NaNoWriMo 2005

week two

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 02:57:09 GMT

WORD COUNT: 18,411

05. legend of urashima taro

Otohime, Aunty had told her, wore flowing white robes and a golden crown, heavy with diamonds and pearls from her undersea kingdom. When she moved, her skirt, which was made from hundreds of pink shells, swayed and gleamed, as though weightless. “Each shell was like a twinkling star,” Aunty had whispered, like a secret, with an enrapturing glint in her eyes.

The pretty water princess with horrific treasure chests and stern eyed, frowning tell-tale heart warnings had been her favorite character, folktale prophetic heroine. Now, when Annie hands her a cup of coffee, looking worse for wear in a softer terrycloth robe with a border of plum blossoms, and points out through the glass door at the early morning horizon, it’s like seeing a freed Otohime brought to life, 3D popping out of her childhood picture books.

Natalia stands at the water’s edge, water tugging and soothing over the veins in her feet, a white summer dress curling around her knees, caught up in a snow globe breeze. She has no crown and her skirt is plan cotton, no heaven descended starlight stitched into the hem or design, but to Chisachi, Otohime comes to mind all too vividly. An appropriate title, she thinks.

“Where’d you guys go last night?” Annie isn’t angry, no traces of last night left in her face, without makeup because of the early hour, hair just barely brushed through to tame slee-snared tangles. Her tone is flat, defeated, but still a noble attempt to care.

Her little sister shrugs, adds another spoonful of raw sugar to her drink, taste buds reeling, rejecting the bitter straight black first sip. “Outside. Away.”

A long pause, unsure how to say the simplest things. Finally closure that comes in the form of confused exasperation, a swipe across the eyes though nothing is there. “I’m sorry. With Elliot sometimes I just lose my temper.”

Not just Elliot, thinks baby sister, but holds her tongue wisely. She pats her sister on the back of the hand, takes after the automatic comforts of their mother and her green tea therapy. “To your defense, he eggs you on purposefully.” And it’s true. Practically since his birth they’ve been making one another miserable, pulled so close together that their lives collide, bumper car anger spurning them to new heights with each fire glow addition to birthday candle topped cupcakes. One pushes the other down the stairs, retaliation comes in the form of midnight haircuts, secret crush loudspeaker phone calls, broken CDs, lost in the laundry excuses, hallway arguments that shake the house foundations, make the neighbors worry the police. Sometimes Little Asian wonders if she’s going crazy. Shane was the lucky one, he got out while there was still time.

And then the coffee turns to sodium-tinted caffeine, Big Sister’s leaving trembling fingernail indents at her temples, digging at the roots of her hair, shoulders last autumn leaf trembling with sobs that don’t quite work their way up the volume level. Her mouth opens, wide and expressive, but nothing comes up, even when the hot tears seer her rims rose red, mottle her skin and clog her nose till it burns. Asian Child feels more lost than she’s ever felt, a regular Wendy Bird high in the sky, shot down by Lost Boy arrows, speeding towards the earth: no sign of Peter. Annie is supposed to be the strong one; is the strong one.

She tries to reach out, hold her hand, wrap not long enough arms around her shoulders, gather her up so tight that the pain fuses, passes between their two bodies, vein to vein blood oath. But this older sibling of hers hates this sympathy, sheer reaction to an act of weakness; pity someone who needs it. Pulls back, burn angry back of the palm welts like a single calligraphy stroke, ideograph for one, across the length of her face, makes for her room, disappears back into bed; maybe she can sleep away the day, the week, the summer months.

Lost little girl, tiny child with empty arms and war-ravaged Asia eyes; she makes a break for it, angry wife fuming out the glass door, the back gate, dusting up a Not in Kansas Anymore tornado behind her as she rages across the sand. Slips out of her shirt and jeans, lets them form a crumpled trail, throwing fate as a scarlet letter upon her chest, glad she’d thrown on a swimsuit directly after rolling out of the sheets, deprivation headache not enough to ruin her day. Yet. This was the last straw; 7 AM and the camel’s back had already been broken and the poor thing’s hump Mexican hat-danced around and given a luau. Oh, does she feel the sinful scream tearing at her lungs, all consuming, approaching the final threshold. She doesn’t even see Curious Girl on the shore outside her own gate, fingers buried in cold sand. The water is painfully cold to her heated emotions, forming cartoon smoke at the tips of her ears; she dives.

When they find her body, all the punk bands will make emo songs about her, jumping up and down to lyrics of bloated limbs and frozen organs, Tin Man heartlessness. She vengefully slices through the green-blue, legs kicking hiragana names that splatter plankton blood the wake of bubbles and foam she leaves behind. Green, she thinks with all the fierceness in the world, even while her air supply presses images of dead rose pigment like a siren screen over her eyes.

Breaking the surface, whale breaching upheaval, loud mermaid gasp, she feels the drop of temperature swarm ripples around her immersed body, a loud piano crash of comprehensive weather. Cold. She can feel the hot wrath in her release outward, upward, letting the Sun take responsibility for it now, back where it belongs in the unreachable flames. Toes suspend in melted lime Jell-O; can’t touch the bottom, don’t care. Salt ignites irritation that blurs her vision, lips element Na injected and oozing tear taste.

“’S cold, huh?”

Young Japan nearly drops below the surface, arms shocked stiff, forgetting to tread the vicious, newly acquainted water. Natalia’s head bobs several feet away, hair otter plastered down, face tendril-streaked and happy. Slant Eyes smiles back. “Hey, doll.”

Baby Italy breathes deep, pushes up from nothing and lets the water carry her, so trustingly, beneath her frail, curved back, pulling it driftwood straight against the spire curled waves. Asia Guardian watches to make sure the tide doesn’t carry her across the sea, Tolkien’s gray ship voyage to white shores, until she spots Isaiah at the back gate to 309 Coral Lane, watching them with relaxed spine and shoulders for once. She wonders how long he’s been there.

Blowhole exhalation and then it’s a V-shaped descent to the depths below and the strange quiet child rises again with a joyous porpoise noise, deep in the throat, whistle-like. She starts to frog stroke forward, pausing to turn around, look back, follow me gesture with her quivering eyes, until they’re both back on shore, tumble tossed with the escalations of the tide. Tokyo Eyes laughs, pulls the younger to her feet, pondering why she hasn’t sat down to contemplate Otohime situations quite like this before.

“Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you, but dresses like those aren’t meant for sea swim back floating.”

“It’s the only thing she’ll wear to get in the water. Here.” Uncle Paolini tosses Chisachi a towel, unexplainably wide and powder blue, wrapping an identical one around the niece’s cervix and goose-pimpled arms. Natalia doesn’t mind the droplets that dribble into her ears and ice skate straight lines to the tip of her nose, dog shaking her head and sending long, waterlogged strands of hair on a mission to defy gravity, rain like a personal deity command scatters in a four-foot radius.

Isaiah’s looking at New Neighbor Girl as though she, too, were a niece of his. “I’m sorry for last night,” he finally says, sincerity almost painful.

Apologies make her funny feeling uncomfortable and she concentrates on the Stryofoam clutter of sand that glue sticks itself between her toes. “It wasn’t your fault.” Please just drop it. “My family’s dysfunctional.”

He nods, gets the secret agent decoded message. A pause. “She’s taken to you so quickly.”

“We’re both destined to go North, I guess.” One-shouldered shrug, midori one piece feeling silky, heavy now seal wet and on dry land. He has to ponder her for a moment, taking a liking to her answer, the way she pulls the edge of the towel back up from its slippery slope descent down baby girl’s arm.

“Natalia’s doesn’t have a tutoring session today, so she usually comes with me to work. Want to come with? That is, as long as you don’t have any other plans, of course.”

Stunned how do I answer hush. But their eyes are so kind, and Natalia tugs at the edge of her towel, a two-finger pinch, adorable and enhanced only when she hangs onto it. Her face colors up fruit punch pink. “As long as you don’t mind. I just need to check to make sure it’s okay with Shane.” Realization like neon eye shadow that lifts expressions into surprise. “Where do you work?”

He grins easily, glad to be forgiven. “I work at the aquarium down the street, past the residential area, part of the city opening and near the zoo. Usually I stay there and help monitor things, make the rounds, but sometimes they send me out into the field with the boats. Today’s just a regular day, though. Ichthyology, not the most exciting thing, your brother was right.”

“Elliot also spent the better part of last night with Pantera on his headphones. Don’t give him too much credit. I’ll go get changed. Do you want me to meet you back here?”

“Sounds great. Oh, and don’t wear anything you wouldn’t want to get wet. Natalia seems to attract anything that splashes whenever she comes down to work with me. It’s a gift.”

Then she’s paper weighting a ripped piece of folder paper note, complete with sprawled handwriting and a bulbous chicken-scratch heart, native language signature at the bottom. Shane’ll find it, and if he cares, she’ll hear about it when she gets home. After last night, he owes her anyway. It was their new neighbor, flustered and guilty who’d found them after an hour of Annie‘s accusations and Elliot‘s evasions, finally noticing they’d slipped away. The girls had fallen asleep by then, curled up and sea shell pale against the sand, baby North safe between their immobile bodies.

She flies into her room, grabs a floppy bag with bright colors and a goldfish ironed onto the bottom left corner, throwing in things she thinks she’ll need: wallet, Walkman, disposable camera, sunglasses, keys, water bottle. Her duffel bag closet is massacred when she attacks it for a change of clothing, tugging off her swim suit and pulling on a new outfit that warms her instantly, leaving tingles to steady rock her knees, makes her wonder if she’s ever been that spin around cold before. She doesn’t stop to really think, to ponder consequences, because then she’s out the door, escaping raised voices and too close living quarters and sits next to Natalia in the back of the Fish Doctor’s Jeep to finalize her July first freedom.

The trio stops at a casual sit-in restaurant for breakfast, one Chisachi wouldn’t have even noticed without Isaiah pointing it out to her, opening the glass door with the speckled bell on it to announce their arrival. Lazy fans twirl tipsy circles overhead and there are a few customers in the cream-colored booths, a lady behind the counter rubbing out a ring of maple syrup, a remnant of its metal container, sweet sticky handle stuck in her left hand.

“Yo, Eyes-Ah!” From the end of the counter, a long-legged man with a triangular torso and swimmer’s shoulders waves them over, nearly knocking over a salt and pepper shaker set in the process, much to the dismay of the geisha-haired woman with the syrup-stained rag and spotless countertop.

