Scene 8

MAX and GLASS are in GLASS's office. MAX moves tentatively.

GLASS

I thought you handled yourself very well today.

MAX

Really, sir? I—

GLASS

You must have been a very good student.

MAX

I worked hard.

GLASS

I can see that.

MAX

Um, were you serious back there, doctor? Are you really—

GLASS

Going to take you on as assistant? You follow directions very well. You aren't interested?

MAX

No, I didn't say that. I—

GLASS

Well my time is limited, so decide. I thought you were interested in my work? That was just flattery?

MAX

No. No, I'm just, I'm just a little confused. I guess without having read the background materials, I—what is it that you are working on?

GLASS

The girls.

MAX

The girls?

GLASS

The twins! The twins are the research.

MAX

Your daughters? You're using your daughters for research?

GLASS

Not using: they are the research.

MAX looks confused.

They were patients of mine. They came to me in a car crash. After their parents died I took them in and have been observing them as scientific phenomena ever since. I am studying their undeniable bond.

MAX

Their bond?

GLASS

Yes. Bond—you mentioned a keen interest in this topic, didn't you?… You look shaken, Dr. Street. Did the girls frighten you? Did Poubelle get a bite in? I have iodine right here.

MAX

No, no I wasn't, uh, sir… nothing that broke skin.

GLASS

Good. Then are you still interested?

MAX

In studying the relationship between siblings?

GLASS

You simplify the situation. Are you a religious man, Street?

MAX

I'm a scientist.

GLASS

Some would say that science is not a practice but a priesthood. The chance to study and discover the world around us, a chance to share likens us to men of the cloth sharing in what God has created.

MAX

Sharing in the creation?

GLASS

Not playing God, Street, peeking over his shoulder. You understand the vascular system?

MAX

I presented a paper on the supraorbital vein at a conference—

GLASS

Very good. There is a doctor in Germany who has figured out how to fill the vascular system with a kind of plastic and dissolve the rest of the tissue with a bath of acid. Have you heard of this?

MAX

No.

GLASS

In the end all that is left is the animal's capillaries. On the table sits a red sponge of an animal made up entirely of where the blood pumps.

MAX

Amazing.

GLASS

Yes, and the most amazing thing about this practice is that inside every living organism, every human being, is a blood vascular system that looks identical to the pattern we see in a poplar tree. You see, we are all connected; there is no difference from plants to animals. The twisting and turning of branches is the exact pattern found in veins, in ourselves. Some would call this proof of God. You close your eyelids next to a light and you may notice that your veins look like lightning streaking through the sky.

MAX

I've never thought of—

GLASS

There are connections in this world that we haven't even dreamed of. We must explore everything.

MAX

That's why I went into science, sir.

GLASS

Good. Then let me tell you about my girls. When the twins were brought to me it was thought that they both would probably die. Angelique most certainly from severe internal hemorrhaging. After Poubelle's pleas the two were placed in the same room… that is all… placed in the same room, and within an hour Angelique's blood began to coagulate and the hemorrhaging became controllable. It was as if her blood thickened just because her sister was beside her.

MAX

Because of proximity?

GLASS

Because of presence.

MAX

If that were true, how could… a physiological change in the environment promote coagulation? That would mean that the one twin was a catalyst for what?

GLASS

Thickening the meshwork in the blood, disintegration of platelets.

MAX

You said internal hemorrhaging?

GLASS

That was what was going to kill her.

MAX

Clotting is a reaction of blood to air.

GLASS

This was completely internal. During the war, the Germans discovered a mixture of sugar beet, sucralose, and pectin would thicken the blood for a few hours, but this, this is something else.

MAX

But you need air to—

GLASS

As far as I can tell it has something to do with the other twin.

The girls speak from their separate areas in and around the house.

POUBELLE

Scalpel, forceps, and sugar beet.

ANGELIQUE

Thicken the blood so it won't leak.

POUBELLE

Study us, watch us, break into our skin.

ANGELIQUE

Dissect closeness, safety, and kin.

POUBELLE

Little sister, do you see lightning when you close up your eyes?

ANGELIQUE

I only see incisions and questions, hows and whys.