Trigger Warning: The content may not be suitable for children or those with a fragile psyche

Cans

I am at home in my apartment while my mother is stacking canned produce at a grocery store a few blocks away. The apartment is like a Hollywood set where the director has forgotten all the furniture, paintings, family heirlooms, and all the things that make an apartment unique to the person inhabiting it. It is like that, except much smaller, and the wallpaper is old and yellow, and it is inhabited by real people instead of the false people who appear on screens.

 My mother is having a very difficult time stacking the cans because each can reminds her of cancer. Cans and cancer share the first three letters, and in that way they are spiritually intertwined for eternity to my mother. It is just my mother’s luck that she has to stack these cans, which are only once removed from cancer, since the name of a thing and the thing itself are blood relatives of the mind.

I am sitting on the floor with my three-year-old brother in my lap, who is dying of the disease related to cans. My mother is only three blocks away although I feel separated from her by a distance far greater than three blocks.

I should be in school at this time, learning about the American Civil War and Mathematics, and looking at the girls who clump together across the hallway, wondering about the thing I wish to do with them that I do not yet understand.

 But the Civil War is very far away, and it is made out of the memories of the dead and contained in the letters of large books with leather covers, and exists nowhere else, and has nothing to do with me.

The disease is meant to attack adults, to leave behind a tragic life half lived, not a bundle of potential in a tiny casket that looks like it was made for a doll.

I gently lift my brother off my lap and place him on the floor. It is time for me to make his lunch. I go to the kitchen and retrieve some milk and some browning bananas. I place them on the counter and grab a packet of protein from the cabinet. I peel the bananas and pour the mixture into a blender so old it looks like it is powered by coal.  I turn the thing on and watch it grind everything up into a uniform liquid. 

 I have a strong desire to place my hand inside the blender.

I pour the contents into a cup and fish out one of those plastic straws that come in every color of the rainbow. I find a yellow straw. Yellow is a very inappropriate color for my mood, but I do not care enough to change it.

I return to my brother with his lunch. I hold the straw to his mouth. He drinks very slowly. That done, I place the glass on the floor next to us. The distance from us to the sink seems incredibly great and I am too tired to go back.

I walk over to the window. I stand on my tiptoes to see out of it. Outside, the world is frozen. The birds are stuck in midair. The people are paused in between strides. The cars are unmoving statues of cars made of Styrofoam and painted in such a way to suggest metallic shells.  I leave the window to let the world thaw in this cool winter afternoon.

 I sit back down next to my brother, whose eyes are gray and sad. They are the souls of eyes. I have the distinct feeling that if I were to touch them my fingers would go right through them as if they did not exist at all.

He has a round face, pale and made of moonlight. His nose is prominent and protrudes greatly from his small head. His body is as delicate as an overripe peach. His arms and legs are skeletons. He does not move them much, for when he does a fire made from blue light shoots through his joints.

If she could, my mother would have someone come here while she was at work to take care of my brother, so that I could go to school and live the life identical to thousands of children around America. But she is a very quiet woman, she is somewhat like a delicate parrot who refuses to speak. She has no friends. She cannot afford a babysitter.

 So, I must stay home and tell stories to my brother instead of going to school and learning about the American Civil War.

I prefer it like this: the lectures on the American Civil War would turn into thoughts of my brother in my mind, and I would not learn a thing.

My brother turns to me, his face a distortion of un-understood pain, and whispers something. I cannot make out the words contained in that whisper. It might have been an attempt at English, or words from a made up language known only to him. The whisper is so quiet that I wonder if it ever existed at all, or if it was only the ghost of a whisper. Regardless, I know what it means. I have a perfect understanding of my brother, as if we are connected by umbilical cords. He wants me to tell him stories.

 I try to tell stories that are very good to take his mind off his predicament. I hope the stories will carry him along with them, that he will not feel the pain in his limbs, throat, and head, because his pain is not inside the stories, and his mind is full of nothing but the stories, and the pain is but a distant memory belonging to somebody else. I place a lot on the shoulders of my stories which are the Atlas of my brother's world.

How Moon and Earth Were Created, and How All the Animals and the Plants Came About

"In the beginning there was nothing but God. God existed in a large expanse of nothing. He was very lonely because he had no one to talk to but himself, and one can only talk to themselves for so long before they become hungry for true conversation. So, God created Moon.

Moon and God got along very well and had many pleasant chats, always inquiring about each other and being quite sympathetic. But after a while Moon became slightly distant from God. ‘What's wrong?' asked God, sensing Moon's unhappiness. ‘God, you know how much I enjoy our conversations, but we are very different, you and I. I am a sphere, and I would like another sphere to talk to,’ said Moon. 'Very well,' said God, and God created Earth so Moon would have someone to talk to similar to herself.

Moon, Earth, and God, all got along well with each other. Everything was going smoothly for some time, but after a while Earth became discontented. ‘What is the matter Earth?’ asked God. ‘God, it is so very nice to talk to you and Moon and life is very good, but my body is so large, I just feel that it is a shame that no one lives on my surface.  I would be much happier if I were home for some living beings.’

‘Very well,’ said God, and he created people to inhabit Earth. All got along for a very long time, but after a while the humans approached God. They asked him, ‘God, this world of ours is very nice, but we have nothing to look at during the night, and nothing to eat during the day, nor beings to keep in our homes who are subservient to us.’ ‘Very well,’ said God, who then made the stars in the sky for the people to look at, and placed animals on Earth for humans to eat and make pets of.

All again was well, but after a time the animals approached God and shyly asked him a favor. ‘Oh, God. You know how very grateful we are for you placing us on Earth and letting us live here, but we are eternally hungry, and we have nowhere to hide when the humans try to hunt us.’ ‘Very well,’ said God, and he created forests for the animals to hide in and plants for the animals to eat. And in this way Moon and Earth were created and all the animals and plants came about."

When I am finished my brother looks up at me. His eyes tell me he wants another story. I gather my thoughts, organize them like a giant school of tiny fish swimming in tandem, and begin again.

 How The Chickens of The Forest Got Their Black Feathers

"The chickens were huddled together. They were naked and pale, looking ready to be baked in ovens or eaten by wolves. They were very cold in their nakedness and were frightened as the night sky loomed overhead. They would have to do something about this. Their nakedness shone in the night, their bodies reflecting the white of the moon like tiny lighthouses guiding predators to a feast.

The leader of the chickens, who was slightly larger than the rest but still almost identical to them, stepped onto a small, elevated rock and began to speak. ‘Fellow chickens,’ she said in a loud voice, ‘we need to solve this problem. We are being eaten each night, dying of frostbite, falling into disarray. Our species is on the precipice of disaster. Something must be done.’ The other chickens clucked their agreement enthusiastically. ‘But what should be done?’ one chicken asked.

Out of the huddled mass of fowl stepped a chicken. She wasn't a large chicken or a small chicken. She was a perfectly ordinary looking chicken. You could not remember her appearance even while looking at her, that is how forgettable she was. ‘I have an idea,’ she said. All the other chickens were silent in anticipation, ‘let us pick the leaves of the large plants that grow around here. Let us place these leaves on our bodies. In that way we will have camouflage from predators and stay warm during these cold nights.’

The chickens thought this a sensible idea and began to do so. As they placed these leaves onto their bodies, they stuck fast, and transformed into feathers, turning the color of midnight black. And in this way chickens of the forest got their black feathers.”

My brother has fallen asleep.

I join him like that, my arms around his waist holding him gingerly as the cool sunlight floods through our windows.

END