Natalia shifts her weight, half her body disappearing behind her uncle’s, peeking out around his shoulder at the loud-voiced man with the flapping arms. Paternal Man brings her out from behind him, settles an arm around her shoulder and motions for Asian Neighbor to follow him. “That’s Robin Reyes, he usually meets us here on Tuesdays for breakfasts. You’ll like him.” There’s hope in that statement, a confidence that thrusts things right off a cliff and into Fate’s ditzy embrace.

His voice is kind when he says, “’Morning, Water Baby.” Outer Space Girl dips her face to let her palms curl over it, ladybug leaf defenses. Robin Reyes grins, ruffles the kid’s hair before scooping his stuff up, sliding into the booth a few feet over, the buoyant seat springs creaking beneath the sudden weight. He and Eyes do a lengthy high-five handshake ritual. “New girlfriend?”

“She’s seventeen, Rob.”

“Little young for you, isn’t she?” A side wink at the subject topic.

Dry sarcasm that rides itself out on a surfboard smile. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Berkeley grad.”

“Isaiah Paolini, a pedophile?” the other muses aloud, banter unending; patrons turn to stare. “Oh, and I got my undergrad at Stanford, too, by the way.”

He groans, pushes the other’s shoulder roughly, before addressing his guest. “Chisachi Shirokata, Robin Reyes. Vice versa, etcetera.” They grip hands, Spanish latte over Asian glow. He smells like chemicals and hand soap, moves quick and skittish; she decides that, yes, she does like him.

“Quite a name you got there, kid. Sit, sit.”

Natalia places North between she and Chisachi, leaning against the booth wall at a diagonal slant and dragging her Adidas soccer cleats against the floor in muted cat scratches. Quite a Name Kid smiles at Mermaid Child’s tangled hair and resists the urge to smooth the loop-de-loop knots curling Christmas bows around her sea conch ear.

“You can call me Kim — Kimberley — if it’s easier. My English name.”

Isaiah thanks the man in the business suit and Mohawk, who hands them their menus. “Always wondered why your brothers and sister got English names.”

Silent shrug. “We moved to the States right after my kindergarten year. I’m the only one who didn’t change their name. Guess I just missed home the most.”

Silly Stranger’s playing condiment hockey for an entertained Baby Italy; Uncle Eyes listens to Secret Japanese intently. “Why’d you guys come here?”

“To the States? Because my aunty passed away.” She doesn’t elaborate and he doesn’t ask her to. “Or do you mean the beach house? That’s because my parents are back in Gifu right now. My grandmother broke her hip, so they’re staying with her until my uncle can come up from Akasaka to move in with her.” Impassioned, forlorn, want to be there small voice comes through her lips, slipping through when she’s not looking, caught off guard. The talk story stops there, though, because Mohawk/Business Suit is back, beaming at them from beneath dark kohl-lined eyes and a glint of silver that turns out to be a bar through his tongue, visible most when he pronounces his ‘L’s and vowels.

Rapid-fire, part memorized, part ramble speech begins. “Welcome to the State of Mind Café. I’m Slit, and this month is a Tokyo State of Mind. Our special today is ikura with a generous serving of wasabi, and our chef has recently learned how to make edible miso soup, having made peace with slicing tofu into blocks and not blobs. What can I interest you in?”

It feels like a Jonathan Larson production, and Slant Eyed Girl resists a “La Vie Boheme” rendition, the temptation to reassure this man that his Tokyo state of mind is anything but. He looks like a Harajuku street boy, the kind that break dances on the street corner surrounded by his groupies. She hollows her cheeks, pinches lips together as though hospital needle and thread stitched, swallows the laughter like sickly sweet cough syrup, feeling more like Annie than she’s ever felt before. There is some sort of miracle in the fact that they place their orders without incident.

Later it would be revealed that Robin Reyes works in a forensics lab downtown, processes DNA strands, gets some time in the field as he works toward being a CSI level one. This culminates to he and Isaiah Paolini alternating conversations about blood spatter and dog semen, as well as moray eel teeth and the gobi that died last week, over cold soba noodles and azuki bean filled slabs of mochi. (Far from a traditional Japanese breakfast, it should be noted. But refined palettes are highly overrated, wouldn’t you agree?)

A man a table over is having pancakes slathered in chunky butter and syrup with a purple tint to it; blueberry-flavored. It doesn’t elude Native Japan the way the pretty waitress with the moon face and clunky roller blades sends flitting little glances her way every so often. She turns away from the restaurant’s open expanses and watches Natalia pick apart her bowl of fried rice, having slid her eyes over the menu once, pointing it out to her uncle, before turning away to disappear into the window glass. Chisachi knows the girl is smarter than she lets on, wonders what she’d be like if freed from the world she only knows inside her head.

She feels her stare on her and they lock veiled eyes. Her hair spills over her shoulder, a mess of tangles and waves, when she tilts her head and makes perplexed eyes at her. “Eat,” she says, simple and soft, but a firm command. Her face stretches into a smile when Asian Friend grins wide at her, nods and complies, holds her chopsticks picture perfect and slurps an ikura up, letting it slide raw and cold down her throat. The two men don’t notice a thing. Chisachi wonders if they see the way the other looks at them between sips of ice water, continual conversation. She doesn’t think so.

“How’s everybody doing here? Oh wait, hold on.” Roller Skates Waitress ruffles around in her school girl uniform breast pocket for a piece of crumpled paper, which she unfolds and reads off in an awful, American-accented voice, “Minna san wa genki desuka?” Chisachi tells herself not to cringe, not to mention that “genki” refers to health, not to hack that “desuka” back from whence it came. The girl’s eyes are heavy on Asian Child’s face.

It dawns on her that their waitress has grape-juice-purple eye contacts, and her mango-cherry lips are outlined in a deep magenta, hair streaked through in exactly the same color. It makes her think of a giant fruit basket with a neck, though she figures there has to be something more eloquent to describe it than that. But it’s too hard to pinpoint once the girl’s got flirtatious big eyes on her and a mango-cherry smile to match it.

“We’re good.” Rob’s managed to pause the current conversation, (lifting fingerprints off of the sticky side of duct tape, simultaneous with penguin tank water and the various unmentionables found therein). They all try to pretend that Isaiah isn’t trying to hide an amused chuckle at Waitress-Chisachi interaction, and that Natalia Darling isn’t as uncomfortable as she really is with the girl in the roller skates with the orange peel thick layer of makeup.

When the bill comes and Isaiah and Chisachi push each other over who’s treating who, the latter of whom gets her wallet taken away and dangled above her head, (at the same moment that Rob gives the guy in the Mohawk his own credit card to foot said bill), Waitress Girl slips her number into Asian Child’s forgotten bag, left alone on the seat as she debates tackling her ride home in exchange for her money. Dignity is not a concern. Rob doesn’t think he should tell her, it’s something she needs to discover on her own. There’s a fond smile on his face when he jerks his head right, Natalia following his cue and gathering up her doll, and then they’re leading the bickering neighbors out, still none the wiser that the bill has already been paid.

That is how the lab rat finds himself able to cop a ride (and, really, the entire day) with basically the only person he sees outside of his job. And the only person who’ll tolerate his mile-a-minute mouth and train of thought (or rather, lack thereof.) Natalia doesn’t seem to mind his intimidating presence so much, at least not with assertive little Chisachi there to protect her. He wonders when she’ll find that phone number in her bag, if ever, and whether or not the kid realizes just how much she looks like a teen Wonder Woman, only more Asian. Well, maybe not Wonder Woman. But definitely one of the Teen Titans, or something out of JLA.

“What are you thinking about?”

“How badly we need to get that neighbor kid of yours a cape and some superhero supplies. Maybe a BatMobile, I don’t know. Depends on our budget.”

“How is it that you’re older than me and in a higher-paid job?”

A wagging pointer finger in the other‘s general direction. “And a Berkeley graduate, can’t forget the Berkeley.”

“And the Stanford undergrad degree. Oh, and we all know how humble you are, too, almost forgot that.” Solemn nod, mock dawning of realization.

“Ha, ha, and also, ha. Your jealousy makes me look down my nose at you, sir.”

“You’re, like, a foot taller than me. You always look down your nose at me. Sir.”

The two men continue berating each other, upholding the friendly argument, trading tip of the tongue wit back and forth, enjoying the company neither work nor home respectively gives them, while Eyes walks the grounds, cell phone secured at his belt loop, waiting for a call on the latest arrivals, transfers from the Waikiki Aquarium down in Hawaii. Up ahead, the two girls press their noses to the glass that shows the water below the surface of the tank where several green sea turtles glide, paddy whack flippers doing a prehistoric bird kind of dance when they make for an oxygen run. Natalia presses the palm of her hand flat against the barrier and sighs.

“You ever heard the legend of Urashima Taro?” It gets Aqua Child’s attention well enough, she angles her head slightly to gaze at Lady Storyteller. “He saved a turtle who was being beaten by some boys on land and put it back in the ocean. The next day, while he was out on a boat fishing, the same turtle came up out of the water to thank him and told him to come with him. He took Urashima Taro to the Coral Palace beneath the sea, where he met Otohime, the Sea Princess. She thanked him for saving her loyal turtle, and showed him all the wonders of the ocean, and they dined and danced together. But Urashima Taro grew homesick, despite the beautiful, enchanting things that he was shown everyday. Otohime did not wish to see him go, tried to reason with him, but in the end, he missed his home too much. She agreed, and gave him a jewel-encrusted box as a farewell present. ‘It will bring you good luck for the rest of your days,’ she told him. ‘But you must never open it.’ Urashima Taro nodded and told her he understood, before letting the same sea turtle he had saved carry him on his back to the shore.

“When Urashima Taro got there, however, after bidding the turtle farewell, he discovered that he could no longer find his home, his family, his neighbors and friends. He asked several old men about his friends, giving them their names, but only a few had ever only heard of such names, from so long ago. Though it had only felt like days to him, Urashima Taro had really been gone for many years, almost a century. Feeling more lonely than he ever had before, Urashima Taro walked down to the shore, sat on a rock, and cradled Otohime’s box in his arms. So forlorn was he, he forgot her parting words; he opened the box. Immediatey, the time he’d been gone descended upon him, and he sat, on the shore, now an old man, too weak to ever return to the Coral Palace beneath the sea.”

Natalia’s face pulls together, a thoughtful and slow crumple, displeasure at the lack of a happy ending. Her eyes don’t go sad, though, because she’s glad that there’s finally someone who isn’t trying to feed her happily ever afters, rose-tinted universes. She knows her uncle means well, can feel it tangibly, but this new girl is honest. That’s a whole other ballpark. It’s a completely different game.

“Urashima?” she tries to get a feel for the name off her tongue, knowing she’ll whisper it to the shadowed beams that stretch the length of the ceiling whenever the nightscares pull back her eyelids to tell her heart to slow down.

