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I am a twin. And to be a twin child is to always have another person in the picture. My mother made a halfhearted stab at keeping separate photo albums for each of us. But the distinctions are arbitrary -- Amy’s in most of the faded black-and-white snapshots in my album, and vice versa.

Once I saw Luther and Johnny sharing the same frame, it hit me how much they have in common with my sister and me. The similarities are uncanny. Luther and Johnny are illiterate, Baptist, messianic insurgents struggling against the government of Myanmar, and my sister Amy and I shared a locker all through junior high.

Sarah Vowell Sarah Vowell's column appears on the Arts & Entertainment site every other Wednesday. + Biography + Archives

I have a few friends who can't stop talking about the Htoo twins. They speak of them in a single breath -- LutherandJohnny. "Did you see the photo of LutherandJohnny?" or "I'm obsessed with LutherandJohnny." And I pine for that, that single name, especially now that my sister and I live so far apart. I miss the way I was never Sarah and my sister was never Amy, but we were together AmyandSarah. Unlike the identicals, who act as photocopies of each other, we're fraternal. Which means that we're not doubles so much as halves; we're split down the middle.

I'm a single careerist with a master's degree and walk-up apartment in New York; she's a married, pregnant, dog-owning baker in Montana with a, swear to God, white picket fence. People love that about us, love that I can't sew on a button but she makes quilts. That's why people respond to the Luther and Johnny picture. They adore the contrast between the pretty, girlish Johnny and the hyena-faced Luther. Meet Joan of Arc and her brother, Genghis Khan.

Will Luther and Johnny's memories meld? Up until around the age of 10, my sister and I often cannot remember who was doing what and who was watching, who got thrown from what horse, who got spanked for what trespass, who committed the trespass that led to the spanking. (Well, it was usually Amy, so ill-behaved. When I called her to talk about Luther and Johnny, she had seen the photo and knew what I was thinking. "I’m Luther!" she screamed into the phone.) So years from now, when Luther and Johnny look back on this exciting terrorist period of their lives, will Johnny ask Luther, "Was it you who threw that hand grenade on the government sniper or was it me?" Maybe Luther will tell Johnny, "Help me out here, but I can't remember which one of us shot the papaya off that dumb orphan's head."

Next page | Being a twin doesn't mean you're a life-sized voodoo doll