Match

It was early on a holiday. 10 year-old girls were supposed to like early and like holidays.

Koza kicked her Bryght Betty doll as she made her way to her en-suite bathroom. Her toys no longer interested her. She would give this one to Corita but her caregivers insisted that while they all were to have identical playthings, they always had to have new ones of their own. Quora still had her Bryghts somewhere in her closet.

But the fact that she unironically owned a lab coat and test tubes showed that the STEM focus of the dolls had worked in her favour.

Betty’s tiny spectacles were to the right of Koza as she looked around at all the joyless things in her room. The plastic frame and tiny glass lenses broke under a fuzzy, plum coloured slipper.

“… you forget today? How long have we been doing this, Margo?!”

Koza was no longer living out her dream of crushing a city under her feet.

“It’s almost like I tried to forget, Ruhal. Why must we do it every year?! You don’t even celebrate these capitalist holidays back home.” Her mother’s voice went from high to low back to high.

“Oh, I don’t know? Tradition. Fitting in. Not being shit-disturbers! Cause it’s fun and the kids love it!” His eyes followed along the three kids’ bedrooms and he pointed at the 10 year-old’s domain, she could just feel it.

“Oh yeah, I’m we’re totally having fun here! Look at how much fun we’re having!”

She stepped on the cold, bare wood by the bathroom. About a year ago, Koza had flooded the tub in her washroom and the carpet around the entrance was damaged enough that it could easily be pulled up. She had been doing this ritual every week; it was one of the only things bringing her pleasure these days.

Ruhal and Margo hadn’t noticed yet.

“And how was I to know that this would take so long and…”

The yelling became incomprehensible over the fan and running sink water.

Tepid water ran down Koza’s sharp features and rounded nostrils. She had not known any of her kin to have had duplicate children, but she shared many features of Quora and Corita shared many of her features. Ruhal said that his daughters were like the chubby dolls that had smaller but equally chubby dolls in them. He claimed that they were invented somewhere in the Middle East. Koza just called them ‘Russian Dolls’.

*Thunk*. Something hit the adjoining wall in the hallway. She rolled her eyes, glad that the two fighting ‘adults’ had gotten those soft, rubbery stress balls to throw around last holiday: there were less need for caulking and repair putty in the house.

The pajama pants came up with an aggressive tug. The waist was stretchy and surprisingly comfortable. The drawstrings were already in a bow meaning that they were more decorative than functional. The band snapped back against her stomach with a satisfying sound.

Koza didn’t hate this bedtime getup.

Unlike previous years, the colour theme was not a mix of red and white and green. This time it was a nice deep blue, with splashes of white and a tasteful silver. There were snowflakes dotted around the ensemble, but in a not so obvious pattern. There were small droplets of what was supposed to be ice or hail, but the white globular design mixed with a glare of light created more of a crystal ball effect.

She audibly chuckled. These people and their destinies and fatalistic paths.

The bathroom door opened with ease, the resistance that the carpet use to provide was no longer an issue.

There were still loud voices from the hallway, but something was different.

“I should try that thing with you. What’s it called?” Ruhal was now… playful?

“Love, Ru. You should try it on someone other than yourself.” Margot was not as sold.

Koza grabbed her bedsheet and started to shake it out.

“I only know two things with myself. Vain… glory… Vanity… Glory-us… Glorious vanity!”

“See, I told you. No, don’t you dare bring those dirty tentacles near me, mister! We need to get ready for this trite tradition of yours!”

With the bed made, the 10-year-old daughter pushed her bedroom door open, forcibly enough. Her caregivers were entangled in a grapple/embrace. They looked at her and she looked at them. Ruhal’s eyes notably lit up when he saw the pajama set on her.

“YES! See, I told you Margot! This is going to be better than my supposed brother-in-law Tom’s family portrait! The blue. The blue brings it all together. What do you two think?”