Legend Weaver nods, lips curving easily as Cupid’s bowstring. Little Listener’s pronunciation is dead-on, so attentive. “Yeah. Urashima Taro. Kind of sad, huh? I wonder if I would’ve opened the box. What about you?”

Not So Mute doesn’t know quite what to say. Her fingers clutch at edges, trace embedded jewels, catch the scent of sandalwood, grasping at something that isn’t there. The weight of time evades her, frustrating and hovering. She shakes her head. She’s not sure why.

Robin Reyes scratches the back of his neck, sitting on the bench with Isaiah, watching the two girls in front of the turtle exhibit. They’ve already seen it more times than they can recall. “Lucky girl.”

His gaze is imploring, soft. “Which one?”

“Both.” His tone is hushed, expression sobered, so different from his usual liveliness, inability to keep quiet, still. “Natalia’s opened up to her, hasn’t she?”

He shakes his head almost unconsciously. “I don’t know. I think so. I think she talks to her.” Pictures them as he found them, asleep on the beach, far away from the yelling and shattered glass bowl, scattering vegetables and rinse water. They’d swept themselves against each other, niece’s precious companion of a rag doll forced to press her limbs together in the space between the two bodies. Niece’s foot grazed Neighbor’s ankles; an actual initiation of human contact. “And she’s the first person to ever take to ‘Lia so quickly.”

“Yeah?” Reyes likes to think he hadn’t been as cautious as he’d really been when he’d spotted the good-looking man with the sarcastic tongue coming in for the first time with a nine-year old girl who never met his eyes. Isaiah knows both too well, though. He’s sharp; could’ve been a CSI if he’d really wanted to be, maybe been the one sending Rob the endless line of fingernail clippings and blood samples that pass through his tiny lab.

“It scares me.”

“Why?”

Can’t pinpoint exasperation juts the thin valleys across the plain of his forehead, feels himself slipping into the indeterminable. Can’t voice it, can’t think it. “I don’t know.” He’s not sure he wants to.

06. dance lightning

They listen to “Getting Better” and “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles in Natalia’s loft room, an escape into walls that smell like yellowing library book pages and middle of the night creaking floors. It’s cat and dog storming outside, pounding against the roof so hard it’s nearing the levels of impossibility to hear George Harrison willing them to believe “it’s all right.” Helen Horcrest calls to say she’s going to be late, tells Natalia she’d better have finished her grammar assignments, young lady in a message on the answering machine.

“Where is the Coral Palace?” The first words spoken by her all afternoon; Baby Jap hadn’t minded the silence. She doesn’t mind the stop-go, lean close to listen to me talking either though. Isaiah’s at work; it’s the only time Natalia can ever speak so freely.

Chisachi lifts her head from where she lies flat on the floor, spread eagle and entirely unproductive, so far from doing anything but breathing and being and not caring at all. It suddenly strikes her that Talks A Little has probably linked Coral Lane to Coral Palace, and why hadn’t she recognized it for herself before?

“I don’t know, dear. That’s a good question. Bet Urashima Taro would warn us not to go.” She pauses. “I don’t think I would listen to him if he did, though.”

“I wouldn’t have…opened the box.”

“I know, sweetheart. You’re not that kind of girl.”

“The palace.”

And she knows what she’s asking, what she means. The electricity flickers with the power lines that double dutch waver outside, and she thinks it’s nice to have a friend. She becomes Lady Storyteller once more, a hat she dons with no worries as to static messed-up hair or wow, check that geek pointed fingers. That’s why she’s able to explain oysters that spit strings of pearls onto moonlit necks and aquamarine schools of fishes that drift lazily by, fins snagging on swaying anemones. It lures Sweet Dreamy Face into a comforting place, before she’s getting up, taking the other’s hand, leading her down from the loft.

They end up falling asleep on the couch in Isaiah’s study, the lights off and blackout curtains drawn, only the blue light of the aquarium left to illuminate their closed eyelids and sprawled limbs. Helen Horcrest finds North curled up on Natalia’s pillow when she finally arrives, letting herself in with the spare key hidden beneath the potted chives on the porch. Her umbrella makes a mirror puddle near the door. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is taking a spin beneath the needle. It takes her nearly ten minutes to locate the girls, heart thud-thud palpitating, so fast she feels her head get light and the dread well in her chest, a tight coil of how to explain and has to be heres.

Behind tortoise-shell-rimmed lenses, she lets the curve of her cheekbone rest lightly against the doorframe, the entrance not open enough for the usual squeak to disturb the scene set before her. Stranger Neighbor has her arm curled around the span of Little Student’s shoulders, their heads brought in to rest against each other’s, the words that had once lit up the room dead on their dry lips, made so by sleep whistled air. Darling Pupil’s fingers bunch up cotton material over Yellow Girl’s stomach, as though needing to be sure that even in her unconsciousness she is not alone. It is unlike any spectacle she’s ever had the grace to witness. Her grip on the forgotten doll relaxes just a little.

The geometry homework has been left on the dining room table, just on top of the grammar worksheets, the U.S. History essay. Teacher takes a seat, eyes flickering left to right, trying to process it all, calm as the ocean floor. No, she thinks. Isaiah does not need to know about this.

07. an encounter

“Ann to the nie.”

“Get out.”

“Now, now, don’t need to get worked up over anything. It’s bad for the baby.”

“…What?”

“I’m a guy, not deaf, blind and dumb, sister dear. No comment needed. And even if Chisachi had been here in the mornings to hear you hitting your head against the back of the toilet, I’m sure I would’ve figured it out anyway. Oh, that and the fact that you took the car out two nights ago, and last night I found one of those E.P.T. boxes at the bottom of the trash can I just changed five minutes earlier, well…”

“How do you know it’s not Chisachi’s?”

“Well. I considered that. For all of five seconds. Who’s she going to be going at it with out here?”

“Isaiah Paolini.”

“Who is nine years older than her. Right. Meanwhile, she’s practically living with the mute, autistic kid and giving her an entire summer. Right. She’s sleeping with the kid’s uncle. Riiight. Corruptive place, that 309.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks, I think you’ve been getting enough action. And you especially aren’t getting any from me, even if you hadn’t been.”

“Elliot.”

“Think of the baby, sis.”

“You stupid fuck.”

“…Who’s the father?”

“Get out. Right now.”

“You need to tell me, Annie.”

“Right now, out.”

“You can’t go through this alone.”

SLAM.

“You stupid girl. Now who’ll help you?”

08. fork in the tongue

“Annie hasn’t left the kitchen in thirteen hours. She just sent Shane back out to the store. He’s pretty pissed. Where’ve you been, Miss Chisachi?”

Second Brother lets Baby Sister drape herself over the sofa, legs that are all rough denim and threaded words, arms stretched from sunburned shoulders; she smells like American jazz. “Next door.”

“Forever, pretty much.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

He’s man enough to admit that at least one of their summer’s is going well. His head is still spinning from blue strip positive test results, slamming doors and screaming sisters. It pains him to hate Annie as much as he loves her. She’s the Witch in Disguise and the Poisoned Apple, rolled into one. He’s not sure he knows completely that he cannot trust either. He hasn’t touched his camera in days. His hands can’t stop shaking; too much coffee.

“I think Isaiah’s gay.”

“Huh. Like you?”

Pause, which is different from hesitation. Think about it. “Yep.”

“Only sort of not, but, you know, whatever. ‘Cause he likes guys and you… don’t. Or maybe you do, I don’t know. OK. Lame. Remind me again. Uh. How’d we get on this in the first place?”

“It’s hard to tell when you’re not getting this moment on film for blackmail or saving to a disk or whatever the hell you do with the rest of your tapes.”

Point, Chisachi.

They sit for a while longer, Teen Titans gearing up to plow down the masked villain on TV for the next half an hour. Then the younger pats the older’s leg as she makes to stand, imprinting wailing trumpets and pizzicato string bass quarter notes into his DNA code to alleviate the carousel thoughts in his head, the post-it memo stuck to his sleeve right next to his bloody heart. “I’m going to go save our sister now. Good talk.”

He makes a non-committal noise that sticks somewhere between his nose and the back of his throat, top of the esophagus, and waves her off. Later, he will vaguely remember an invitation to the fireworks show later that night, but just then, Starfire has a bomb to detonate. There’s not time to listen when the entire world’s about to blow up. Think of your priorities, Little Sis. Jeeze.

Pot lids are being brought to life by the infuriated boiled water sloshing the metal walls encasing it, the oven light is on, warm glow made Maleficent in dragon form menacing, the cutting board jumping every time the blade chop-thumps through another carrot or artichoke. Red Eyed Chef tosses a handful of salt into a pan on the stove with its handle flipped inward, towards the middle. There’s a smeared arch of paprika across her neck, an inch below the chin, like a hangman noose rope burn, or a hockey mask stalker movie slash. She slips a slice of persimmon past her teeth, trying not to let the tangy tart grimace show.

Meek. “Tadaimasu.” I’m back.

Begrudged. “Okaeri.” Welcome home.

She rocks against the heel and ball of her feet. “Need help in here?”

Slam of flour bag that sends winter morning see your breath puffs of white up towards the ceiling. “No.”

“Oh.” Blink. “Is something wrong, Annie?”

A hand ruffles through a back jeans pocket, getting caught on a belt loop on the way back out. “You want to explain this to me?” A piece of paper, three times folded in half, crookedly, no origami precision evident. Her mother tongue is drawing out an accent, thick and hard, from memories of a childhood spent on streets with vending machines available with underwear, and peach water that was like drinking down a citric cloud.

Be articulate, she thinks. “Uhm.” It’s not a good start.

“You’re cute. Call me. 382-7635. Emily,” she reads in a clipped voice, rolling the ‘L’s into cross “R”/”D” combinations. The cell phone number is read out in straight Japanese, complete with “kara” dash translations. “I sure as fuck don’t know any guys named Emily, Chisachi.” There’s no Chan there. No Chan, no mercy.

Defensive position, spine stiff, vertebrae spiking against smooth skin. “I don’t know any Emily’s!”

“It was in your bag, it’s clearly your Emily by rights.”

“Oneesan.”

“Don’t you even think about going native on me.” Mother language pitches voices higher, tones gentler, compassionate. Even when yelled as a war cry. “Tell me the truth, dammit!” Terr me za tarusu, dah-mit!

“It is the truth, I don’t know how it got there, OK?”

And then it’s really on. “Uso! ‘Kaachan, ‘Tousan mo, aitsura nani wo kangaerukoto dearou?! Kore wa mondaigai!” Lies! she cries. Mom, Dad too, what will they think? This is out of the question!

