidding me,” complained Juror Number Eight.

“The evidence is airtight,” repeated the very exasperated Juror Number Three.

But they were growing resigned to the fact they would never sway Juror Number Five.

“I still say there is reasonable doubt,” he affirmed stubbornly.

“Why did you run away?”

He stared blankly. She was poorly dressed, maybe even homeless.

“You never called. You just abandoned me. I just got outta jail a week ago.”

He tried to look appropriately contrite. He failed.

“Honey, they took away our baby. You gotta help me get her back.”

Finally, fearing she would not allow him to pass, he said, “I’m sorry, but I am sure we’ve never met.”

“How can you say that to me, Jack?”