01. letter
Baby fingers wrap around the end of a stick that pokes and prods the sand, but Mother's wrist soon closes on Jacob's to steer the scribbles into the shape of a Latin letter.
02. sticks and stones
Esau first calls him "wimp," how cute, said Mother as she ruffles his hair, but you should not tease your brother; in passing years, the insults bloom into the garden variety: "baby," "pussy," "chicken," "coward," until Jacob shuts him up with a right hook.
03. birthday
Their birthday marks one of few occasions on which Esau shares something with Jacob and did not dispute it.
04. immortal
Mother cradles them and brushes calluses against smooth baby skin that she whispers of in her chants, commanding the Island to protect their flesh from the wrinkles and bags that smear across her own.
05. circus
Mothers chase their toddlers up and down the beach and fathers with knives chase animals through the trees, an unhappy circus that prays for rescue while their reclusive ringleader observes from afar.
06. abandoned
She repeated it as regularly as the incoming tide that Jacob must abandon his brother, as Esau had abandoned them, and only fear sewed Jacob's mouth shut when he itched to tell her that he would always defy that command.
07. nosebleed
Even from within the walls of the cave, Jacob pressed his palms against the stone and fought to restrict himself from healing the bleeding nose of a child whose older brother had struck in unwarranted anger.
08. mother [or father, or both]
When he says, "You wanted it to be him…but now I'm all you have," Mother can hardly argue with that.
09. sunrise
The smoke shudders at the sunrise and tears through the trees, enraged at the sight of another day.
10. distraction
He drags the spool across the loom, watching through half-lidded eyes, daydreaming of Esau until Mother's voice snaps him to attention.
11. habit
Over and over again, Esau swats at his brother's hands so that Jacob stops wringing them in that nervous pattern.
12. fuck
After the hundredth time, Jacob feels no pain or pressure when his other half enters, just tiny pinpricks across his legs, like pebbles stuck on the inside racing to protrude through skin, or like rain falling so fast and wildly that it never hits the same patch of earth twice as Esau moves above him, their bodies swinging like tree limbs, intertwined, during a great storm.
13. love
…is stronger than death.
14. waste
Years of waning patience had wasted all the civil words that either could dredge up from within himself.
15. skinny
In the first days without his Mother and Brother, Jacob spun time away on the spinning wheel or rocked it away in his chair and did not ever leaving the cave, even to eat, their deaths reducing him to a deathless sack of skin and bones.
16. eyes
Esau is morphing from midnight to midmorning, never glaring out over the Island through the same eyes twice.
17. white noise
The hiss of the waves stretches over century after maddening century.
18. impulse
Despite his obvious weakness, instinct urged Jacob to batter his brother with his fists when provoked, and Esau swallowed the impulse to fight back.
19. addiction
No longer can he recall the days when he was no addicted to the blessed weight moving, every hair stroking his skin like a silk brush, the rush of gasps skipping across his back and along his neck.
20. desecrate
Once, Jacob wept as the monster tormented the Island's children and smashed the settlements to pieces.
21. death
Although Esau cannot die, he is a minister of judgment, doling out death to the masses.
22. low
In the presence of their Mother, Jacob fixed his gaze on the ground as she demanded to know how he could have been so careless as to skip one of the rows on the loom, while Esau frowned from his side of the fire.
23. heartbeat
Jacob has committed to memory the rise and fall of Esau's chest, a rhythm that matches his own after so many conversations in the bedroom that begin and end with Jacob's head on his brother's heart, twinned fingertips entwining like identical threads.
24. first kiss
Back then, he didn't even know what to call it, tripping over lips like a child learning to walk.
25. tomorrow
The sunrise loomed over Esau, taunted him with its inevitability.
26. sweet
As Esau returned with supper, Jacob admired the shape of Esau's hand clutching the sweet fruit to his chest as if it were a crown, and the way he smirked when he noticed how Jacob noticed every single movement he made that night as they carved out chunks of tangy fruit to be fingered into each other's mouths.
27. fog [or mist]
On murky mornings when the clouds hung low, Jacob shuddered as the fog crawled over his skin with just enough pressure to suggest his brother lurking there.
28. can't
Esau said, "Don't tell me you can't," wrapping his fingers around Jacob's and thrusting the spear so that they killed the animal together.
29. village
One day Esau told Jacob to raise his hands, and when Jacob lifted them hesitantly, Esau grasped them and swayed his body in a pattern that he had learned at the village, twirling Jacob around so fast that he stumbled over Esau's bare feet, and Esau explained that the humans called it "dancing," and Jacob never danced with anyone else.
30. time
When the brothers only counted time in days at a time, they ticked off the days from when one had last seen the other, and when Men introduced sundials, the clock, and the electric watch, they counted the hours and the minutes and the seconds as well.
31. forget
In the end, Death did not forget to reunite them.