Hey, guys. This is going to be a short story about Dipper (known as simply Big Brother) and Mabel (known as Younger Sister) as they go through their trials and tribulations of loneliness, despair, recovery, and hope. This story is going to be bittersweet, but at the same leaving you in a sense of awe and wonder.
It hurts to write this as it does telling it. Propelling the synapses from your brain, sending energy to come into your mind. Even as I am writing it, the images appear every time I hit a keystroke. So, I should say that it hurts every time I am typing this. I don't get along with the times. We don't share the common playground with others. I am like the chubby kid that rest easily on the sandbox while others are playing their fun game. I want to play. I want to join, but unable because of my heavy stature. I just get in the way.
Just get in the way.
It hurts to write this as it does telling it. Seeing a rope wrapped delicately around your neck, but do not have the slightest clue where is its origin. You continue trailing the rope and go and go and go. By that time, you have to carry a heavy bundle of nylon. And you still can't find the source of the rope. It never ends. It never goes away. You become heavy. Crying as you can't find the source. Your tongue becomes heavy, slurring like an alcoholic fiending for a drink. Well, at least the drink can null, I mean numb the pain. Especially when you are continuing to look for the source.
I speak for those who can't speak. Because there are many like me who are carrying the burden. It is not easy.
It is not easy when the burden is not yours.
I speak for my sister. I speak for her because she does want not to speak. I speak for her because of her ability to speak who blindly taken away by someone who urged her not to speak. I am sorry, who forced her not to speak.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. January, February, March. Don't let me get any further than that. I just lost count on how long she has confined herself to her room.
The room where she calls her sanctuary. A place of inner peace. A place where no one gets harmed. A place where she calls it her cocoon.
She once told me in a tiny whisper that she was going through a metamorphosis.
She wants to be a butterfly that extends her wings. A new being from her former self. To cast aside the shell and enter somewhere different. She is different. No one knows who she is. She can start over. She can throw away the pieces and carry on to something greater.
I am still waiting on that cocoon to form. Her blanket and her pillow are enough for now.
I sit alone in the living room as I ponder on my next move. It has been a couple of days since the summer started. We were supposed to go visit our uncle this summer. But, that is a no-can-do from my mother. She called him with stricken tears, explaining that we couldn't make this summer.
She scratched through the lie with her harsh nails. She did not want to be alone with her. My father did not want to be alone. I did not want to be alone with her. But, she knew that someone needed to watch her because they had to work.
At least, they had a legitimate excuse. Where is mine? It is unfortunate. I only have a learner's permit.
I take a break from my writing. I scratch my underarms and there is a hint of sour under my nails. I think it is time that I should go for a shower. As I pondered on going upstairs to change, I get a call from my mother. Her voice is strained, knowing that she is getting ready to produce another lie. I take a sigh as I go to see her request.
I stretch both of my arms out like a bird before I made the twenty paces into the kitchen. That's right, twenty paces. I have counted. The many times I looked at my shoes or my bare feet, or at the carpet, I knew those were twenty paces of dinner, talks, advice, drinks, and lies. The twenty pace path to where is what I call it now.
She rests her hands on the phone. Who is she talking to now? I hope it is not another therapist. Even they are starting to get tiring. Does my mother ever get tired of paying over $250 an hour worth of faulty advice that I can pick up a psychology book to find out my psychosis? Does she get tired of hearing what advice to give my sister that it utterly leads to nowhere? The humming, the scribing of notes that I know are just sketches and a bill that leads to a prescription that leads to more pay for the doctor?
When is it going to be enough that even they can penetrate the fortress that my sister created? She gave them blank stares like I did. She gave them blank stares like I did.
She gives them blank stares like I did. I am still looking for the source of that rope.
I think I know where the link of the source. I am just in denial of knowing who and where it is coming from. Because every time I step closer, I hear the chain of the source. However, I am beginning to suspect that the origin is going to lead me to a greater burden. A prison, something so concave, so closed in that I would end up collapsing on my own.
