YOU'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE
The concept of a third type of twin was first proposed by a Russian doctor in 1984. In his original hypothesis, he coined the word sesquizygotic to describe these “semi-identical” twins: this is of course in deference to the already-established classifications of monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins. Despite this early hypothesis, evidence of sesquizygotic twins was not discovered until twenty-three years later, when a pair of twins were born as neither monozygotic nor dizygotic. One was a male; the other, hermaphroditic. After tests were performed (including the sampling of white blood cells, red blood cells, and connective tissues), the infants were determined to share all maternal alleles, but only around ¾ of paternal alleles.
[…]
These twins were not the Dobles. Neither were they the same type of twin as the Dobles. They were the first and, so far, only real-life example of sesquizygotic twins; the Dobles, on the other hand, are what I believe to be the first real-life example of diplozygotic twins: my own word, the more scientific version of my preferred name for them, golden twins: my little tongue-in-cheek reference to Euclidean geometry.
Like roughly ¾ of monozygotic twins, the Dobles were monochorionic (sharing a placenta), and like .0029% of monochorionic twins, the Dobles were also monoamniotic (sharing an amniotic sac). Unlike sesquizygotic twins, the Dobles were not born different sexes or sharing only 78% of their father’s DNA. Like identical twins, they share 100% of both maternal and paternal alleles; but unlike identical twins, they happen to be identical.
– Alice Chambers
"Doblehelix"
May, 2010
Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin
Graduate School for Arts and Sciences
Two-Thirds
For once, the Dream was a little different.
For once, the Room was simpler. There were no logic-defying M. C. Escher feats of architecture, no megalophobic spaces too large to feasibly exist. There were none of the colorful and nostalgically corporate impulses that had danced on the edges of prior Dreams. For once – and sometimes – the Room was just a room.
Within her dreaming mind (as close to awareness as she could ever be while her glymphatic system purged itself of toxins) she recalled her previous nighttime visits to the Room and its surrounding dreamscape. It was all part of the Room, she had known, intuitively: the endless dark corridors, the mysterious horror movie closets, the damp swamplands that had quickly been revealed as no more than a manmade, human-sized terrarium. All these worlds, and all the subtly distinct emotions they had drawn out of her dreaming mind, they had all been part of the Room: she knew it because she felt it, the same way she knew she was having the Dream, rather than any ordinary nighttime hallucination.
This collection of diverse environments, her own personal multiverse of thematically similar but visually distinct buildings, they all existed simultaneously and separately under the ontological state of being she called the Room. And the Room existed intertwined with the Dream: one could not be without the other. The Room could only be accessed through the Dream. And the Dream would never show her anything other than the Room.
On the countless occasions she had arrived here in the past, crossing the threshold between the world of humanity and the no-less-real cogito ergo sum Matrix theory blue pill simulation of the Dream, she had almost been able to convince herself that the other world, the less variable world, could also be defined as a dream of sorts. That this ever-changing universe beyond time where she wasn’t exactly happy, but at least never had to deal with the pressures of adult life and could still feel the warmth and comfort of her bedsheets, was the true universe, the one she deserved. The one she preferred. Did it make less sense in its disregard for physics and continuity? Only by the rules of the other world. Who’s to say the world of Christianity and terrorism and drug and suicide epidemics had more logical rules than a world where she was the lone solipsistic inhabitant?
She had never been able to fully convince herself. She was a human being, for what it was worth, and she had a habit of preferring the laws of the known universe, even if they dictated aging and eventual death. No laws of any universe, fictional or otherwise, would allow for a Room that shifted and remodeled itself every time she visited, veering along a spectrum from empty manmade corporatism to lonely postapocalyptic nature, somehow also manmade with its papier-mâché trees and dull blue sky painted on the walls.
But this time…this time…
This wasn’t just the Room. It was definitely the Room, she could feel that as well as she could see the pinkish carpet and greenish wallpaper – but it was a real room as well, she was sure, real not just in the Dream but in that other confusing yet frustratingly logical world. As hard as she looked, she could see no cracks in the mathematical simplicity of the area: no physics-defying architecture, no thin spot in the wall that would allow her to duck behind an atom and flip-flop to the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions. This Room was just a room – and it was a room she recognized.
