‘Yeah.’ Brenda looked up at her and shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to say. Perth’s a pretty big place – couple of million people – but still. I mean, I could imagine another Brenda Yates, but the same age, looking like my sister? That’s crazy.’

‘That’s what I thought! And I wasn’t stalking you. I searched for you on Facebook and this came up.’

Brenda waved her protest away. ‘No worries. Everyone does it. I’m glad. I might look her up when I get home.’

‘It’s kind of unbelievable,’ Alice said. ‘I mean, it’s really hard to believe it.’

‘Don’t think we have much choice,’ Brenda said. ‘Unless she and me are the same person and I’m bullshitting you. And it’s pretty obvious we’re not, when you look closer.’

She was right, but you had to look quite closely. They were really very similar. They could have passed for each other at a glance.

But they weren’t the same person.

‘I know,’ Alice said. ‘But it’s really an amazing coincidence. Anyway. Time for that swim.’

Tuesday, 24 August 2021

The Baby

It is just a thing. And it cries. Every time you are with it, it cries.

Not in the way most people say. You’ve heard other people say they can’t bear to hear a child cry because they worry what’s wrong and want to help. That’s an emotional response. A weak response. They think it is in distress and that bothers them. They say it is worse than any other noise for that reason.

That is not why it annoys you. It annoys you in the same way a dog barking annoys you.

It is something that must be dealt with. Removed from your environment.

There was once a dog, when you were a teenager. It was bought for you by your parents. They knew you had a problem – a problem that was growing ever greater – and they thought it would help you. Teach you about responsibility, about how to love something. About how to love yourself.

Fools.

The stupid thing was outside all the time, yapping away, so you got rid of it. You’d wanted to make it suffer first, but that would have been too obvious, so you settled on rat poison.

You blamed it on someone else. They suspected it was you, you could tell, but they wanted to believe you were innocent, so they did.