THE HAPPY HUNTERS

The investigation report concluded that the man, known as Happy Hunter hopped on an iceberg possibly in relation to his hunting endeavors, but somehow slipped and was unable to get back on it thus ending his adventurous life in the ice cold water. His hat with the recognizable hh initials woven in front was found on the iceberg, but his body was not recovered presumably because it had already been found and dealt with by some hungry animal species. After all, all seasons in the Arctic circle are cold and food is always scarce.

A few months - well, two months and eleven days to be exact - before the disappearance of the happy hunter was brought to the local police attention only due to his absence from the social media on which he was a daily fixture - a man who had never been to or had planned to visit the cold polar area felt an unshakable moral obligation to get involved. He didn’t make that decision, and it wasn’t something that he had ever planned to do or even thought about. The idea, or more so the sense of duty that suddenly possessed him, crossed his mind one morning when he opened the news and saw this smiling trophy hunter proudly posing over a magnificent and heart-brokenly dead polar bear. The bear had the hunter's rifle that shortly before shot and killed him, placed between his front lifeless paws and bloody chest. The hunter thought it was funny and possibly creative and he proudly smiled for the camera. Staring at the picture, the quiet computer programmer who admired Gandhi and had a coexist bumper sticker on his car, and has never as much as raised his voice in the thirty seven years of his life, felt a sudden and powerful urge to punch that polar bear killer in the face. The urge was so strong that he felt his diaphragm cramp up in a gagging reflex, and it was then that he decided to take the kind of action that even the happy hunter would understand. He decided to become a hunter himself. Because he worked best and most productively under deadlines, he gave himself two months to finish the project, meaning that before the end of February he will have found himself in the cold wild with an appropriate weapon. So he joined the gym, stocked up on proteins to gain muscle, bought a handgun - for he thought he should start small - and started frequenting a local shooting range. He also started following the happy hunter on the social media as to know his exact daily whereabouts. Not knowing about his intentions, his family and friends were all surprised to see the computer and math wizard suddenly change his hobbies from book reading and robotics to testosterone charged activities. He bought his expensive hunting suit for cash in a store specializing in party costumes, and then decided to also and just in case, complete his hunting gear with a bulletproof vest. He obtained all the necessary certificates for his gunpowder travel, and a week before the self-appointed deadline, determined and ready, he set off to accomplish his task.

The mother bear and her two cubs were slowly climbing the snowy hill. Every now and then, one of the cubs would slip and roll back a few yards slowing down the group who would stop and wait for it to rejoin them. The happy hunter watched them through the scope. He thought how the mother would be an easy shot and how the two little ones would stay next to her when she falls, and that they would get a lot of likes in his social media. So he held the big, unsuspecting mama at the target point ready to strike. But then at the corner of his eye he saw another bear. It was big, a male certainly, and was kind of dragging himself as if hungry for days. The happy hunter zeroed in on his new target and pulled the trigger. The big heavy-footed bear was hit in the torso and fell down for dead. The hunter got up to finish him off already thinking about the triumphant photograph he was going to post to impress his followers and fans of wild animal killing, when something so bizarre happened that for a moment he thought he was hallucinating. The bear got up, unzipped his fur, pulled a machine gun from inside it and before the approaching happy hunter could even point his own rifle, a spray of automatic weapon bullets made a polka dot pattern all over his chest. He fell flat on his back left face to face with the clear blue sky. He was trying to figure out what had happened but the warm and rising pain were interfering with his thought process and ability to move. Then the bear hunched over him. His white fur already unzipped, he pulled back its bear head and a man’s face appeared underneath. The computer programmer who in his preparations for the hunt even got a bear with me tattoo on his shoulder addressed the happy hunter in a calm and matter-of-fact voice.
I represent the polar bears. Would you like a snap to post on your account one last time? he asked.

The mother bear got to the top of the hill and turned around to give one last look to the big guy they past by. She wondered who was that big weirdo that looked so handsome and fluffy but did not smell at all like any of their kind? Then she rolled down the snowy hill with her two little cubs.

