A number of years ago, back before my children were born, I traveled quite a bit for work. One fall I found myself in Little Rock, Arkansas for a two week assignment. Little Rock isn’t much of a city for tourists, so during the weekend I was there I thought I’d enjoy the respite from my typical wife-assigned chores at home and watch sports in a local bar a few blocks away from my hotel.

I turned up early in the afternoon and found myself a spot at the bar. Next to me was a portly fellow wearing a white football jersey with blue trim and red lettering. Since it was Saturday, I assumed he was there to watch college football and I asked him which team he was rooting for. “The Texans!” he told me proudly, with a smile that would have sent my dentist, a serene and studious man, into irreversible throes of gibbering insanity. I’d never heard of a college with “Texans” as a mascot (and to be honest, I’d never heard of such an asinine choice of mascot in my life and haven’t since), but I didn’t want to insult him so I nodded, raised my beer, and wished them luck. He laughed, and told me “oh, they aren’t playing today. My name’s Dirk – what’s yours?”

I noticed the back of his jersey was embroidered with the word “Foster”. Back in those days, before the landmark Fournette v. NCAA decision, it wasn’t legal to sell jerseys with players’ names on them (another note of interest; this happened prior to the Richardson Act, when the NFL still used “salaries” rather than the “franchised-for-life” model of indentured servitude that we use today. How times change!). But sometimes teams *did* decorate their uniforms with inspirational words such as “Strength” and “Tradition” and “Honor”. I felt bad for this poor country simpleton; his Arkansas education was so deficient that he wasn’t even aware that the word “Faster” had been misspelled on his jersey. But as I mentioned, he seemed like a friendly fellow and I didn’t want to insult him, so I said nothing.

And in the end I was glad I held my tongue. He ended up being a very enjoyable companion for the afternoon. We drank round after round of the popular local brew (“Fudd”, I believe it was called), cheered for the Razorbacks as they mounted a ferocious late comeback and only lost to Alabama by sixteen points, and he gave me expert guidance with regards to the establishment’s appetizer selection (I still have fond memories of those pork rinds and chili toast to this very day). Though very oddly, Dirk never seemed to be quite able to get the bartender’s attention and I was forced to order everything we consumed. But the fare was so inexpensive that my per diem easily covered the tab, and I happily picked it up. When I made my departure shortly before sundown I thanked him for making me feel so welcome, and giving in to his relentless insistence, I donned his original “Texans” jersey while he proudly displayed a second layer to his fandom and we snapped a photograph together.

The following day, Sunday, I set off walking a different direction and found another local watering hole to try out. It was much as the first, and imagine my surprise when I noticed Dirk sitting at the bar, this time dressed in a light blue Tennessee Titans jersey, seated next to a woman about thirty years his elder. So alike in countenance were they that it was obvious to anyone that she was his mother. Thrilled to see him, I put my hand on his shoulder.

“What’s happening?” I exclaimed happily. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon!”

He turned to me, amiable enough, but confused. “I’m sorry,” he said, “you must have me mistaken with someone else.”

There was little doubt as to his identity – I’d spent an entire previous afternoon with the man – but I quickly realized that his presence at the bar the day before might have been in avoidance of some other task or chore, and that I was exposing whatever innocent falsehood he had fed to his mother to excuse his absence.

“Of course, of course,” I agreed, “my mistake.” I gave him a conspiratorial wink. “I was thinking of last Sunday.”

He was unmoved. “You honestly must be confused – last Sunday I was at a family reunion.”

“Oh, the scandal” his mother muttered under her breath. “Thrice removed is still family” she hissed.

I was very confused. He was identical in every aspect to the man I’d spent my afternoon with the day before. There was no question in my mind, but the man seemed entirely serious.

“But…your name is not Dirk?” I withdrew my cellphone and pulled up the image of us from the day before.

His mother, who had shown little interest in our conversation to this point, glanced over at the photograph. She turned as white as a sheet.

“Well that certainly looks like me,” he stammered, “but I don’t own a jersey like that. In fact, there’s no such team as the…” suddenly, he noticed his mother’s consternation, “…what’s wrong, Mom?”

“Your…brother…” she whispered.

“What are you talking about, Mom, I don’t have a brother.”

The woman closed her eyes briefly and swallowed. I noticed her clutching her purse so tightly her knuckles had turned white.

“You never knew,” she said quietly. “We never told you.”

He and I both stared at her, mesmerized.

“Before you were born…when we did our first ultrasound…they told us we were having twins. Identical twins. You had a brother. He would have looked just like you. We planned for him. We planned for both of you. But then at twenty-four weeks, the doctors looked again…and he was gone. They call it “vanishing twin” syndrome. You absorbed him. The doctors said it was the latest case of twin absorption they had ever seen. We were going to call him…Dirk. BUT YOU SWALLOWED HIM! YOU GOBBLED HIM UP LIKE YOU GOBBLE UP EVERYTHING OH GOD WHY DID YOU EAT HIM WHY DID YOU EAT YOUR OWN BROTHER?”

She began sobbing and collapsed into her seat, her face contorted with grief.

The man was furious. He grabbed me by the shoulders. His muscles, presumably strengthened by his occupation of hurling fifty-pound sacks of corn pone (or whatever else it is that people in that benighted region do for employment), were surprisingly strong. “What is wrong with you? Why did you do this to my Mom?”

“I…” I stammered. “I didn’t know. I had no idea!”

“I think you should leave,” he told me angrily.

I was shaken. “Of course. I’m so sorry.” I fled the establishment. Shaken, I watched the games by myself in my hotel room.

A week later, when I returned home, I told my wife the story. Intrigued, she asked to see the photograph, so I pulled it up on my phone to show her. This is what we saw:

Without checking the original photograph, look carefully to see if you can spot what has changed…

CLICK TO REVEAL…IF YOU DARE.