The two ‘adults’ did not release each other from the awkward hug they found themselves in. Margo used Ruhal’s dangling hand to rub her chin like she was thinking really hard.

“Yes. The blue is a masterstroke of Parisian design maginifique-ness!”

Ruhal turned his attention to trying to tickle his partner.

Koza used this opportunity to escape down the stairs.

“Offspring, you didn’t answer my question!” She heard over her mother’s laughs.

“Yes, dad. I like it. The blue is actually cool.”

The daughter and father inadvertently smiled at the same time

Downstairs the three daughters hung out by the island in the kitchen, picking at the nuts and fresh bread that had been put out for them. Quora was plugging away at her phone, in a manner that made it look like she was playing some kind of game or using an app. It was just a really advanced scientific calculator. The big sister had become hyperfocused on another unsolvable cosmic mystery.

Corita aimlessly played with a spoon; she had to hold it above her head as she did not quite make the height of the countertop in the stool she was sitting in. She was half humming, half talk-singing the theme from the Bryght Middle School TV show. In a normal household situation, the show would be too old for her. But no matter how much they played matchsies with the neighbours in the cul-de-sac or how much they dressed alike on holidays, they were irregulars.

Koza looked at her full cup of coffee. She didn’t understand how any being could ingest such a bitter liquid, but the smell did something to her brain chemistry. She stirred her ‘World’s Best Family’ mug with a knife as Corita had stolen the spoon she was using.

A snapshot of this moment could’ve been the front page image of the website of one of those frou frou stores that catered to people like her mom, or what her mother was supposed to be an approximation of. But, the hoary scene was not lost on Koza as their identical, deep blue PJs made everything more picturesque and gaudy. She had to fight off the urge to fully enjoy the rather flowy top and bottoms.

Quora snuck a peak at the middle sister and then shyly back to her phone.

“Ru and Margo are taking forever.” Her voice was much deeper than her petite frame would suggest. “Did you look in the fridge? Is the concoction ready?”

Koza lightly grabbed the phone and the eldest started to panic and pull away.

“Relax, sissy sis. I’m sure it’s all good. I can go over and check if that will calm your nerves.”

“Yes, please. You forget, younger one, that I’ve been through many more of these than you have. And I hate them the same each time. But, we must be the same as the others. That is the mission.”

“You need to get out more, Quora. You’re technically a teenager. Blending in would mean being a rebellious teenager.” The solid, silver door effortlessly opened, without any kind of sound. It was a perfect vessel for satiating late night snacks. “Yup. All five glasses are here, ready to drink!”

“They’re all BRIGHT, they’re al-RIGHT, at BRYGHT…”

“Corita, please! The big sisters are talking.” Koza snapped.

The smallest one yelped and slid off of the stool.

The thick liquid was tingly to the touch and colder than expected, even within an frost environment like an inner fridge. Koza made a circular motion with her hand; she found whirlpools relaxing.

She closed the door and showed Quora her finger. “See,” it pointed straight up at the ceiling without any kind of bend, not even microscopically, “Everything is perfect.”

They were gathered around the part of the living room that had been turned into a makeshift green screen studio. Each one sat on a cube underneath the throw, which accentuated their different heights. An industrial but modern looking camera sat on a tripod a few meters away. Ruhal looked joyfully at his family, all with eggnog mugs in hand and matching blue pajama getups, and said, “This is always a wonderful feeling! We are all one when we do this! And now, down the hatch!”

Koza waited a minute while the others drank out of their see-through mugs and threw them off to the side of the draped green sheet. She imagined one day she wouldn’t drink, and let the others take part in this ridiculous charade. But that was not this year.

She drank.

The others already had the natural but unnatural grins on their faces and they looked at the camera that was blinking red at them, like an angry cyclopean beast. Koza tried to match Quora’s smile as she felt all the muscles in her body seizing and hardening. Soon they would all be frozen in the same pose with the same outfit. She had to make sure that every part of her face matched.