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Jacqlynn K. Duquette Walid Gardezi
Rachel Glover Michael Jacobsohn
Pamela Ng Jennifer Pusey

Death Happens Only in Movies

Brothers and sisters are rarely friends. perhaps comrades and confidants, even inseparable-but rarely do they actually agree.

Take my sister and me, for example: she knew how, in my eyes, chocolate had no rival in the bliss stakes, so she'd wait until she knew I was salivating (every hour or so) and she'd filch it and feed it to our abjectly grateful dog. She loathed grunge music, so I, in retaliation, would play my raucous selection until it reverberated off the walls.

You get the idea.

But we were the only two girls in the family, you see, and very close. Although we betrayed each other's secrets on a daily basis we still told each other everything. Young and naive.

When I was almost four, I remember her gloating about her new boyfriend. I was indignant, invidious, so I got a boyfriend in revenge. Phantom phone calls, withered flowers in the mailbox, love notes posted to my door...until she found out "Jerome" didn't exist. I never did live that experience down.

Five, six, pick up sticks...the era of the bike. She got off her training wheels before me, so I let her tires down.

Seven, eight, stay up late...by nine, it was boys' germs, girls' germs...and according to me, my brothers had them with a vengeance. According to them, even germs would die if they touched me.

Nine, ten, friends again. I got pocket money that year, and I bought my own chocolates, but no matter how carefully I concealed them, the dog always enjoyed them more often than I did.

Just before her thirteenth birthday, my sister started walking funny, sticking her chest out and squeezing her behind in. She'd look at Mother cryptically, and ignored me completely. One day I found a tape measure discarded on her bedroom floor, and still I had no idea.

It was only when I found two triangles held together by a bit of elastic that I finally filled in the jigsaw.

It grew worse...she became moody...always yelling or bursting into tears. When I asked Mother what was happening, she said ominously,

"Your sister's a woman now."

How come she got to be a woman, while I was stuck being a girl?

Then, I discovered the opposite sex and knew what she meant.
My God, he LOOKED at me?

He caught my bus on purpose!

(didn't he?)
I found her information about boys invaluable. Our pre-bedtime discussions gave me a massive head start on all my uninformed rivals in the race to utopian couple-dom.

The summer of my fourteenth birthday, I began to notice more changes in my sister. She didn't beat me anymore if we raced, or slaughter me in tennis. In fact, she did hardly anything at all. She even became breathless walking home from the bus stop. She made me promise not to tell, but one day I accidentally let it slip. My sister was livid, turning white in a fit of pique and then crumpled into an exhausted heap. I crouched by her side, trying to help her up, but she brushed me off. As I got up, offended, and turned to go, I saw my mother's face blanch. I followed her wide-eyed stare with trepidation, and saw mottled purple and yellow bruises surfacing on my sister's arms, where I had clutched her. I opened my mouth to protest, but what I really wanted to do was bolt from the room.

Later that week my sister went to the doctor, from there straight to the hospital. From that afternoon on, I was adrift, lost in an ocean of bewilderment.
Waiting rooms,
taxis,
white walls.
Bone marrow transplants...me to her...Mother to her...someone to her.
Hair falling out,
drugs,
money,
injections,
no cure.
My once-glowing sister was fading away.
Waiting rooms, white walls.
disinfectant,

Wigs, blankets, shrouding a hollow shell, drained of life vulnerable.
Catheters,
injections,
money,
life sentence.
Remission...relapse...remission...
relapse.
The blank eyes shone once into mine, and slept.
People die only in the movies. This is not real this is not real this is not real.
Things truly named can never vanish from earth. In memoria tenebitur.
"A child, once quick
to mischief, grown to learn
what sorrows, in the end,
no words, no tears
can mend."

Months later, when I feel like eating again, I go to the pantry and there is a stack of chocolate.

I wish...it had been stolen...and given to our dog.

~ Pamela Ng

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