And my mother does not need two sick children. Oh yeah, my mother. Amazing how you brain takes you away from the present situation and resides you somewhere else. I am standing in front of her in the kitchen. She called me. I think she wants to tell me something.
Through her cracked lips, she is preparing to tell me another lie. I know because she rubs her hands when she begins to talk. She only does this when she lies. I read a few books on the psychology of mankind myself. Not because it is an interesting topic. Even I began questioning on my own being.
But, that is a story for another time.
"I want you to keep an eye on your sister," she tells me without looking at me in the eye. "Your father is taking a double shift at work. He won't be home until after midnight."
I gave her the same stare I always do when she tells me these things. I nod and give her a small affirmation through my nose.
"I am going to do some errands," she tells me. "I am also making a trip to the valley to gather some things. I won't be back until nightfall."
"Yes, mother," I tell her while leaning against the island in the kitchen. I shrug and give her a look of "is there anything else you need to tell me before darting away to a wonderful that I am not allowed to go?"
She kisses me on the cheek. It hurt when her chapped lips scrap my cheek. It sort of gives a haunting feeling. But, in retrospect, it gives me a feeling of escape. Like "I am going somewhere you can't go. So long!" I think too much, but being by yourself to watch your sister, time is really all you have.
I have no real friends to speak of. The ones I did have, they ran off or got involved with some things with my sister that they are doing some time or probation.
My mother interrupts my thoughts. "Make sure that you stay with your sister."
"Yes, mother," I tell her. I have told her that over many times and she still doesn't get it. I am not going anywhere. I just hope you enjoy living in that bubble you call a life. More like a lie. I wish you can hear me, mother. I wish I can tell you that you and father, too, can not escape the realism of the burden that is called my sister. We all have to face it someday. There is something wrong with her. And unless we talk to her about that.
And unless we talk to her about that. And unless we talk to her about that.
That is it. She hasn't really spoken to us. Once again, we only see her in passing. In-and-out, not even a "hello" and a "goodbye."
I want to tell my mother this. So, so, so many times. Before I can draw a breath or at least form the first vowel or consonant in the sentence, she closes the front door.
I am now alone in a house with my sister.
I hope my mother is satisfied as I know she is going to spend the night at the motel off of the interstate where my father has taken residence for the last couple of weeks.
A woman who doesn't desert her husband. But, she abandons her kids. Her foundations are out of whack. Then, I am no better. Even I want to leave and escape.
But, I promised my mother that I wasn't going to leave her alone.
I leave the kitchen as I make my way to the bathroom. Very convenient that the bathroom is after I pass my sister's room. I get a strong feeling each time I pass. Like a feeling of something that doesn't belong. A strong omnipotence of a burden. That room isn't meant to be open kind of feeling.
I sigh as I make my way to the shower.
I hear a crash. It is coming from my sister's room. I swallow nothing as I know that she has her hands on something that doesn't need to belong. As much I want a shower, but at the same time I don't want my sister to harm herself again, I make my way to her door.
I take a breath. I release a loud sigh as I open the door to the formidable castle. The fortress. The place where her cocoon resides and which she has dubbed her metamorphosis.
It has a strong pungent odor in here. Reminds me of old library books. Or a room that is casted away for many, many years. It reminds me of a prison where the warden locks his criminal and throws away the key. No visitors, no guest. Not even a slightest clue of the person's existence. They starve and roll into a ball. Shrivel like a raisin and that is it.
Amazing how people can value a life and make death look so simple. Like it was a well-deserved death.
I wonder is that how my mother thinks of my sister. About the things she did was deserved? Are you sure, mother? If that were the case, you will be wallowing in it. Maybe even play the pity card. But not you. You just ran away like my father.
He was the first to go. He couldn't imagine having a daughter who was...who was….
He couldn't imagine a daughter who brought so much suffering that one day it was going to return. We were paying a price of her detriments. She gets payback. Then why are we still paying her bills?