It stings. “Donna musume ga iru?” She’s mixing up her verbs, trying to piece it all together in an irrational state of mind. What kind of daughter are you? she tries to scream, Queen of Hearts high and mighty. It comes out What kind of daughter is here? It’s close enough. Enough to hit home, backyard baseball shatters windows, causes foundations to rumble, give in. What family lived here? Rest in peace.

He’s grabbing her from behind, keeping her from sliding to the floor, knees suddenly unstable. “Hey, you do not talk to her like that!”

“What were you doing in my bag anyway?”

“Shut up, Elliot. Let her go.” A whirl of directions. “I was cleaning your room!”

“You’re not my mother!”

“I may as well be!”

“ANNIE. You need to calm down. Remember?”

“FUCK OFF.”

“Annie, I swear to God—”

“It’s a girl, you stupid twit. You’re being hit on by a girl. You don’t get someone’s number if you don’t flirt a little first.”

“What the—”

“No, you shut up. What kind of sister are you?! I don’t even know you!”

“You’re twenty years old, it took you twenty years to figure that out?!”

“Both of you need to calm the hell down. What if the cops come? Disturbing the peace mean anything to any of you?”

“You’re my sister, too, you know? Aren’t you supposed to care?”

“This has nothing to do with that!”

“CALM DOWN, BOTH OF YOU.”

“Onesan wa kaisuru nakare?”

Don’t. You. Care?

“DOU DEMO II.”

I. Don’t. CARE.

It shatters the existing argument, the silence that follows palpable, manufactured, fitting in so well the weight of it borders depression. Prozac can’t fix this. He’s staring stunned at the two of them; there’s a car pulling up in the driveway, engine thrumming, vibrant, alive. Her hair falls in Medusa wisps in to her face, chin jutted, a pot of broth overturned and hissing into the burner next to it. She’s feeling the overwhelming moment hit hard, tying a cabin boy knot out of her voice box, making her ache for headphones that will Bon Jovi her brains out, the pressure of the sea from all sides, down, down, until she’s at the Coral Palace and she never has to return.

The peach-shaped face of Otohime smiles at her from behind closed eyelids that exude branded red, purple polka dots eggs whose yolks have been slit. She shakes her head, fierce, once, twice, somebody stop me. Hot water, torturous searing pain, voices loud, soft, get out of my head, stop it, please, go, just. Are we having fun yet? Uncomfortable stomach clenches, back teeth collide, cosmic forces must be aligning; gods, are you happy now? Laugh, Creators. Scorn. Don’t try to stop this. Soliloquy. Eloquent word, applied only to characters who think they have no control over their lives. What happens when you really don’t? Do you? Don’t you?

There’s a life growing in the other’s belly. Small, curled, microscopic, is it even really there? There’s a grip on her forearm, tight, there, like it should be. But it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t. Get off. Shoo fly, don’t bother me. Get along, little doggie. Fuck. Off.

Scream.

It always comes out as a whisper instead.

“Saa…Ikite ii no?” Well… May I live?

Rips through her stomach, pain, pain, what was the magic word? Chinese acrobat contorts her face; scrunch of not going to cry, not going to, make it go away, sunshine, where are you? Maybe I’ll master this art form someday.

“…What?”

Are you always going to run? Run, run, fast as you can. Can’t catch me, I’m the… But you don’t care. Wrench free from these chains; look, you’re a million little pieces. Can you pull yourself together again? She’s running eighty miles per hour in the same spot. Tickle irritates the throat, burn, burn, rough, sandpaper, you can’t make me talk. Shine the spotlight; all eyes on me.

“Tell me I don’t deserve to live.”

“That’s enough.”

“Tell me.” [Nee oshiete.]

“You never know when to stop, do you?”

“Both of you, I mean it.”

“You know you want to.”

Same blood; didn’t think she could get this angry, look what you’ve done, give me those eyes, maybe a tribe of natives will consume them. My people pluck out and eat eyeballs. Take a step back; check the damage; rise and fall of civilization; watch the city burn.

Stand up for myself. No one else will.

Donnie Darko told Chinese Accent with her books pulled tight against her chest, concealed, concealed, he gave her words that sent her fleeing. “I promise that one day everything’s going to be better for you.” Third Eye Blind, life in lyrics, see me spin against the five bar cages? “I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend.” Stephen Jenkins sings on.

Reality zap. Cue the sound effects.

They stare each other down, identical eyes, tracts of tears, tilted eyebrows that cut into the nonexistent folds above eyelids. It’s vampire energy, sucking their souls, mind and body are two different things entirely. Which will you keep?

It’s a contest. Look away first, Sister. But which one, which one? Annie’s the one with knives, forks, spatulas, chopsticks to pick out human goggles at her disposal. All Little One’s got is a Big Brother at her arm, helpless and baring teeth. The sound of the voice of reason coming through the front door, arms heavy with double-bagged groceries and don’t rush all at once words that are meant to joke. Ha ha. Joke’s on you.

“Anyone home?”

Not anymore. A house is most definitely not a home.

“Hello?”

That’s your cue, girls. Take it away.

“Give me that paper.”

“Fuck, no!”

“It’s mine.”

“I knew it.”

“Fuck you. Give it to me.”

One word, and then it’s fleeing fingers. “Dyke.” The gas burner consumes it. Watch the orange, red, black too fast swallow it whole; it’s gone.

She doesn’t care. Not about the paper. It was never about the paper. But even she can feel the way the word crash lands through her ribcage, sputtering engine not able to stop before it’s bursting through her heart, tail jutting through her aorta, vessels erupting geyser sprays. Tries to pretend she can’t feel the slow murder. Shake it off, baby.

Her hand Superman bullets its way across her cheek, a swipe that stings, flesh on flesh, hope it leaves a mark. And again. Elliot can’t believe Youngest Sister just slapped the one with all the weapons. Twice. She’s crying so hard she can’t even talk. Shane’s found them. His eyes have never been so wide.

“You stupid, stupid whore,” Chisachi’s suddenly screaming. Gums exposed when she has to breathe quickly in, trying not to sob.

Big Brother tries to be responsible. “Hey! Hey, hey, hey, that’s not fair, and you know it—”

“Fair?! You want to talk to me about fair?! What the fuck is fair about wanting me to be someone I’m not? And it’s not even about that phone number or anything else you want to yell at me about later. Try me lying to mom and dad through my teeth about whether or not you’re still a virgin, Annie, or if Elliot was the one who forgot to feed the fish.” Sees the belly up whiteness in her head, so vivid, get out, get out. “All I am is Annie’s and Elliot’s and Shane’s little sister — I have a name. What happened to it?” No more shadows, she’s thinking, screaming, screaming, LOUD. No more. “Weird. Mute. They tell me to go to hell, to call this number for a good time, katakana on the bathroom walls. Eyes that slant and yellow skin and far from perfect English. Like I’m some kind of mutant. Mutant Baby, Kama Sutric, maybe Asian Child, flat chest, shy voice, will put out. She wants to fit in. Hey, Jamie, ask her out. Go on. Will you go out with me? OK. I hate you.”

She can’t stop. Won’t stop not now, with all these ugly, ugly words spilling from her mouth, like blood after getting teeth knocked out, uprooted and sent flying. Tooth Fairy, leave me a dollar. “I just wanted to go back with them this summer. I don’t want to die. I just want to go back. We don’t belong here. I want to go back to Ryo and Nao and where I have friends and not boyfriends or girlfriends or wet paper in my hair. What do you know about any of it? You go to college and master English and cook for blue eyes and blonde hair and film their busy lives. I can’t breathe here. Japan is closeness and formality and routine and everything. No visits allowed, and cold beaches that are too clean and ugly, stupid English words that have no rhythm.” Breathe — breathe? Don’t waste your breath. “You don’t ever talk to me about fair.”

Selfish. Bask in it. One moment granted, only Me. So, so selfish. Aunty would be ashamed.

Pandora should have never opened that box. Think how perfect the world would be. Urashima Taro died alone.

09. light up the skies

He hates the sound of violins. High and whiny, grating at eardrums and brain stems, singing the melody to overpower the lower strings. Maybe hate is too strong a word.

Rob is humming along to “The Idylls of Pegasus,” coming loud over the speakers, doing its best to block out the festivities outside. They don’t mind staying in. At least Pegasus has a cello solo, following through with heavy staccato notes to depict the horse’s capture, deep vibratto stretches into his first flight. It helps.

The Little Neighbor had stumbled to his front porch, curled up near the deck chairs and waited until he and Niece had gotten home from their Thursday go-to-work days. There’d been a fight, she’d said. Please don’t send me home.

How could he say no? (He wouldn’t have anyway. Never, never, never.)

Now she’s holding herself together so well, it’s hard to see the cracks in the pulling in the pieces pottery. Natalia winces with every shrieking whistle Roman candle, burst of light showers overhead further down the shore where the fireworks show is taking place. He wonders why Youngest Shirokata isn’t with the rest of her clan, knows better than to question it. It must have been a bad fight. She’s clinging to Niece as tightly as Niece clings to her. He knows they must need each other, goes back to waiting for the microwave to ding the mac and cheese bowl completion.

He’d called Rob over. Neighbor had hugged Niece, gathering up North and girl in her own tiny arms, her face pale and drawn, Snow White sleep emotionless, eyes blowfish puffy, tinged red, red, red. No questions asked; come in, come in. Rob knew how to deal with kids. Maybe. He was older. (Well, no, that wasn’t the real issue. Eyes knows he can’t deal with this alone. Rob it is.)

The track changes. “Adiemus” starts out a vocalization whisper, grows oak tree strong, goliath, gigantic. Little Puffy Eyes only in breath sings the foreign words into Keep the Flames Away’s neck, keeping the panic attack at bay, always lingering, just there. I’m here, I’m Batman and Superman and Aquaman and every man that I can’t be. It’s just a hero complex. You’re safe, I promise.

She’s quivering and fighting sleep from the Xanax Uncle had given her three minutes ago, when the show had started — two hours early, too much of a surprise.

week one total

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 08:23:09 GMT

WORD COUNT: 10, 022

00. the flames

Arson. They tell him his brother did it. That’s why the baby girl’s waiting for a familiar face in ICU, a thin needle stuck deep in the back of her hand and her unable to pry it off because of the tape, why the wife might as well be a snapshot of those Pompeii statues reaching out for something that isn’t there. She’s dead. Arson, they say. No. Murder.

“How much pain is she in?”

“Well, Mr…”

“Paolini. Isaiah. I’m Chris’s younger brother.”