THE TWIN

Just like every morning, Oggy was stretching in front of the kitchen window, when across the street, among people scurrying on the sidewalk, he saw himself. He walked somewhat bent, as if weighed down by deep thoughts. He wore the same flannel pajama he himself had on: a navy blue and white striped bottom with a long-sleeved white undershirt. Oggy rubbed his eyes and looked again expecting the picture to have changed and he on the sidewalk become an unknown passer-by, but to his increasing dismay he again saw himself, now walking away towards a tram station down the street.
- Mary, come quickly, you gotta see this.
His wife Mary who was doing her loud makeup at the kitchen table gave him a disinterested look but still got up and joined him by the window.
- What.
- Look across the street, there by the newsstand.
- Look at what?
- Me. Can’t you see me?
- What are you talking about?
- Look, I’m standing there next to that tall young man with a dog.
- I see him.
- And me, you don’t see me?! How can you not see me? There, we are crossing the street together.
He ran to the entrance of their small apartment and hurriedly put on his shoes and a coat.
- Where are you going? Mary was confused by his sudden outburst.
- I’m going to follow him.
- The young man with the dog?
- No, myself. I’m going to follow myself.
- Better follow him.
- That would be better for you, wouldn’t it?
He stormed out of the apartment with the door slamming behind him. He ran out of the building and saw his other self at the tram station. A tram was approaching. Oggy ran across the street and jumped in the same car with his other self. He watched him through the crowd and found a spot that offered a clear view. They were identical. Same hair, same face, same height. Even the same scar on the right hand thumb that he earned one summer long time ago when washing a chipped glass. Was it possible that he had a twin brother? No one in the family ever mentioned anything like that but maybe it was a secret. Every family has some secrets, big or small, important or trivial. Parents don’t tell their children everything and maybe his parents concealed this from him. Maybe he had a twin brother who was abducted or even given up for adoption. He’s heard weirder stories that were true. Oggy thought how all his life he felt like something was missing, that he was somehow incomplete, and now he knew why: he had a twin brother. He remembered reading about connections that twins share even when not together, things that they feel the same and only they understand; a telepathy of some kind exclusive to them. Now he understood, too. But how should he approach his twin without scaring him away? What should he say? Oggy decided to just follow him for the time being, hoping that an opportunity for a chance meeting will arise.                                                                         
Tram stops were piling up, passengers hopped in and out, and like a giant caterpillar the tram was slowly gliding away from the city center and into the dusty suburbs. The twin found an empty seat by the window and looked outside. Oggy stood in the back of the car and looked at him. Then he too turned to the window. It was a sketchy part of town and he couldn’t even remember when was the last time he was here. The tram stopped. Oggy glanced at the door and saw that his twin got out and the door was closing. He ran to the door, pried it open and jumped out. He heard someone say ‘what an idiot’ as the door was shutting after him. The twin crossed the rail and the street, and wandered into a small cul de sac. Clothes were line drying on the derelict balconies and there was yelling and arguing behind closed doors. Men, women, screaming, swearing, bits of trash rolling with the wind. The ugliness of human nature. A stray dog walked by Oggy and gave him a resentful look. The twin knocked at a door at the far end of the street. The door swung open and a man burly and threatening appeared at the doorstep. He looked like a mean bulldog. Mary would surely call him trouble. Without a word exchanged, the bulldog and the twin went to the garage on the side of the house. Oggy followed making sure they don’t see him. He hid behind a dumpster from where he had a clear view of the two. The bulldog man opened the trunk of his beat up car and took out a little box. He opened it and pulled out a gun. The twin checked the gun and upon being satisfied with the short inspection produced a handful of cash from his pajama pocket. It crossed Oggy’s mind that his own pajama did not have pockets and he felt a bit sad about that textile inferiority. The bulldog counted the cash, then put the box with the gun in a plastic bag and handed it to the twin. The transaction was finished and they parted ways.
The twin walked past Oggy who was still crouched behind the dumpster, but did not see him. Like a shadow, Oggy followed. The twin carried the plastic bag with the gun in the same carefree way people carry groceries. He stopped at a convenience store and got a pack of cigarettes. Once outside, he immediately placed one in his mouth and lit a match. Oggy felt the sweet scent of phosphorus. He loved that smell. He too was once a smoker. It was a long time ago and he had to quit under his wife’s relentless pressure. And now the gentle smell of that fine tobacco reminded him of a time long gone, of youth and freedom, of the days before he got married to his witch, as he referred to her in his mind. And somehow he was glad that his twin smoked. And he felt that the time has come for the two of them to finally meet.
Mary came home at six thirty. Her office hours ended at five and only recently had Oggy found out that she was spending the hour and a half difference in the arms and bed of one of her colleagues. She hung her purse on a coat rack by the door, took off her heels and slipped into her soft house shoes. She then walked into the kitchen where Oggy was waiting at the table.
- Look whom I brought, he said very satisfied with himself.
- Who?
Oggy smiled at the twin seated to his left then turned to his wife.
- I caught up with him today. I know you thought I wouldn’t. I followed him all the way to the dusty suburbs, and then and there we finally met.
- Who met? Who did you meet?
Oggy motioned theatrically at the place next to him.
- My twin. His name is-- 
- What twin, what are you talking about? There is no one there.
- Don’t play dumb with me. He is sitting right here, don’t pretend you don’t see him!
- You need to go see a shrink or I don’t know…get some more serious help. You know, get your head checked.
- Oh yeah? And what about you? Do you need to have something checked, anything? Where should you go? Where do women like you go? The ones who have loyal husbands waiting for them at home while they go around and cheat.
- Well, you could’ve fixed dinner instead of just sitting and waiting. Not my fault you’re a pussy. What did you expect?
In the corner of his eye Oggy saw the twin light a cigarette and shoot a threatening look to Mary. Then Oggy himself took one out of the pack and smelt it. He closed his eyes enjoying the soothing scent of dry tobacco. Then he lit it up.
- What are you doing? Mary watched him as he made some weird moves in the air.
Had they been playing charades it would be as if he was lighting a cigarette.
- I’ve had it with you, he said.
Oggy then looked at the twin who opened the box and stared at him suggestively. Oggy reached for the gun.
- Are you crazy?!...were Mary’s last words before a bullet pierced her heart.
Oggy glanced at the twin but he was gone. On his chair lay the open box for the gun.

Just like every afternoon after his nap, Oggy was stretching in front of the window in his room in the psych ward of the city’s general hospital. He saw the lead nurse as she was walking in the hospital garden occasionally stopping to exchange a few words with patients. She was always nice to everybody. And pretty. And kind. He pressed his face hard against the window bars as to better see her. Then he saw himself walking behind her. He was holding flowers.