Two Heads Pt. 3

I tested Timmy a few times, to work out his capabilities and control over my body. It seemed he could control my breathing and my heart (though it was exhausting for him) but couldn’t control my legs or arms or head. Usually he was fairly placid, content to just look at me as I walked around wherever I pleased. But every now and then he played up. If I was doing something he really didn’t want to do, he’d whine in my ear and if I put earphones in to block out his voice he’d start licking my face. It was disgusting. I had to start wearing a woollen hat with long ear flaps, so whenever he tried to lick my face all he got was a mouthful of fluff. On days where it was too warm to wear the hat, I just covered my cheek and ear in plasters. I knew I looked silly, but there was no one around to see.

Night time was awkward. I’d worked out that I had to sleep on my back as if I slept on either side, either my head fell onto his, or his onto mine, and touching him was unbearable. He may have been made of my skin and cells, but he still felt like an alien form. I couldn’t sleep on my front either, as Timmy’s neck didn’t have the leverage to turn fully to the side, and he started suffocating in the pillow, the pain of which I felt myself moments later. I still did it sometimes though, ‘carelessly’ forgetting that we had to be on our back, just for the satisfying choking sound he made. It was worth the discomfort, though not usually worth the backchat and seething glares I got the next day. He didn’t snore though, so that was lucky, and despite my initial fears that he wouldn’t (like some Gandalf character), he did sleep with his eyes closed. It was the one time I knew he wasn’t watching me and I felt such a relief knowing it. But morning always came round soon enough, and I was faced yet again with a day of his suspicious stares.

For three weeks, I didn’t leave the house. I ordered food online and had it delivered, and I called in sick to work saying I had a malignant growth which needed operating on. It was truthful, in part, though I knew they assumed it was cancer rather than a second head. My mother called several times to see where I was, and I could hear the hurt in her voice when I told her that I was too busy to pop round. Timmy didn’t like it - being cooped up indoors. ‘I’ve spent my entire life only seeing the world through your eyes, boy. Let me see it for myself!’ he’d say. But I wouldn’t let him; I was too ashamed of having two heads. It was only after I had a strange dream that I finally decided to bring an end to my reclusive behaviour. I dreamt that I was in a swimming pool. Timmy was attached to my shoulder, and I was trying to drown him but I couldn’t because he kept licking my face. Then Timmy started speaking, only it wasn’t Timmy’s voice it was David Tennant as Dr Who speaking to me. Timmy’s whole head suddenly turned into David Tennant as Dr Who’s head, and he said to me ‘I’ve got two hearts. Two’s better than one. Two heads are better than one’. And he giggled, and suddenly we were at the seaside, walking along the promenade, with the sun in our faces. ‘Two heads are better than one!’ David Tennant kept saying, giggling. I found myself giggling too. It wouldn’t be too bad having Dr Who’s head next to me all the time, I thought. ‘Two heads are better than one?’ I asked him. ‘Yes! Two heads are better than one,’ he said, excitedly ‘Two heads are better than one!’ It was a shame to wake up the next morning and find I didn’t have the head of David Tennant as Dr Who attached to my body, but a cranky, slightly shrunken head who called himself Timmy, but still, I thought, two heads are better than one. ‘Timmy?’ ‘Yes, boy?’ he answered, yawning. ‘Timmy, we’re going out!’

It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. That first time we didn’t see anyone till we were someway along the street, and apart from a double take, the passer-by simply passed by. In the newsagent, a child pulled on his mother’s sleeve and pointed at us, but that didn’t bother me, as a second later he pointed to a group of teenage Goths who’d just walked in. In a way, I think I was lucky that I was in England when Timmy had grown. The English are so reserved and polite that they felt too rude to question why I had two heads, whereas I’d probably have been lynched in some countries for being a freak. I didn’t always experience such reserve, however; I once encountered a group of kids with a nasty attitude and little to no intelligence between them. They made some low-grade comment about Timmy. To give him his due, quick as a flash he screwed up his face, and fed me thoughts of what to say. With his small head, and wrinkled face, he looked like a shrunken head, and on his cue I mildly threatened the kids with a voodoo curse. Laughter. Timmy started chanting - in Latin - rocking his head from side to side, chanting louder and louder until he was shouting. The laughter had subsided. Timmy let out a high pitched scream, and viciously rocked his head back and forth, opening his eyelids to reveal the whites of his eyeballs. ‘Cast off the devils! Cast off the devils!’ I cried, and lunged toward the group, shaking my arms as if caught in a supernatural spasm. They ran for their lives; I think one child wet himself. Timmy and I walked on, chuckling to ourselves.