“Mr. Paolini.” He pretends he doesn’t see the flinch in the doctor’s eyes at the mention of Chris. Chris Paolini. The crazy bastard who set fire to his own house. No, because doctors aren’t supposed to be anything but objective, especially this man, with his white-blonde hair and elongated earlobes. He really tries to look kind from behind eyes burdened with dark bags and the shielded walls that tend to block out the horrors of the ER from grief-stricken strangers. But the name “Chris” seems to strike a chord in him, like an inward collapse of his ribcage, but only momentarily winding him before he can continue.

“Natalia suffers from third-degree burns; it’s over most of her back, part of her neck. But no, she will not feel any pain — at least not yet. Third degree burns destroy nerve endings in the skin cells, but once the skin starts to grow back, I’m afraid she’ll really be feeling it then.”

The young man lowers his eyes unconsciously, seeking solace in the numbing changelessness of the tiled floor. He’s only a college sophomore. He tells himself to accept it all, age be damned. After all, it was his brother who couldn’t take it, his sister-in-law he’d had to identify at the morgue, his niece he needs to keep from flying out into a million pieces for.

So he pulls his entire being into himself, invisible threads of thin courage holding himself together. “Okay. Thank you. May I see her now?” And even he notices the sudden monotony of his voice, lest he allow the emotions to overtake his voice box, strangle his esophagus.

“Of course. She’s stabilized and we have her on painkillers to keep her still for a little longer. We won’t be moving her until we can get her bandaged, though, and that certainly won’t be tonight.”

“Yes. Okay. Thank you.” The hollow man inside him speaks again, and he makes an Arabian nights plea to vanquish it from within his weak-limbed shell. The genie in his mind just makes him keep walking forward though.

“Right in here.”

One step. Then the next. No stopping now.

“Thank you.” Hollow. Hollow. Dead.

She’s been placed on her side, her pillows taken away and a scratchy on-loan hospital gown open in the back, strings snipped off tidily, sticking out from the gown seams like ripped bits of mint chewing gum. The collar has been stretched to arc across her shoulders, dipping down to reveal her collarbone. Poor girl.

Gaping wounds of blistered skin, raw red and all-consming, form wide mouths that scream till tonsils rattle and throats ache enough to cough up blood. Her hair’s been cut, short and boyish; can’t risk it being trapped in the holes burned into her back. Somehow the new hairstyle makes her look even smaller than she really is, her nape smooth shaven before giving way to skin that’s been twisted, drying hard after dripping epidermis melted like candle wax. Now she lies completely still; she might as well be flying with her mommy.

“Hey darlin’,” he whispers, surprised himself at the return of himself, that he’s managed this much as he makes his way around the bed, seating himself in a plastic prison parallel to her jail cell bed railings. He doesn’t think he should be in any sort of panic, or be shocked that she’s awake. “Remember me? Your Uncle Eyes?”

Isaiah, he’d tried to teach her, when she was just starting to talk, a mess of nonsensical babbling and bubbles made from pursing together her lips and gathering the saliva. She’d only managed Eyes, followed by a giggled shriek, and let him change her diaper with a complacent and brief meeting of gazes. He decided he liked Eyes better anyway.

Even now, though, she still won’t meet his gaze, and he’s not sure he wants to make her understand and is grateful for her act of wanting to not care. She’s only nine years old and her eyes are already blank; the scars within will soon manifest themselves as the external ones that will come with the patches of skin yet to grow over the open expanses that stain the air acrid with charred flesh. Fragile child.

The young man wonders if third degree burns can ever be explained to those blessed with autism. He knows she has to know what happened to her, knows that she can feel the way the drugs affect her, how the air that hits her back feels like it shouldn’t. But knowing and understanding are two very different things. He holds her little hand in his, feeling its limpness, grateful for its owner’s lack of objection. They stay like that a long while, the air conditioner on full blast, humming and huffing its perpetual breeze in the background.

And he feels an ache that sears, branding his heart from all sides, when she squeezes her eyes shut and clamps her fingers tightly between his own, a network of pale knuckles and crescent-shaped indents. There comes a pain that burns bright, leaping from a dull pain in his chest, to a throb in his throat, and finally a pounding, steady beat between his eyebrows. Though they stain her pillowcase, dribbling horizontally across her face, sweeping trails that fiercely crisscross across the bridge of her nose, this despairing wildfire, burning the hope that lies in its path, is the one thing her tears cannot put out.

Six years later...
01. coral lane

Castration is a common threat.

“0730, Saturday, June 29. We’re heading to the coast off the interstate exit, big happy family that we are and all —”

“Elliot, if you don’t turn that thing off and let me go to sleep now, I’m going to castrate you with it.”

“Exhibit A. This is my lovely, adoring, prone-to-PMS sibling, Annie Akemi Shirokata. She hates this camera. Actually, she hates me. The bad thing is, she wants to be a chef — and she‘s actually attending a university that‘s willing to let her attain this crazy, homicidal dream requiring the actual use of sharp utensils, like knives. These, by the way, are implements which can render my nether regions rather useless and bloody. I could die.”

“Ryosuke Elliot Shirokata, I am so serious.”

“…Annnd over and out.”

The boy, eighteen and comfortable in his skin, with the clunky, gray New Balance shoes and a Batman wristband, kills the power button on his Sony HDR-HC1 camcorder. Wayward hair gets his In way when he looks down to rebuckle his seatbelt, causing him to jerk his head up irritably, forcing the source from off his forehead. The kid is anything but remorseful as he lays his camera to rest on the seat beside him. That is, if the grin on his face is anything to go by.

Annie scowls from the back row of the van; her purse, the one with the front pocket that’s missing a rhinestone, slides over the top of the cooler on every turn the vehicle takes. Loudly, she declares, “You’re an ass,” and sets the air in the van a little thinner, crackling with spider webbings of ice and chill. Elliot sobers at the graphic mental image that comes to mind, involving duct tape, Annie’s set of knives and tourniquets galore.

From the driver’s seat, Shane tosses a glare that causes lips to purse and tongues to practically bleed when bitten between his younger siblings, caught for that single moment in the rearview mirror. Chisachi, in the passenger seat, the youngest of them all, leans forward, grasps the stereo knob between two fingers, caught at the top bend of each digit, and tilts up the volume. Cream’s “White Room” drowns all else out.

They pull up to a driveway with a chain link fence, thin, strong spikes that dig in to form a perimeter encasing a rock garden. A tiny statue sits in the midst of it, amongst some low-growing green shrubbery. The tiny man wears a triangle hat stretched oblong over his head, long face shrouded in a beard that tickles his stomach, eyes two thin slanted lines to form slits of irises dyed black. He holds a pole in his arthritic hands, where tiny tufts of hair poke up from the back of each digit. The line drops directly into the rocks surrounding him, and further beneath, disappearing below the surface to entice aquatic creatures unseen.

Concealed delight touches the faces of the siblings as they exit the van, knees popping after being bent for so long, muscles stretching as splayed fingers reach for the sky filled with early morning light. The waves are audible from just beyond the house with the stucco shingles and peeling green tea paint fashioned with white trimming.

“Ladies and gentlemen, 311 Coral Lane.” Elliot flips open the camcorder’s side screen, shoes shuffling the white rocks on the road when he takes a step back to catch a steady-handed, wide shot. “Okay,” he announces loudly. “Character introductions, sans Annie Monster who got hers en route.”

“Thank God.”

Shane, grateful to focus on anything but the road any longer, stops the argument before it can begin. It’s always more shrieking than normal sibling banter, which he supposes he could tolerate but knows that anything considered “normal” happening between those two won’t be happening any time in this lifetime. He smiles cheerily into the camera, regardless, thinking of Dorris Day kicking a silver tray into the air, full lavender skirt suspended in air with her quick, glowing leg, liking the way Elliot laughs and gives him his close-up.

The narration begins. “Resident madman extraordinaire, Shane Shinji Shirokata — the Triple S himself. Full-time journalist and this summer’s legal guardian. He can’t act for shit and still the camera loves him.” Zoom out. “Next?”

The girl with the choppy black hair covered by the dark Nike cap slanted backward on her head salutes the cameraman resignedly as he wheels the viewfinder towards her. Elliot beams. “Ah, sou da ne? Kore wa Chisachi Chan, my lovely sister, whom I love to film and who would never dream of castrating the big brother who buys her sweets and custard bread.”

“Oh, undeniably, Oniichan, sir.”

“See? Good to know. And now,” he pauses to pull back the shot once again to capture the house with his siblings scattered around in front of its chipped expanse, canon Stephen King TV miniseries plotline kind of shot. “Now, we venture in, brave comrades.” A quick cut to Annie, all apple red nail polish and sweat-beaded forehead. “Forward, ho!”

“Go drown yourself.”

“What? It’s an expression.”

Duffels and bags are unloaded, passing from hand to hand, only to be thrown on the porch deck with its scattered monkey pod tree waste and loose grains of sand. They’re soon kicked into the front hall of the tipsy beach house, though, the smell of dust and stale sea water assaulting them as the front door is thrown open with a loud and welcoming creak of the hinges. It clearly hasn’t been rented in years. The statue of the tiny old fisherman in the front seems to smile at the sight of the house’s new occupants as they shuffle back and forth between the van and the front door, his slanted eyes eager with the prospect of something more to watch than endless horizons of rock and dirt stretched out before him.

Chisachi heaves the last bag onto the porch deck, fish gasping in her tireless effort, Annie and Shane coming up behind her, looking like Roman slaves with one hand each laced through the handles of the cooler. “Okay. That’s it. Room claims?”

Thump, goes the blue-white cooler as it comes to rest on the ground. “I call loft,” Shane states quickly, authoritatively.

“Closest to the bathroom.” An obvious chime from Annie, already making her way in, arms heavy with her summer luggage.

“Farthest from Annie,” crows Elliot merrily, a Peter Pan in his own right, ruffling his baby sister’s hair as he makes his way in, as well.

Chisachi rolls her eyes, perfect 360s. “And I get what’s left.”

“Closest to the beach, you mean. It leaves you free from the path of war that’ll form between the front door and Annie’s room anyway.”

“Yay me.”

“Chin up, kid. It’s a hell of a long summer for the both of us.” That said, startlingly blunt as it is, Shane hoists his own bags over his shoulder and ventures into the main room of the tiny house, making for the protractible stairwell with no railing leading up to the loft of an attic.

Chisachi remains at the top of the steps leading up to the porch, gazing from the tarred road driveway, across the sea of stones, to the house directly to the right of theirs, half hidden by a large hibiscus bush and several banana trees with floppy oblong-U leaves. The pale orange flowers draw her attention at first, bright firecracker bursts that end in soft curling petals with zigzag ridges, so hard to ignore. But, once her eyes adjust, she catches glimpses of life between the wide foliage speckled with black ants crawling spiral staircase down the sticky spines of the leaves.

