Since the day they were born, the two boys were so alike that no one could tell one from the other—this included the neighbors, the vendors and, at times, even their own mother. Now the healthy one is silent, his mind snagged on a gnawing suspicion that he will still be grappling with in his loneliest hours, long after he is a grown man. He wonders whether it is he who was meant to catch the disease and suffer instead of his brother, and if death, too, has mistaken them.