Work was tricky. The first day I went back, I walked in and went straight to my desk as I usually did, pretending nothing was wrong. I could see my colleagues looking at me, mouths gaping, but I ignored them. I picked up the phone, ‘Janet, can you send me status reports from the last three weeks?...Yes, great. Thanks, Janet’. People were still staring. ‘What are you looking at, bozos?’ Timmy sneered. ‘Get back to work before I have Sheila in HR slap an intolerance warning on your employment records’. Staff quickly got back to work, and I tried to ignore their eyes boring into the back of our heads for the rest of the day. The next day my boss was in. ‘Mornin-‘ he stopped dead in his tracks. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it when he realised nothing was coming out. He turned and kept walking, only to stop again and look at me. ‘I-‘ still not able to finish his sentence, he walked off to his office and shut the door, though through the morning I could see him peering through the blinds at me every so often, quickly replacing them when I glanced his way. I received an email requesting a meeting that afternoon. ‘Now, about this…situation we have’ he said, grimacing slightly. ‘Actually, my name’s Timmy’, said Timmy. ‘Oh, you speak?’ He looked quite flustered. ‘Yes, of course I speak’, sneered my small head. The silence was awkward; I had some inspiration – ‘Two heads are better than one, right, Sir?’ ‘Yes, but…but…’. Timmy stepped in - ‘You’re not about to discriminate against us, are you Sir?’ ‘What? No, no of course not. It’s just quite an unusual situation, you see, and I’m not sure the company can cater for- I mean, there’s the security-‘. ‘I can’t see the problem, Sir’, I said. ‘And I’m sure my lawyer would support my claim that this won’t affect my work’. ‘Lawyer?’ my boss tapped his sweaty forehead with a hankie. ‘No, no, that won’t be necessary. We’ll just…work though it. Yes’. I stood up. ‘Glad to hear it, Sir. And thank you for your understanding’. I could sense that Timmy was about to make a sarcastic comment, so I walked out sharpish.

Before Timmy grew from my neck, I’d been dating this girl called Claire. She was a nice, pretty girl. She annoyed me a bit at times, because she always talked about really mundane things, like her hairdressing appointment, or about seeing a funny looking dog on her way to work, but I still quite liked her. She’d always been sweet and considerate and I thought perhaps she could live with me, despite Timmy’s presence. I called her and told her about the situation, and to my relief she agreed to see me. But when she first saw him, she gasped in horror. I’ll never forget that look on her face as her eyes took in Timmy’s small, bald head. She recovered her manners and apologised for her initial reaction but as we talked, I could see her eyes flicking back every few seconds to Timmy’s head. It didn’t help that he kept saying things like, ‘Mmm, come here, babe, and give me some of that sug-ah’. I asked her to try to ignore the head. ‘I’m sorry’, she cried. ‘But I don’t know where to look! It’s positively ridiculous that you have grown a new head!’ I didn’t see her again after that. She clearly couldn’t accept me if I came with Timmy. I don’t think any girl would. ‘Oh well, boy’, Timmy said. ‘At least you’ll always have me’. And I would always have Timmy; I could never get rid of him. I started crying. Really crying. Falling to my knees, I cried out of despair, out of anger, out of disgust, draining myself of all emotion. I cried for hours, a flood of tears soaking my clothes. I cried until I was utterly exhausted and my eyes and throat soar and until I could barely breathe. I lay down on my back on the carpet and tried to regain my breath. ‘There, there’, said Timmy. ‘Do you feel better now?’ I didn’t answer; my mind had gone blank and a calm had descended over my body. ‘You know the sooner you start accepting me, the better it’ll be for everyone’. Perhaps he was right. I’d been repelling him from the outset; never welcoming him into my life or trying to get to know him, always suspicious of his motives. I sighed then took a deep breath. ‘You’re right, Timmy. I’m sorry. Let’s start again’.