Note: This piece was awarded 2nd Place in Esther Newton’s Flash Fiction competition.

See link for details: https://esthernewtonblog.wordpress.com/flash-fiction-competition/

Gemini

By Adam Dixon

I think someone is watching me. Not ‘watching over’ me, but actually watching me. I get strange feelings whenever I am alone, usually an odd tickling sensation between my shoulder blades, as if someone is glaring at my back. There is nothing there, of course. Not physically, anyway.

When I am drifting from deep sleep towards wakefulness, I sometimes see a figure floating above me. In the split second before I start into full consciousness, I catch a glimpse of the figure. I am certain that it is a baby. A spectral new-born that hovers above me, gazing down at my resting body. In that second, I can see accusation and pain in those big, seemingly innocent eyes… I don’t think the ghost of my twin sister approves of me surviving her.

I wonder what her purpose is, watching me like this. It makes me anxious, and since childhood my insomnia hasn’t abated. Whenever my heavy eyelids close and I unwillingly succumb to the oblivion of sleep, I know that she will be there when I wake up. Watching. Waiting. According to our mother she had been holding on to me tightly in the womb right up until the end. She didn’t want to let me go…