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January 17, 2005

Red vs. Tan - dead engine

When they were 18 inches tall, and head perimeter was 13, on the 4th week of their life, they started to smile to mum and follow with their eyes the little toy bears hanging above their bed.

Now they are tall, standing close to six feet. Two women standing close in a yard, fence and tree in the background, wearing dark hair back in a ponytail with the bangs falling down around their chin.

Red has pale green eyes, large, blending with her pale skin, Tan has dark brown eyes.

Clothing gives a nod to the conservative, mostly pen stripe suits and earth tones mixed with white. Around the neck gold scrolls work choker bearing a knot. Hidden within the knots are several seals.

Around each left wrist is a silver charm. Red, an extra button undone, a small chain ending in a coil. The only thing that seems to clash with her beauty is the heavy shoe, doc martins.

Smiles light up the room, and laughing is contagious.
Driven and serious among good friends, lighten up on the inside, no one would know they relax. At heart they are both fanatical.

Red loves Steve and Frank, they are brothers, and will do whatever needs to so that they remain safe. Frank loves Tan, which he calls Cathy.

Their speech patterns have changed in the past three years and now are diverging. Red’s words are clipped and the pronunciation precise. When excited this is so apparent that she sounds like a typewriter near a deadline. Tan enjoys her seductive voice, it conveys that she knows what she wants.

They were both born to an upper-middle class family on Long Island. Mother was a professor of Journalism at a small liberal arts college.

Once one of the playmates from around the corner died, probably of leukemia. Mother took Red and Tan to the funeral and up to see Rachel. Rachel's hands clasped over her chest, and her face was bloodless, and her hands were flat. Mother leaned over to both and she said, "This is what happens when you don't listen to your mother."

After elementary school the girls began to flourish. Legs lengthened, and began to loose baby fat. Maybe it was sports and the roughhousing that did it, but soon they were tall and slim, with tight muscles. Both were also very popular.

Things changed when they were sent to a private boarding school. At the school they were not popular girls. They were teased for being independent and forced to spend free time in the library, with nose in books, or in the forest, with feet in mud.

It was during these times when visions occasionally came to them when alone in the woods, and dreams began to disturb by their accuracy. One night one dreamed that the school nun was making love to the Headmistress. Three days later were delivering a package to the chapel and came upon the two kissing. Hours in the library turned from schoolwork and they began to research psychology looking for an explanation.

They graduated with high marks in sciences and mathematics and scores were high enough to earn a scholarship to NYU. They continued The search and took classes in journalism because of the emphasis on research. Not much party girls, but when roommates dragged them to clubs and parties they reverted to tomboy self and drank with the boys.

Red got a job with the New York Post after taking an internship there. She fought with the editors for a little more leeway in her coverage, and they allowed her some, but she was consistently passed over for raises.

Tan was taught to be aware of herself, her inner desires, her strengths, and what made her weak. She was schooled in philosophy, and got exposure to Greek, Latin, Arabic, French and German. She lives now in New York. Sometimes it confuses her when people take her in the eye and call her redhead. At age 27 she feelS as if life has just begun.

I watch them dancing on the sub floor in their vintage clothing and tell myself that everything has a skin that both reveals and conceals.

© Fortunato Caragliano, Published by HandToothNail, 2005

Posted by lck at January 17, 2005 02:47 PM