SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue 1 - Journal - Page 74
I wonder, and sometimes worry, that I'll need a wheelchair someday. If I get one, I'll
also get a tattoo on the back of my shoulder that reads Hot Wheels. I haven't decided which
shoulder, but I have tattoos on each ankle. I got them when I was diagnosed. M on the left
ankle and S on the right. Both letters have roses twining around them, green and red and
thorny. Tattoos are better with roses.
***
When he was in high school my brother often became a blackbird—loud, crafty, flighty,
and always hungry. He raided the fridge at eleven at night for leftovers, and spent a lot of time
in his room playing music and squawking. Often I wondered if he'd stay that way forever. It
wouldn't have changed the quality of our conversations much at the time.
***
I take the garlic bread out of the oven—just brown enough on top—and shuffle through
the living room where Isobel is making tiny paper hats for Ernie who's indulging her for the
moment. He probably had enough cheese crackers. I knock on the door to Jules' apartment.
“I knew it was pasta night,” they say when I walk inside. “Smells lovely.”
“Smells lazy,” I say, resting the tray on top of their stove. “The sauce should be done.”
“Need help carrying anything?” they ask.
I say that would be great. I don't think Jules notices the hedgehog on the couch when we
shuffle through my apartment. I dump the pasta into a colander in the sink, and back into the
pot with sauce and a little bit of pasta water. A trick my brother taught me when he was in a
good mood. Jules grabs the pot, and I find shredded parmesan in the fridge. I tell Isobel dinner
is ready and no, she can't bring the hedgehog.
***
Sometimes at work I fight the urge to turn into a sloth. Those are the days when my limbs
move too slowly, and my fingers don't cooperate. I do small things—return phone calls, listen
to messages, and scoot to the copy machine to make packets of reports for the next board
meeting. On certain weekends I become a cat, sleep on the couch in the sun, then at two in
the morning I'm bright awake and shuffle to the kitchen for tea.
After our parents died, my brother became lions and rhinoceroses and komodo dragons.
He didn't care if he trashed his apartment and frightened the neighbors. It was a dangerous
combination of anger, frustration, and why-me sadness.
***
At dinner Isobel chatters about school. Tad talks about his day at the library and says
Isobel should come by tomorrow if she wants help with her report on lemurs. Jules is an
emergency room nurse and doesn't talk much about their job, but they say their cousin is
coming to visit from Des Moines next week and wants to make stir-fry for us.
Everyone says the pasta is good, and the garlic cheese bread is great.
I wonder if my brother will want pasta when he's human again.
***
Sometimes I ache to talk with Ernie about our shared memories, but that happens when
I have two-in-the-morning insomnia. I sit on the couch with a mug of tea and flip through
television channels, hoping to find something interesting or boring to watch. Last Wednesday
Jules knocked on the door and asked if I was okay. I said yes, I just couldn't sleep.
“I can't, either,” Jules said.
I asked if they wanted tea, so we shuffled to the kitchen and they made a mug of
chamomile, then we went back to the living room to watch natural disasters on the Weather
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