"Big brother." She stirs. I turn to the floor where she is lying. Because it is dark, I am unable to see. But, I know where she is. Because I can still hear me hitting on the instrument that was giving her much turmoil.
"Hey, sis," I say to her. "You are making a racket again. What in the hell are you doing?" I take cautionary steps. I am unsure on what weapon she may have. I still feel the cut on my back where she last attacked me.
It was an accident. I know it was. She was still seeing the people who gave her those scars. And those scars I have received also.
She has a screwdriver. Next to her I see her alarm clock. It is ruined. Smashed and cracked in many areas. Nothing left of its function of the hands of its former self. What was she thinking, I ask myself. Did that clock remind you of a cocoon? Were you jealous of it? It too can make time but you have yet created your own?
"Give it to me," I tell her. "You are going to hurt yourself again. I can't afford that."
As I retrieve the screwdriver from me, she gives me a look. It is very childlike. Her eyes, her eyes staring at you in a daze. Like she too didn't know what she was doing. Her hair, tangled and in a mess. This is not the sister I used to know.
There was a time where she was not easy to deal with.
She takes her hands and feels my face. She traces me as if she is blind and searching for braille letters. She continues feeling my face before she rest her chin on my neck. She nuzzles before she bites into my neck.
I flinch from it. But I am used to the pain. I am used to it because it is my routine. It is our routine as I come into her fortress.
She takes a look at me before we both looked at the crushed alarm clock.
"Why were you fighting the clock, sis?" I ask her. "I shouldn't be surprised. Looking at the presentation, you have done worse."
And she has. Her room used to be a showcase of trophies, electronics, and among other things. What is left is just a bed, a window, and…. I want to say hope, but I think it, too, has jump ship as well.
"That clock," she tells me. "That clock was getting on your younger sister's nerves, big brother."
She takes the clock in her hand, examining the damage. "It makes weird noises. It makes sounds like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, big brother." She tosses the clock to the wall. "It was annoying me, big brother. That clock."
I scratch my forehead and covered my nose. I still can't get used to the pungent scent. "Well, sis, it is a clock. It suppose to make noise like that."
She widened her eyes and grabs my shirt. "It doesn't supposed to be like it." She screams at me. "Clocks don't make those odd sounds. "Tick, tick, tick" it tells me on one ear. "Tick, tick, tick," it tells me on the other ear. I didn't like it very much. Your younger sister hates those kinds of things, big brother. She pants loudly, but I urge her to calm down. I remind her to quiet down. There isn't no one else here. It is just to two of us. She takes me advice.
"Stupid clock, big brother," she tells me. "You know, it may have act nice when you were around. But at night, that clock was mean. It kept ticking and ticking and ticking. I had to dispose of it. It was being a mean old clock."
I go and pick up the clock. "I tell you what, sis. I go and throw away the clock for you."
Her eyes light up like a Christmas tree. "You mean it, big brother? You will throw it away?"
I let out a plastic smile. "If it means not to destroy anything again."
She lets out a small laugh. "Yay! Big brother is going to get rid of the mean old clock. Makes the pain fade away." It is sing-song. Reminds us of when we were kids, in happier times.
I pick up the clock and I head for the door. She tugs me by my shirttail.
"I can really use a shower," she tells me.
I don't turn around. She is right. She does smell very ripe.
"Let me take mine and you can go afterwards," I tell her.
"You won't leave me," she asks me.
I extend my hand out as I turn around. "I promise."
I made a pinky swear with my sister as I go outside and throw away the clock.
I throw the clock in the trash can in my bedroom. I take off my shorts as I reach for a towel. I take my shirt off and put them both in the laundry hamper. I take a look in the mirror. I see my sunken eyes. I see some bite marks from my sister's greetings.
I realize that I left my laptop on the couch. Not wanting anybody have access to my innermost thoughts, I go and retrieve it. I make my way to the door where I meet my sister. She stares at me with that childlike gaze. She lingers at the door holding a towel in her hand.
"Let me shower with you, big brother," she tells me. "I don't want to be alone."