Black button eyes, cut across by frayed strings of dark gray yarn that poke up from the grouping of holes atop it, weigh heavily on a thin red mouth that forms an X-formation of lips on soft, beige material skin; rag doll child. Small hands with rounded cuticles, raw with peeled skin around the edges of the fingertips, clasp the doll to the slight swell of a stomach. Clean and pressed baseball jersey — Seattle Mariners; Ichiro Suzuki, #51 — loose and baggy on her frame; a hand-me-down, maybe? Jeans that are well-worn, frayed at the bottom, dusting the tongues of tightly tied soccer shoes, Adidas black and white. Spiked bottoms penetrate the loose dirt, a raping of the inanimate.

The girl can’t be as old as Chisachi, but perhaps her hair, way too long and ridden with split-ends no doubt, and big eyes that gaze at everything and nothing at once on her own front lawn covered in patches of four-leaf clovers and weeds that bleed milky sap are misgiving to her age, forming an encasement of naiveté around her adolescent frame.

Asian girl is enchanted. It’s a perfect picture, no Ansel Adams caught-in-shades-of-gray framed work that makes heads tilt thoughtfully, or lost in “Starry Night” beauty that makes remembering to breathe quite the task — but perfection and definition were never meant to work very well together in the first place. Small Japanese rests her hands on the railing, paint chipping against her lifeline, splinters poking at the pad of her thumb; Strange Child rocks the doll with no mouth and stares at a message in the sky clear only within the far-off plain brown of her own irises. Say cheese.

“Goddamn fucking sand!”

“You’re just mad because you never learned to swim.”

“No, sand’s just fucking evil!”

“Sweep the floor then, wench.”

The biting words that Annie snarls, curling them with venom before forcing them off her forked tongue, and Elliot’s forever amused lilt of casual, learned American rhythm ricochet off of their sister’s eardrums. The sudden volume and jarring abruptness of it all makes her breath hitch, jerking back from the railing so quickly, away from the trance that ensnared her, that a few slivers of wood manage to break off from the block, trapped within the heel of her hand, a broken fence on a mound gone white with temporary lifelessness.

“SHUT UP AND UNPACK DOWN THERE.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Then Elliot’s gone, rabbit-holing his way back to Scotch-taping Yoda posters and an Ang Lee autograph to his wall, just over his bed; his own movie god shrine.

Annie is indignant, hands planted on her hips, floral print skirt bunching between the openings of her fingers. “Shane—”

And now her brother‘s head protrudes from the hole that works as a door for his attic bedroom, upside down and visible only through the slats in the cherry wood stairs. “I’m twenty-eight, I own your souls for the next three months, I yell what I please.” An upside down glare seems much like a self-righteous bat to the girl nega-raying him right side up.

“Shane—”

“Three months. You must live with sand. This is a beach house. Sand is integral to beaches. So is salt water. And waves. And even the dreaded sunlight, O pale child of Asia. Brave this strange new world.”

“I’ll tell you where you can stick the sunlight and—”

“Broom’s in the closet closest to the shoe rack.”

“That’s all I needed to know. God, fucking journalistic vocabulary.”

“Yeesh. Why is it that when Shakespeare writes a monologue he becomes a flipping psychological genius, and when I launch into sarcasm a la borderline greatness, my entire world is composed and credited to ‘fucking journalism?’” Shane waits to say all this, of course, once Annie’s retreated to her own room, slamming the door and furiously sweeping the accursed grains of sands into a pile in the middle of the floorboards.

Elliot leans against the frame of his own doorway, arms crossed and one sleeve hitched over his shoulder, exposing a single comma-shaped beauty spot. He inclines his head to match the angle of Shane’s. “Attack of the estrogen, man.”

“And yet we can’t force ourselves to be gay.”

“God bless Natalie Portman.”

“Amen.”

Screen door crackles shut, emitting a smoker’s puff of brown dust when the front door lightly taps it fully closed. The boys’ heads have already pulled themselves back and disappeared into their respective rooms, doors closed to acquaint themselves with the isolation that contrasts the carried from the city, an encasement of metal and limbs. Chisachi slips off her Keds, shuffles them near the shoe rack, stocking feet slides past the algae green kitchen tiles, bumping the musty, picked apart sofa coverings. The room closest to the sliding glass door is hers.

White sand blends aqua cans of Sprite and jellyfish plastic bags within its adamantine clutches. The waves smooth over the loose pebbles that roll over packed clusters of shore, tossing sprays that leave dry salt lingering in the air. There’s just the slightest shade of viridian that contours the sea’s rolling depths, washing through the thin slices of water like dish soap cascading the length of a plastic fork — so evident and unharmed.

The color makes the girl smile, an almost dimple curving peach poetically outward from her front teeth, which are spaced just far apart enough to show a thin double-pica gap. She remembers the lesson on primary colors from a glittering, overweight teacher with Audrey Hepburn posture and Marilyn Monroe hair. Mixing two colors, that was magic.

When she’d gone home that particularly educational day, her aunty had received the information patiently, oohing and ahhing appropriately at the outcome of blues and reds and yellows swirled together with chubby fingers. Sent Shane-then-Shinji out to the dollar store for a paint set, spoke in lyrical, clear-cut consonant-vowel alternating cheeriness. They’d laid thick sections of newspaper over the dining room table, got long sheets of calligraphy paper and dipped their hands in the cold paint, dripping punctual dots around the edges of white before staining it fluid with palms pressed down flat.

Her hands of blue, Aunty’s yellow, collided. Aunty took her wrists in each of her cold, rainbow hands and stroke-ordered her way through three, large symbols. CHI. SA. CHI. They’d both giggled their identical fairy laughs, three fingerprints making a vertical ellipse that curved around the left twitch of their lips when they covered their smiles, oh so abashedly. Aunty had passed away that spring. They moved to the States. To this day, whenever she signs her name, she still thinks green.

02. speak

Triple knock, staccato, followed by the door opening, a half note that changes pitch with the air flow midway; the typical Shane entrance. “I’m going on a grocery run for Annie,” he says, fidgeting with the door knob, rusty and partially stuck thanks to the sea air. “Elliot’s crashed out. You want to come with?”

She dusts her hands, stands up straight, tosses the paper towels cloaked in particles the approximate color of tree bark, texture that culminates to drearily showcase years of accumulations, into the Hello Kitty wastebasket at her brother‘s feet. “Okay. What are we getting?” Chisachi slips a tiny black wallet into her back pocket, swipes the back of her hand over the half-globes of sweat the outline her forehead. A glance out the window before she closes her door; it’s almost sunset.

“Anything we want.” Shane smiles a little too largely to mean what he wants it to. His baby sister shakes her head.

“That basically translates to ‘whatever’s on Chef Annie’s list.’”

“Pretty much.” The grin turns sheepish; caught.

“Fiend.” A thoughtful pause. “OK,” the word is said all too decidedly. “But I get to drive.” She stops him just as his lips part, mouth half open, a frog on screen set at pause. “Her list is a foot long, you’ll need your strength to lift all those expensive meats and to scrutinize all those imperfect fresh from the farm produce.”

He has to pause a moment, sweet hesitation before swearing at the top of his lungs in his own mind, digging deep in his jeans pocket for the key ring with the chipped plastic light saber toy key chain. “…Touché.”

A triumphant smirk and then they’re out the door, feet free and easy in newly purchased slippers that are stiff and irritate the crevice between first and second toe, turning the skin there coarse crimson, peeled black cherry. Chisachi bounces into the driver’s seat, adjusts the mirrors, buckle clicks the seatbelt shut, gripping the wheel with ease. “And no backseat driving. I know we haven’t seen you since last November, but, I swear to God, I got rear-ended and didn’t reverse into anything sharp, metallic or large and visible. Elliot lies.”

The vivid and scarring memory of the Corolla’s paint-scraped fender bender pushes at Shane’s eyebrow, causing the familiar high arch of skepticism. Big brother worry creases lines at the broad expanse of his forehead. The engine grinds, turns over, starts. So far, so good.

“Whatever happened to that girl with the weird hair you were seeing? What was her name?” she asks once they’re out on the road, well on their way to the grocery store they’d scouted out on the way down. The ride is smooth, centered, controlled. Shane is vaguely impressed, but feels guilty to admit it to himself. Faith is a hard concept to come by sometimes. He’s a weekly columnist. Faith is damnable when you’ve got a deadline and a copy editor that throws week old coffee at your Engrish-written first drafts, your second day on the job.

“Janet. Her name was Janet.”

Chisachi instinctively slides her front teeth into the soft flesh of her lower lip, stifling mirth captured in a green bottleneck container, so visible but still not allowed the gift of true exposure. She can’t help it. “Cue the Rocky Horror soundtrack, please. Third CD from the right on the back of your sun visor.”

He rolls his eyes but complies anyway, slipping the flattened donut sphere into the player, letting it whir and thrum before exaggerated voices chant and cheer over the speakers like a football game crowd-pleaser. “She dumped me.”

“Pond scum prostitute. I could throttle her.”

The reverse protectiveness eases his walk on glass mentality on the subject, enough for him to be able to produce a conversation conducive snort. “Isn’t worth your effort. We were on the rocks anyway, half the time. She’s Nazi-femme. I did everything wrong all the time.”

“That pterodactyl-beaked wench.”

“You’ve just got a bag full of these saved up for times like these, don’t you?”

“I try.” She winks languidly at him, ready to steer the conversation away, noticing his obvious shift in subject, the way that he stares hard at the windshield, tightens the muscles around his jaw like the taut strings of an Italian marionette; significantotherless poppet brother.

“Eyes on the road, tiger.” There’s a significant lapse of silence that follows, filled only by “Oh, Brad, I’m mad” proclaiming his love to “Janet, dammit.” Shane regains himself enough to glance at the speedometer, feeling the tug at the corner of his mouth at the steady orange tip that rests snugly at measure 36. “So,” he starts, not recognizing, or maybe just failing to acknowledge, the simple fact of his contentedness in regaining this sort of relaxed, no-strings-attached exchange of words. “How ’bout you and Jamie boy?”

“He’s been gone for a couple months.” She turns easily on to the main drag, weaving hand over hand, entering back in to a more populated civilization, where cement and thick pillars block out the sea breeze, bar the feel of heated sand just beneath the thin soles of island sandals. “Turned out to be a level three butthead. A bit up there with the likes of Ponyboy’s Soc jerk rivals, but not quite at the point where Batman has to come down and techno-whup his sorry mass of sad existence.”

Yes, the far too wordy quips, devoid of newsroom urgency and snap to it seriousness, has not been fully appreciated in far too long. “Ah, that good, huh?”

