The Twin Sister

I’m fifteen years old. It’s summer. Vacation. Early morning. My twin sister Silvia and I go to the river. She’s fond of insects. She’s always on the lookout for them, and then she studies them. When she grows up, she’s going to be an entomologist. I don’t know what I’ll be when I grow up. Right now, I like going fishing and spending my time with her. I’m holding my fishing rod, a 5-meter rod. I’m carrying a jute basket over my shoulder with inside a jar of maggots and a sack filled with ground bait mixed with cheese.
Silvia walks so fast she almost runs. I struggle to keep up. “Why are you running?” I ask.
“My legs are just super long.” She smiles and does not slow down her quick pace.
Running up behind her, I grab onto her hand. “What do you want to look for today? I haven’t asked you yet…”
“Sphex Funerarius, a hymenopter.”
“A kind of wasp?”
She nods, her eyes shining, “I want to find a female. The female has red legs, a bright shiny red. And the abdomen is red, too. Its upper body is always covered with mud because the females dig and get dirty. Their wings look like they’re glass, tinted black. The hairs on their forehead are silvery. And their tegulae are red too. Blood red.
I don’t care about insects or their colors, and I don’t know what tegulae are, but nothing makes me happier than the sound of Silvia’s voice. We’re fraternal twins. We don’t look much alike. She’s beautiful.
We get to the river. Today it’s sunny, but last night it rained. The riverbank is muddy. We walk in the mud.
“You should know,” Silvia goes on, “that the female Sphex Funerarius has a tiny scalpel and uses it like a micro-surgeon. It attacks the Ephippiger in the vineyards, stabbing it exactly in its thoracic ganglia…”
“Ephi-what?”
“Ephippiger. It’s a cricket with atrophied wings. It likes grapes!” answers Silvia as if this were something everyone knows. “The female Sphex Funerarius squeezes the cervical ganglia of the Ephippiger and paralyzes it, but it doesn’t completely kill it. It never ever causes its death…” Silvia lowers her voice, squeezing my wrist like she’s telling me a horror story, “… Then, it drags its victim to the bottom of its prepared lair, a hole under the ground. It creates a small opening in the victim’s chest, lays an egg, and leaves it buried alive at the bottom of the hole, and then it closes the hole up. The larva that will come out of the Sphex’s egg will find plenty of nourishment that is completely immobile, not aggressive, yet still alive. Once the larva has finished devouring the cricket, the young Sphex is ready to go out into the world. It digs its way to the surface and emerges into the light.”
“Are there any good insects? Not cruel ones?” I ask her.
“Nature is cruel. Animals are cruel. Men are worse.” After proclaiming her sentence with no appeal from my end, Silvia wanders off in search of her repulsive insects. I set up the fishing rod, toss the ground bait into the bend in the river where I’m hoping to lure some carp, attach three or four maggots onto the hook, and cast. And wait.
There’s a dreamlike silence. Even the water in the river is quiet. I turn towards where Silvia has gone: she’s looking for her female Sphex among the poplars and willows amidst still-closed flowers a meter high. Those are Evening Primroses, she explained one day. They only open at sundown; their scientific name is Œnothera, which means desire to drink wine.
A dazzling light suddenly strikes Silvia, the poplars, the willows, and the long stems of Evening Primrose: the sun has cut through the summer morning mist over the Adige. My twin sister, bent among the drunk flowers, is reflected in the water where the willows and her hair seem to be one. She looks so enchanting that my eyes seem to fill with tears, but then a jerk at my wrist wakes me, shaking my entire body as if a bolt of electric current from underwater is coming through the fishing line, through my hand, and reaching my head. A carp is biting, nibbling on the bait, pulling it. The water around the fishing float percolates. Then, a determined thrum, and off it goes! My prey departs, pulling powerfully, violently jerking, meters and meters of line unravel, my heart in my mouth with excitement, and I hold on. It’s a huge wild carp. It swims up the current along the bottom of the river. It will be a brutal fight, but it won’t give up easily. I follow it along the bank. I leap, run, slow down, terrified that the line will snap, that the leader will get tangled, terrified I’ll lose this mighty fish, the biggest prey that has ever chomped down on my hook. Finally, I think I can feel it getting tired. Maybe I’ve just imagined it, but I decide to block the line and anchor my feet on a rock. Slowly, I start to reel it in. I am breathing heavily, and my mouth is full of saliva. I’m filled with excitement. And joy. Right then, the sound of a scream travels along the river. It is coming from far away, but it pierces my eardrums. Silvia has just screamed. I turn towards her. She went a long way. She is nothing but a tiny figure, barely visible. She’s falling to the ground. I drop my rod, the carp, my battle, my conquest, and I run to her, Silviaaaa, I run, I reach her. “I can’t see anymore!” she yells, “Help me, I can’t see anymore!” she presses her hands down on her head. I drop to my knees next to her and hold her face. Blood is coming out of her nose. Silvia stares at me, her eyes wide open, but she doesn’t seem to see me. What’s the matter with her? What was it? Was she stung by a poisonous insect? What should I do? What should I do??????? She doesn’t answer me. I think I should run into town and ask for help, but should I leave her alone? And what if I pick her up and carry her on my back? But maybe I shouldn’t move her? I’m trembling. I whisper her name, repeating it over endlessly. A few seconds pass, and she’s not moving. Her heart has stopped. Silvia is dead, and I’m lying next to her. 
Anterior communicating artery aneurysm, the autopsy will report.
Silvia is dead, but her body is still warm. Absolutely still, I am next to her. I am colder than mud. Nothing and no one will be able to warm me up again. That day, my adolescence ended. My youth ended. That day, I became old.