Same Same but Different

B - Fiction

“Same Same but different

Most people will at some point in their life, unfortunately loose someone who they felt really close to or connected with. The loss of someone that important isn’t easy, and it definitely isn’t easy to deal with afterwards. One neds to find oneself again after such a tragic episode, and that journey can be very long and hurtful to go thru, especially if you do it alone.

Then imagine losing your twin sister, who you have shared your whole life with, since your very first breath. The short story “Same Same but different” by Anne Hayden, from 2016 is about a British girl from Dublin and her dead twin sister Molly, whom she shared her whole life with and about how to move on with your life after something so awful.

As any other identical twins did these two sisters not only look like each other, they also had the exact same voice and laugh. By the story, it seems like the narrator and her sister Molly were very close, as they travelled to New York together on a one-year visa.

The narrator seems like an insecure person, which isn’t unusual, after what she has been thru. She moved to Australia to escape her daily life in Dublin after her sister passed away, but is feeling very lonely now and she´s even tried online dating. Every time she meets someone new, whether it is a guy or some possible future girlfriends, she has a hard time opening up, because she feels like a part of her is missing. Even though the narrator feels very connected to her sister, she also enjoyed being away from her, so she didn’t have to be compared to her by everyone, at all time.

The reader also gets to know that the narrator probably isn’t the cleverest girl in the class, as she had to go back to Dublin and redo her Exam, because she failed it the first time. The narrator’s actions also show the reader that she is unconfident and tired of being associated with her sister Molly, as she changes her look by cutting and colouring her hair, plus replacing the clothes in her closet with some of a whole other style. It is clear that she feels like her look belonged more to Molly than to herself…

It was while the narrator was back in Dublin, to redo her exam that her sister Molly died, which also shows the reader that Molly perhaps was a better student in school than her twin sister, as she didn’t need to go back and redo her exam.

 As a reader, one will get the assumption that Molly where the more popular sister out of the two, owing to the narrator’s comments in the story, such as: “Molly would have been so much better at this online dating thing”, “We used to sing it together at a karaoke bar (…) Her on lead vocals, me on backing. We´d mock fight over which one of us could have Luke Goss (…) But I knew if the unlikely situation did arise, Molly would get Luke and I´d have to settle for his slightly less handsome brother Matt”.

The narrator also tells the reader that Molly was the one who wanted to be famous, which, maybe, is why it seems like the narrator lived in the shadow of her twin sister Molly their whole life. It wouldn’t be unusual if the narrator was just a tiny bit jealous on the life Molly had, as it may seem like she looked up to her as a role model. That maybe explains why she decides to have sex with Molly’s ex-boyfriend Stephen, so she could just get a taste of the sweet life she has been admiring for years, even though Molly was dead at that point.