She pulls into a stall two strides away from the store’s entrance, shifts to park, pulls at the parking break until the crank makes an audible popping-locking sound. “I absolutely hate dating.”

They know they’ve each decided to leave the air running, keep Rocky boasting his latest creation over the speakers a while longer. It’s unspoken, unneeded. “You and Elliot are always in love with love. Drama queen was never one of your accolades I’d been informed of.”

“I’m not selling my soul to the nearest convent, Shane dear. I just hate dating. I want Christmas and Thanksgiving and some ugly apartment with abnormal pipelines and a kitchenette. Not nervousness and cold-sweat/hot-palm first date hand-holding and ‘baby doll, stars in your eyes‘ sweet talking.” Jap Child’s so caught up in tripping over her mind-to-mouth spilled statements, Shane doesn’t have the heart to remind her she’s only seventeen. Somehow he doesn’t think posing the query of an arranged marriage would be all too appealing to her. He can’t even sell the idea to himself.

“Besides, the Jamester got rid of me because he got sick of his baby blue eyes of a twin sister making moony faces at me. And the way I figure it —”

In the midst of the hormonal, defying destiny babble, Shane manages to catch a snatch of a statement that makes his head go Tower of Terror dropping, all the way to the dank pit of his stomach, boiling acid hot with twisted shock.

“—I’d rather have her putting me on a jazz ballad pedestal than him making the clumsy moves on me. XY chromosome regardless, he’d still belong on a pyre. At least she could recognize a smile for what it was. Happy recognition isn‘t always an invitation.”

She turns to gauge his reaction, making it clear that she knows exactly what she’s saying, that it’s not the sting of dropped “going steadiness” or the Humpty Dumpty bandaged mourning period that followed translating the stream of words that crystal clear their way past her chapped lips. “We hanging off the same page?”

Their identically inherited eyes search each other out, seeking two very separate similar things between pupil and cornea, locking territory between nose bridge and parallel inverted beauty marks, the sign of blessed dignity. Honorable offspring.

The creases around his eyes, gentle, worried, settle themselves. He answers, “AP style steady.”

“Punctuation permanent,” she shoots back; gaze does not waver, she’s stronger than that. “I’m a regular semi-colon, aren’t I?” sweet Asian asks, heat flaring up from her neck, tempest throwing itself at her cheekbones until there’s a lightning crackle flush strewn crookedly over her dictionary-defined glabella.

Tired writer man gets stone cold sober comprehensive. Semi-colon, the byproduct of a comma and period meshed together, one atop the other, balanced and unable to overbear either of its attributes. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts is a make sense in your head kind of mentality. Comma is a period gone awry, stretched into rebellious smugness. Period is definite and a stronghold. Put them together and you can’t be sure what you’ve got. A life in symbolism; what a wonderful world.

Baby sister grows up in five seconds flat, calm lungs rotating A/C’d oxygen and metal prison with a key trapped inside of it her own Miracle Gro, that much is clear. She kills the engine. Rude, interrupting whoosh of no sound. “I hate labels.”

“You are what you are.” Words spoken slowly, cautiously, police tape crisscrossed and running over his eyebrows, smacking flat against his face the moment they escape.

She‘s still staring him down fantastically, all lioness bravery and dragon sad-eye wisdom. “I fancy myself a superhero.” That smile, that false-true masquerade ball disguise, Cinderella too-late rice paper screen sliding that hides too little, too late. But by then she’s already out of the car, glass slipper rescued, no evidence left behind to piece the bigger, too much for Sherlock Holmes mystery together with.

He’s too old to let it end like that, doesn’t think he can stand another eight months without pterodactyl-beak insults and Tokyo state of mind, Queen Sarcasma wit. Secure arm, heavy arm, that wraps around her shoulders, elbow bent in its obviousness against small shoulders that jut out; child of angles. Say it like you mean it.

“I fancy you my semi-colon.” He does; honest samurai man, dedication katana swift, true. “Here. We’re looking for coffee grounds first. None of that Yuban crap Dad loves.”

And her answer of “Blue Hawaiian,” caffeine happy and flesh and blood wired, is fairy tale ending relieved enough to bring three big brother staccato taps against her shoulder, swift digit raps; text-wrapped semi-colon reassurance.

03. where there’s smoke

Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips” fills the room, verses going by in her wide, far-off eyes, like fogged up mirrors. Soft, halting voice, like an old record in a worn vinyl case taking its last spin around, needle-scratched, careworn. Elderly, square-hipped Helen Horcrest does not think she has ever heard the girl say quite so many words ever. Enchantment, she thinks, pure enchantment.

“She’s a high-functioning autistic,” he’d explained to her. Her job interview several years ago, his calm-shielded desperation, her response to a request for a part-time tutor. “Before the…accident, she was almost normal. Now she’s the same, but without sound; it’s like she’s gone 1920’s black and white on me.” He remembers when she was the Technicolor wonder of his uneventful life.

Helen’s used to the no eye contact policy little girl has set up, the constant presence of Tim Burton-like Sally-stitched-up little North, the repetition, the order of things. But the voice — the sound — is something new altogether. Silent sessions long forgotten; Plath-filled days of recitation flutter her anticipatory heart. Sweet, dreamy woman.

She seems to like the way the letters-forming-words fit against the roof of her mouth, the hollow of her cheek, and she starts right over again: “The tulips are too excitable.” A tiny pause; find the words. “It is winter here.”

Teacher had left her folder of printout here yesterday. Bell Jar Society, a poetry club, had never seen their president quite so Jadis-wannabe to any one member ever before. But Little Natalia reads and memorizes, converts favorites to memory. She won’t let you wrap your arms round her; no good girl hugs allowed. She’ll turn away from forehead kiss fondness, but books she’ll grant permission to possess her tongue, place her head against the seams of the China feet bound spines, pages nestling her sleep-heavy head until the text can alight dry-lipped pecks at her cheek.

“I am learning peacefulness.”

Helen the Retired decides she likes the little, stumbling voice very much. Six years, she thinks, produces one poem. And how appropriate a poem it is. Isaiah will be so pleased with this niece of his. Helen wonders if they’ll dance together like she’s seen once before; Mute Baby is his world.

Swift breath like a sudden stop light screech and Teacher wishes they’d gone up to the loft to study instead. A barefoot thump-pad scamper to the glass door, full body plaster, soft gasp that butterfly wing scatters the silence. Curved wine glass figure of a girl, lighter fluid — it isn’t good. Teacher makes for the phone.

The words stop. Puzzled eyes, panicked upward eyebrow scrunch, small ‘O’ ring of lips — the numbers have already started. 1 2 3 5 8 13...burning wood…21 34 55 89 144...thick clouds…233 — no air — 377 — 610 — 987... Fibonacci, save her soul. I have nothing to do with explosions. Plath killed herself. Asphyxia. Coal gas from the oven. 1597. 2584. White. Red. Black. 4181...

“Isaiah, get home now. Your new neighbors have decided to have a barbecue.”

Scars that flicker phantom pain scream at the touch of cotton material to skin, open wounds that have returned. Pores drip water, there’s not enough air here. She breathes from her shoulders, not her stomach; quick, audible gasping, never enough to sustain, thin air, elusive life. 6765, 10946... I didn’t want any flowers.

“She’s going into a panic attack — hurry.”

The tulips are too red in the first place.

“Natalia, sweetie, breathe. Deep breaths.”

They hurt me.

“Breathe. C’mon, honey, I need you to breathe.”

Helen tries to greet Isaiah at the door, wants him to be calm enough to quell the trembling of his niece, but he won’t stand for it, pushing in, dropping his jacket on the floor. He’d been at the marina on the other side of the coast; he smells like boat oil and fish guts. Natalia’s moved to the floor sometime in the seven minutes it’s taken him to pedal to the metal his way home, and North’s sprawled on her stomach next to her, forgotten. Knees are drawn tightly to her chest, eyes squeezed shut, and her shoulders are rise and fall shrugging with her stifled breathing; panic attack. At least Teacher had her head enough together to turn on all the fans, shut the windows, close the doors, draw the curtains; no smoke, nothing bright. There’s no fire here, Natalia, fire’s out. But that’s just something she can’t believe; tunnel vision dilemmas reside here.

He pulls her into his chest, wildfire possessed child needs to hear their matching palpitations, reality’s snare drum snaps echoing gunshots across the lengths of stadiums and fields. She crumbles at the sudden warmth, tries to escape the heat, scrambles around on the floorboards, doesn’t even see North doll longing for its mother. He hears her mumble a line, broken and multi-toned: warm and salt, like the sea. She’s crying. A questioning look to Helen Horcrest.

“I left my Plath printouts here yesterday.” Explanation enough.

He makes another grab for her, pulls her back to his torso, holds her there tight. She flails in a wild child struggle; only she can see the swirling flames, choke on storm cloud black tendrils that are not really there, feel the hot air pressing down on her, lower, lower to the ground. Large hand, strong hand pushes in on her stomach, a silent command to breathe deep, deep and long. You need the air, darlin’, he thought speaks to her, hears her sob in final audible response, gasp of breath: there you go. “Atta girl, ‘Lia. It’s okay. I’m here.”

And then the wails are uncontrollable, the inability to grasp it all at once; where’d the fire go? Safe, safe, wasn’t always safe. Smell of salty scales, taste of warm salt, the good sea, fire’s out, fire’s out.

Isaiah hugs the woman child until she’s silent movie quiet again, limp in his grasp, unresponsive once more. Her belly rises and falls, steady as the once Roman Empire, and he uses the whorls of his thumb and forefinger to erase the tear tracts from off her skin, destroying the evidence. Helen Horcrest is shocked pale and still throughout the entire ordeal. She watches the forever adoration etched so plainly on his face, the non-biological paternity take solace in her little hand wrapped in his. She wonders if the equally maternal gratitude is open book, heart on sleeve visible in her relief.

He leads silent Natalia back to her spot on the ground, watches her scoop up once forgotten North, slowly make her way up the loft, fingers tight on the railing, until she’s safe in her room. They both notice the way the tremble lingers, the way keeping a breathing pattern on beat takes effort that fists her fingers and flushes pink against her temples. Then it’s a single bed creak that lets them know she’s to drift off, far away to a place even they won‘t be able to reach her in.

Uncle Eyes curves his neck, chin resting on collarbone, pulling the muscles taut, reaching up to recklessly massage them until they’re good and sore. He feels the telltale signs of a migraine coming on, like Tolkien goblins drumming from the deep. Pinches the bridge of his nose, thanks Helen for calling him, thinking so quickly, and all she can do is shake her head quickly, stand up, want to flee. It’s happened before, sure. It just never gets any easier to handle. Another’s fear is never yours to conquer.