The Room was blurry. Not exactly high definition. This was par for the course in a dream, she knew, and if rendered on a computer screen this room would be no more than a couple strokes of paint: pink for the carpet, and light greenish for the wallpaper. But her brain was functioning at a lower rate than normal. Battery saving mode. Like an ancient computer displaying a low-quality image, the infinitesimally simple room around her appeared almost photorealistic.
She turned around, almost falling, moving like a drunk in her half-conscious state. If she had to run or throw a punch, she knew, she would end up seething in impotent frustration.
The door to the Room was wooden, dark gray, with a simple knob set at her eye level: exactly as she remembered it. But you’ve never been here before, she told herself, realizing this was true even as she thought it. She recognized the Room, but she somehow knew she had never seen it before, not in a Dream nor in her home universe.
Propelled forward by nothing but her thoughts, she took the small knob in both hands and gave it a twist, finding the brass ball perfectly sized to her little fists. That wasn’t right, she realized: the gray wood, yes, but not the knob. There hadn’t been a knob, the last time she’d seen this door. Which she never had. Convenient.
The door was closed, and then it was open. There seemed to be no break in the pale pink carpeting of the Room as she passed through its threshold: the pink below her feet had spilled out through the door and onto the ground outside. Was she still inside? Of course. She must be. Although she had left the Room, she was still in the Dream. And someone had left something here, a big pile of somethings. Furniture. Chairs? A sofa. Someone had spilled a box of furniture and forgot to clean it up. No matter. She was nimble. She could climb, even in her dress.
She squeezed between the legs of a chair that felt too big, even to her small frame. She climbed across a sofa and hopped down on the other side, her feet coming in contact with uneven brick flooring. Only a few streaks of the pink carpeting had spilled out onto the bricks, and sprouted up like moss between the trees painted on either wall, the contours of the spill a foamy white.
Her bed was here, between two trees, propped up against the cloudy blue wall. Bedknobs. Broomsticks. She hadn’t brought it here, though she liked to think she had. And what harm did that do? It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say her talents outweighed her shortcomings. It looked like rain. The ceiling was dark grey. Heavy with moisture. Rain might wash away the trees. If too much water collected, the Room would flood and her bed would float away. Mold. Black mold.
The light from wherever the light was from (holes?) seemed to grow brighter for a moment, and the Room around her seemed to flicker. This world was moving on. She opened her mouth to speak, then realized that would be the end: whatever she said would become cacophony, the Deplorable Word, the pandemonium to bring Pandæmonium and erase this world more completely than any simple atom-splitting weapon. She held her tongue, hoping to stay a little longer, and crawled into bed.
The Room was real, she thought, as the world around her grew thinner. And at the same time, it wasn’t.
one
Jane swallowed her tears. She couldn’t cry. Not now. He couldn’t see her cry. You’re not sad, she told herself. You’re effing pissed. He was pissed because she made a mistake, and she was pissed because he was pissed. No, eff that. You’re an adult. Really, she was pissed because he couldn’t seem to understand how sorry she was. Put it into words. Just tell him. He would come around, she knew, he always did: the sun never set on his anger.
“You cheated on me,” Davey said, slumping against her desk like he couldn’t hold himself up under the weight of this revelation. “It’s as simple as that. You have like, one job, and it’s to not cheat on me.”
You’re sorry. Just say it. “You don’t get it,” Jane shot at him, throwing her shoulders back and trying to look proud. No – what was she doing? Quit acting, just tell him how you – “It was a moment of weakness.”
“No,” Davey retorted, “Eating an entire tub of ice cream in one sitting is a moment of weakness. This was cheating.”
“Well I guess that explains where all the ice cream keeps disappearing to,” Jane muttered. When was this? she thought, somewhere in the back of her mind. Had she noticed a lack of ice cream? Here, in the bedroom? “Look,” she continued, “I screwed up. I made a mistake. Are you gonna tell me you’ve never made a mistake?”
