I tip, You toe

By Emmanuelle

I am serious. This story happened; these people are real, really. An overseas Filipino worker learned of this column through friends and Friendster. When email messages couldn’t be sent, the worker and this writer conducted a Smart exchange across the Globe through Sun and storm. After so many hours of uploading and unloading – dyaran! This is the story of a couple – the one, not the other:

I am Mike Anthony to his Mark Anthony. Mike is Tip; Mark is Toe. My parents were brilliant; they came out with our names as they tiptoed around our joint cribs, hushing their lips with their fingertips. They pointed out I should be Mike; my eyes glinted naughtily like Mikey Mike. The other must be Mark; he had Mark Anthony’s haughty suplado look. We had to be older and wiser before the truth bore down on us – Mighty Might they must have meant; on the other hand, they definitely meant Alma’s and Rudy’s Mark Anthony, not Mark Anthony, Cleopatra’s pride.

I said my parents were brilliant; I didn’t say they were brilliant all the time.

Toe and I are twins. We are not the only twins in the family. In fact, the twin-genes swim thick and fast in our blood; it’s all in the family. We turn a corner, chances are we’ll run right smack unto other pairs of an older or younger or same generation who bear distinct similarity to our looks, though this pair might be with graying hair, or that other pair still sprouting babies’ soft tendrils. In fact, we come cheaper by the pair. Buy one, take one. As I said, our twin genes swim thick and fast. Not only in the blood.

In our barangay, we are the main tourist attraction, especially during holidays when all members of the clan from abroad and all over the islands come home for family reunions. Most of us still bear our grandparents’ striking mestizo looks; and as I had implied, we are brilliant . . . sometimes. We are such terrible showoffs too, to each other and to others. In fact, holidays are mere excuses to overwhelm the community with our singular, doubled and plural presence. New Year, Chinese New Year, Valentines Day, Holy Week, Grandparents’ Day, the day-before-the-first-day-of-class holiday, the last-day-of-class holiday, All Saints’ Day, All Souls’ Day, etc. – we choose one over the other at will. In fact, the true reunion to us means the exact opposite – it is what happens when we leave the reunion place which is usually the ancestral house, and we get back to our present real home. That is when we are really reunited or gathered as a family- Hello Pa, Ma, Ate, Kuya, bunso, fancy meeting you here not there.

The real-honest-to-goodness-truth? I am not in favor of being a twin. And if I were given a democratic choice from the very beginning of my conception, as an egg or a sperm cell, I would have wiggled a vote of nay to another one of me. In my floating capacity, I would have firmly and strongly blown bubbles of biased opinion against being part of the menagerie that is representative of my family – a lifetime of duals, doubles, mirror-images, clones, shadows, reflections, doppelgangers, Siamese or Vietnamese whatsoever. And am sure, neither one of my parents would have listened. They would have joined anyway, and having joined, joined us all the way.

Imagine the lives we lived. Tip and Toe, TipToe at one call, growing up and growing old, forever mistaken one for the other, the other for the one. “Sika si Tip o si Toe? Ay, siopakaman, basta sika o sikato!” (You are Tip or Toe? Whoever you are, I meant you or you.)

You have an identity crisis? What would you call mine, ours? Double jeopardy?

It is more of a rule than an exemption, that twins feel or exhibit the same likes or dislikes, tastes, tendencies, inclinations, etc. So, it came to pass that we picked up things of same style or brand. We also liked or loved the same type of girls. And yes, we continuously sensed each other’s joy or distress or any other strong emotions.

So, now you ask why I call you from UK, and Toe calls you from US?

Well, you see, I loved this girl. Sought her out, wooed her. I just couldn’t believe my luck when she said yes to my proposal.

On the day of the wedding, it was Toe she married. Ano sya, hilo?

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/)

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