I’m sorry. Just say it.
“Oh I’ve made plenty of mistakes,” Davey said, standing up straight and gesticulating with his arms. Good. That desk was on its last legs. First too. First two. Technically. “Like not listening to that guy who told me to invest in Uber. Or eating an entire tub of ice cream in one sitting.”
“Or when you accidentally made out with your sister at that Halloween party,” Jane suggested.
“We don’t talk about that,” Davey grimaced. That’s right: they didn’t talk about that. They didn’t talk about anything, really. The past was over. The future had not yet been written. Another day, another dawn. A new storyline in this all-consuming relationship. Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. Or Ubers.
“But I’ve never made a mistake that would hurt someone I love,” Davey said (continued). “I would never cheat on you, Jane. Never.” He hated this, she realized: he hated being angry. It hurt him to yell at her. But it hurt him more to know that she’d broken his trust.
I’m sorry. Just – Love. He said love. I’m sorry, you love. Had he said that before? No. What about – no, he hadn’t. Even if he had – that was before. This is now. Today. Was this significant? Was this an out?
“What,” Davey said, and Jane realized she’d been gaping at him. Gaping? was that the word? How does one gape?
“You…” You’re sorry. Don’t try to change the subject. “You said you loved me,” she replied, in a half-whisper. “You’ve never said that before.”
The change in Davey’s face came instantly. It was forced, more emotional than he really felt; he was acting, she knew, but he was acting around a kernel of truth. Realization. He had said he loved her. For the first time. Today.
She let the tears fall now, and it was obvious they weren’t tears of sadness: given the buildup, they were more like tears of release after a stew of emotions. Sort of like…euphoria after a well-defined internal struggle. Play the opposite. Follow the arc. Menthol? Thing of the past. The tears came to Davey’s eyes as well, spontaneous (wow), springing to life in a face that had been furious only seconds before (playing opposite the opposite).
“Come here,” Davey said, crossing the short space between them and holding out his arms. She met him and they embraced: a real hug, not forced. They liked each other. Loved, apparently. He said it first. That could be ammo for either side. She would have to remember. Except not. They never remembered. The sun never set. It only snowed on Christmas. This hug was the end, again. I do, adieu. The end of this story, and she had just barely made it. Next time, she might not be so lucky. Yeah right.
I’m sorry. Just say it. Except she didn’t have to say it, and she didn’t have to be sorry. The story was over. Time for another day.
“Cut!”
As soon as the command was called, Davey (?) pulled away and took a deep breath. She dabbed at her eyes with the collar of her T-shirt.
“That’s a wrap,” called Roger from his place just outside the bedroom. “Let’s take a tight fifteen.”
“Well that was fun,” Chris said, in his usual cheery way. His facial acting was on point as ever: the moment he heard cut, Chris’s overconfident sleezeball grin slipped in to replace Davey’s cautious and vulnerable smolder. “We should do it again sometime.”
“Please no,” V muttered, checking her collar for errant makeup splotches. “Too much drama. Too much emotion.”
“Well if Jane could keep it in her pants, I wouldn’t have to be so up in arms,” Chris returned, walking away to join the departing crew.
V stood alone by the aging desk, ignoring and ignored by the others. Something was nagging at her – something other than the insufficient amount of caffeine in her body or Jane’s overextended brain chemicals still pumping. The Dream. Of course it was the Dream. The Dream, and the Room. She needed to call Joy.
She traced her eye along the baseboard of Jane’s bedroom, separated from the wall by a minuscule sliver of nothingness. Invisible to the camera. Gaping to her. She looked across the nightstand, holding a stack of prop novels with cheaply-made covers and two-hundred-odd blank pages, and across the bed with its flower print sheets. The floor was synthetic wood, identical planks slid together like horizontal Lego bricks. There should have been a carpet. A pink carpet.
This room ended in an abrupt drop-off, like the edge of the world, where artificial wood gave way to a hard floor crisscrossed by wires and lines and duct tape. An entire universe was held within this room: separate from the world outside, but no less real. The universe of Jane and Davey, Davey and Jane (Javey and Dane?), V and Chris could step inside this universe, physically, but they would never really belong. A pink-carpeted pocket of time and space – but without the carpet.
They were all actors here, but some more than others: V and Chris played literal roles in front of the camera, transcribing their faces onto fictional characters who existed only in the mind of the writers and the hearts of the viewers. The crew were actors too, in a way: acting onset by existing offscreen, in the hammerspace between visuals where they could work as messengers of their own personal god to ensure continuity between every aspect of this other universe. The set itself, she realized, was also an actor in its own way: maybe even more so than she and Chris. The two of them only had to act as other humans, physically identical and in the grand scheme of things not too far off personality-wise. Their onscreen twins. But the set, hastily built by underpaid laborers nearly three years ago, was pulling off the most impressive act of all: pretending to be a fully-functioning, four-walled room capable of sheltering an adult human and drudging up that Stockholm syndrome sense of tender affection when in reality it was hardly more than a few slabs of plywood Gorilla Glued together and painted a bourgeois shade of wine red. V was forced to wear a wig for her role as Jane Delano – but the set didn’t even have a fourth wall, let alone a ceiling.
V stepped outside the world of Jane Delano and into the world of Veronica Doble. In a single step, she was transported from a simulation of a young woman’s apartment into a dark forest of tripods and lighting equipment. There was no audience here, not like in the old days, when TV actors would perform onstage for the amusement of invited guests whose presence amounted to an artificially-inflated bout of laughter after every one-liner. Veronica’s audience was invisible to her; but she and Jane were displayed for the whole world to see.
Chris was sitting at his vanity, their shared makeup artist brushing up his foundation while he scrolled on his phone. V sat beside him at her own mirror, taking the calculated gamble that Sherry would spend their entire tight fifteen fussing over Chris and wouldn’t have a chance to work on her.
“I don’t know why Roger’s so obsessed with making Davey an ice cream addict,” Chris said, not looking up from his phone. “Does he have any idea how much money I’m blowing on a personal trainer?”
“I think he’s just projecting.” V slid her fingers into her hair and poked around for the clips, removing the one on the right. “You know his middle name’s David?” No, she thought. That was stupid. Not worth it for a fifteen. Oh well. Halfway there. She removed the other clip and removed the mass of silky red-black hair, revealing the buzzcut-tightness of orange knots below.
“I thought Jane was his self-insert,” Chris replied. “Young struggling writer trying to make it in – uh – Portland.”
“Why not both?” she replied, retrieving her half-forgotten and heavily diluted iced coffee. “Every character is based on the writer’s personal experience, just, some more than others. You know what Nietzsche said about writers?”
“What did Nietzsche say about writers.”
She took a sip of her watery drink. “I don’t actually have a Nietzsche quote ready, I don’t know why I said that.”
Sherry applied a streak of dark to Chris’s eye area and smoothed it out with the brush. She’s acting too. Ha. Acting like she’s not fazed (phased?). Seen her Instagram. Behind the scenes. Behind the chairs. V behind the scenes. V BTS. V, BTS. V (BTS). V Doble? Veronica. Veronica Doble (actress). Crap. Lose the drink.
“It looks fine,” V tried to protest.
“Just a little touch-up.” Surrender. Give in. At least Sherry didn’t make small talk like a barber. Barber? Stylist. Stylish. Penguins. Rachel. Stupid.
“He doesn’t seriously think hair can be this color naturally, does he?”
Chris glanced up from his phone, then down at the mass of wine-red hair held in her lap. “I’unno.”
“Does he just not care about realism?” V asked. Mirror. Eyes. Small hair. She had never felt totally comfortable looking in the mirror, and walking by one usually forced a double-take. An association that only a twin could understand, and maybe her more so than any other twin, for reasons that had been explained to death years earlier. Joy. Even without the bangs and glasses. Joy. Elizabeth. Joy, to the world. Joy to the World.
“Oh I think he cares.” Chris was scrolling through Twitter. @chrischrischris. @vdoble. @riskyouth. What? I dunno. “He just wants us all to think he’s all beaten down and depressed so we don’t argue with him. He probably goes home and prances around with his typewriter just like Jane.”
Jane. Joy. What would Joy say? WWJS? WWJD? The Room? She knows. She’s been. Different times. Single occupant Room. Single occupant Dream. Interchangeable. Jov. Revolving door. Different time zones. Different schedules though. Joy must be in bed by eight. Nerd. Circadian rhythm. Who needs one. No cycles at all. Cycling door? Doorknob. Shouldn’t be there. Brush. Tickles. Sneeze? Hold it.
“You good?”
“Don’t move.”
Don’t move. Eye contact. Joy. Mirror mirror on the wall. Magic mirror. Mandella effect. I’m the mac daddy y’all. “Yeah I’m fine.”
“Thinking about cheating on me again?”
“Now that I know I can get away with it. And that we’ll never mention it again.”
That pink carpet. That light green wallpaper. Where had she seen them before…? She was fully awake now, no haze of sleep for several hours. This was real. There was something special about last night’s Dream. The room was real. Somehow. Somewhere. She’d seen it. Joy must have too.
“Okay folks!” Roger’s voice boomed across the small studio. Tired. He was tired. He sounded stressed. For their benefit. Won’t argue with the boss when he’s annoyed. Annoyed = busy. Yada yada. “2-C, in the kitchen!”
As the crew shuffled over towards the half-kitchen set up elsewhere in the building, V allowed Shirley to pin her wig back into place. Hair and makeup. Now in one compact package.
What would Joy have to say? Was this really just another one of those nighttime excursions that Joy had long ago written off as a manifestation of nostalgia for childhood? Then why had it felt so different last night? So much more…significant?
By the time V reached the kitchen, her wine-red Rachel cut hastily combed through, Chris had changed into a jacket and grunged-up jeans. V didn’t have to change: Jane was still in her pajamas, a cleavage-baring tank top and fuzzy bottoms decorated with cartoon penguins. The closest approximation to a Millennial’s sleepwear that the late-middle-age costume designer could decide on.
The kitchen set was empty, aside from a handful of crew, but they didn’t count, they didn’t exist in that universe, Jane and Davey’s plane of reality. They were ghosts, for lack of a better word. The half-room was frozen in time, suspended between bouts of existence, darkened by the lights-out when the credits roll. In a few moments, Jane Delano would be coming unstuck from time, slipping into V’s place in this reality, and sitting at the counter with a mug of cold water. Davey would be coming over with a food delivery, good boyfriend that he was: he knew Jane had been struggling with her latest novel, working long hours and burning both ends of the proverbial candle in hopes of producing a New York Times bestseller. Davey had been loving and supporting in every scene (a stark contrast to the previous episode, but they didn’t talk about that), which would hammer home Jane’s guilt when he eventually discovered that she’d relapsed with her ex.
V slipped into position on her bar stool, and the front door opened.
“Look at you,” Davey said, setting the paper bag on the island. “This is the first time I’ve seen you without your nose in your laptop since, like, Christmas.”
“Christmas hasn’t happened yet,” Jane replied, taking a long sip of her coffee. It wasn’t steaming, but it was hot.
“No?” Davey leaned on the island. “Maybe I’m the one who needs to pay more attention.”
Jane looked up sharply. Did he know? Could he know? The lump of guilt in her throat seemed to grow bigger. His turn next time.
“What do…” She coughed. Premeditated cough. “…what do you mean?”
“I’m just saying,” Davey said, his voice totally casual. He didn’t know. Did he? Was he effing with her? “I’m almost as distracted as you are, and I’m not even writing a book.” He frowned, ostentatiously noticing something. “Has that fridge always been there?”
Jane didn’t laugh. She rarely laughed, anymore, today. He didn’t know, she reminded herself. He couldn’t know. And he wasn’t going to find out.