Deep sigh. “Helen, I don’t mean to keep you any longer than I have to, but do you think you could stay with Natalia while I go talk to the neighbors?”

Shaky breath. “Of course, of course —I don‘t mind at— of course.”

There’s twilight patches, globular and mutant growing, up in the sky, pushing down at the die every day sun, whose rays slash the sky, making it bleed; vengeful sun, victorious night sky. Exit down the back path, through the gate and its unnecessity, stomp a size 11 shoe impression through dry, day-warmed sand, kick grains at the smoke that flings itself upward, gets caught in a rush hour of wind. Isaiah cannot rationally recall ever being quite this infuriated at something so inanimate. It’s been so long since the last attack. Damn you, fire, for with you comes black clouds, horrid stench, mortal memories.

Yeah, you heard right: Fuck you, fire.

“Excuse me.”

Through the glass door there’s a boy with flyaway hair air guitar hopping his way back and forth, stereo just barely audible from outside, but the familiar riffs of “Eye of the Tiger” don’t escape the sensory enhancement that pulses with the increasing pain behind his eyes. Isaiah lets himself in the back gate, simple latch, standard creak. Too tired, too stressed to care about not being invited; it’s his niece, his problem anyway.

“Excuse me.”

She’s got a gypsy stance, feet shoulder-width apart, slipping from one ball of the foot to the other, heel down and up stationary waltzing. Not a formidable opponent in height or weight, though that knife to the side of her is not reassuring. Somehow he knows she’s got a temper on her by the impatient little “tsks” she makes, a flighty retraction of tongue against the back of her teeth, by her curt, stubborn movements. Somehow it only makes him all the more unforgiving.

“Excuse me.”

Third time’s the charm. A heavy snap of “What?” Same tone, same frustration, but frictional magnet, polar ice cap, north and south difference in reason. Now they’re both pissed.

“I live in 309 with my niece and she’s pyrophobic and autistic. The other neighbors already know, but, see, smoke or fire or anything therein related trigger panic attacks in her. I know you’re new, but just in reference, maybe if you could give us advance warning if you’re going to be barbecuing outside—”

“Buddy, I don’t know who the hell you are.”

“Isaiah Paolini. From 309.” There’s an edge to his voice, his jaw set a little higher than should be, the tips of his teeth set tightly aligned, the slightest narrowing twitch at the far corner of his right eye.

“Whatever, look, we just got here. I hate the beach. And I know for sure as hell you aren’t trying to tell me that now I can’t cook.”

That’s it, Isaiah thinks, she’s deaf and dumb and a complete Brother‘s Grimm creation of an antagonist, a waste of perfectly good mass and God‘s imagination. Of course, Sir Eyes doesn’t manage to think all of this in quite so many words. Basically it comes out in the form of a single thought spoken word: Bitch.

He’s about to launch into an absolute, full-on, head pain induced rant, feels it’s boiling water turning to steam presence rising through his lungs, mixing with the sting of tears the smoke draws out, tweezers like, from just beneath the rims of his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, we’ll be sure to warn you next time. I promise.”

But Mary, Jesus and Joseph are still rooting for his entrance to Heaven when it comes down to it; there’s a saintly savior in the form of a tired girl with yesterday legs and old movie appeal coming down the back steps, throwing resent-embedded glances at the femme fatale hovering over the grill, spearing pieces of thick off-white slabs. Eye of the Tiger Boy is coming out now too, the house suddenly blessedly silent, followed by a shirtless man in sleepy eyes and tousled hair.

“Is she okay? Are you okay? Are you both okay, I mean?” They’re a tired, ragged bunch, all Asian eyed and sharing the same set of full lower lips and tip of eye crinkles and expressive eyebrows. Throwback Movie Girls seems to be the youngest of them all, but is the first to respond, to understand. And he is grateful for the sympathy, the concern, receiving it greatly to replenish his near empty supply.

“Yes, we’re fine, thank you. Natalia, my niece, just got over a panic attack. Normally we close the windows to block the smoke and she’s fine, but I wasn’t home this time and her tutor was with her.” He throws a sidelong glance back towards 309, hears Helen calling Natalia’s name, Frank Sinatra’s “Fly me to the Moon” pulsating the walls of the house, released like an overturn bucket trickle down from the loft. His face draws together in worry, exasperation.

Little Asian doesn’t miss a thing. “You should probably be getting back.”

Sans Shirt Asian nods his head. “We’re so sorry to have bothered you. In fact, we’d love to have you over for dinner tonight to make up for it.”

He’s overwhelmed by the invitation, the kindness in their eyes, the way one glance from Rock N Roll Hop Sing in the form of shooting dagger pupils silences Chef Bitch’s swift head turn of a protest. The blush that rises to the surface of his normally thick-skinned approach to everything material and carbon-based means he’s sorry for the way he came off, and, oh, is that migraine catching up to him now. “Oh, no, that’s all right. I don’t mean to intrude on anything, it’s just I was called away from work and — I didn’t mean to get carried away like that. Just—”

“Please, come to dinner. Consider your presence a housewarming gift. Besides, we’re here for the next three months, the earlier we get to know each other, the better, right?” Little Asian looks so sincere, though her eyes are rimmed with rings that show that her exhaustion’s felt just as hard as the need rest desperation Sans Shirtless Asian exhibits, oldest of them all, it’d appear.

Hesitation, mouth open but so hard to form words moment of awkwardness, and then finally it’s a resigned nod, agreement tinged with guilt. “Yes, okay. Thank you. We’ll come.”

“Seven’s okay?”

“Seven’s fine.”

“Okay. See you then.”

Asian Clan watches the rounded shouldered, overworked Italian hurry back to 309 Coral Lane, jumping into the door that releases smooth, lean into the microphone words, that cut through the smoke, extinguish the monotony of their lives, slipping unnoticed into harried summer change.

04. a dinner party

“Let me get this straight: you study fish for a living?”

“Yes, I’m afraid that’s the exciting gist of it.”

“Dude. You get paid for this?”

“…That’s the general idea.”

The dawning of the wonders of ichthyology settle over the boy, Elliot, like Cloud Nine. Isaiah laughs out loud at the mixture of awe and perplexed disgust on the boy’s face, amused and put at ease at the relaxing settlement of the turn of conversation.

They’d arrived at seven sharp. Well, it’s hard to be late when you live barely twenty paces away anyway. Natalia had fallen asleep to Frank Sinatra on full blast, Helen had left to tend to her husband’s dinner once her father came to return Spork, Isaiah’s dog (victim to his off-center sense of humor), from their daily, voluntary walk. Shane had shaken his niece awake at six, and baby girl had awoken rejuvenated and slow blinking. He knew she understood when he told her that they’d been invited to dinner next door by the way her lips thinned just slightly, so unused to a change in their dining room dinner routine.

Ramrod tail sauntering in came Spork, though, cloaked in the lingering spicy scent of rosemary from having explored Horcrest’s backyard, and Little Niece had welcomed the distraction, complied when Shane headed downstairs, talking loudly back at her to get ready, throw on some clean clothes. A stolen hand-me-down shirt had been slipped into, another of Isaiah’s old baseball jerseys, a hopeful Boston Red Sox tribute, gone soft and faded from too many washing machine rides, hem hovering at too loose jeans. North had been grabbed, snagged by a rounded hand, left to fly behind on the descent to the first floor, where Isaiah had stood, buttoning up a casual dress shirt, trying to smooth out the creased wrinkles the iron, always hidden away high in his closet, had missed. He’d grinned at the sight of her outfit. “Little Red, tonight, huh? Good choice. Wanna feed Spork for me while I go to the Ocean Room?” She’d nodded, lips pretty in pink curling at the delight of a new nickname, patting her thigh to get the dog’s attention, letting the slim, black dog lead the way to the kitchen, tongue wagging a puppy smile.

The Ocean Room is their name for the spare room closest to Natalia’s staircase, Uncle Eyes’ study, where within lay a wall-to-wall saltwater aquarium, its only company a desk, chair and tiny sofa. The tank’s light cast the walls a moving cerulean, yellow tangs capsize mounds of sand, brushing past the shy gobi making a habitat of a career hiding in the corner. Isaiah had heard the kibbles meeting the metal bottom of Spork’s bowl from the kitchen, Natalia’s quiet, deliberate footsteps before she’s at the doorway, observing the tank like she always does, like an out in the open Narnia, the jarred door glimpse into another world.

The Shirokatas — that was their name — had let them in, apologizing and introducing themselves simultaneously. There was Gentle Asian, the youngest, Chisachi, the only one to keep her Japanese given name, and talkative Rock N Roll, Elliot, still in high school, thrusting a camera into Isaiah’s face, making Natalia shy. Shane with the easy smile, a journalist, keeping his siblings in check, resting an elbow on the then introduced Annie’s shoulder, a restraint and reminder to the cold girl who crosses her arms, annoyed at the extra place settings, the extra work. Shy Girl buried her face into her hands, North wide-eyed and cradled at the crook of her elbow, half bent over with arms outstretched.

Now Shane’s sitting at on end of the sofa with the ugly orange afghan thrown over the armrest, Elliot’s on the floor, leaning against the tilted coffee table, pushing up on his elbows to keep conversation with the fish man animated. Annie’s in the kitchen, putting together the plates, banging around the drawers and tossing silverware onto the counters so that they clang like hunchback bell tolls. Isaiah finds himself at ease with the odd blood-clinched group and their idiosyncrasies.

“So. But. You still eat fish, right?”

The crazy kid’s got that camcorder of his back in his neighbor’s face again, leaning across the table to get a glimpse at every pore he can. He laughs and pushes back against the lens; little brother he never had, annoyance he was deprived of, that he probably could have provided to his own sibling but never chose to. “Yes, yes, I do, calm down, boy.”

“Feel free to shove the camera lens up his ass every so often.” Shane takes a swig of orange juice from a Charlie Brown coffee mug, the bitter pulpy kind, good enough to wake up him from his afternoon collapse into the dusty mattress.

Elliot makes a face at him, putting his big brother at the mercy of the little silver screen, flipping him the bird from safely behind the lens. “I’m all chuckles, bro.”

“Is this a liberty that gets taken into actual account more often than you’re letting on?”
He’s not sure he really wants to know the answer to that. Poor kid, he thinks. Middle child syndrome.

A whirl around of head and camera, Sony insignia flashing silver from the gaudy and waning fluorescent lights overhead, doctor‘s office sky. “Don’t tell me you’re taking their side, new dude.”

Hands up, palms out, don‘t shoot, officer. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Chisachi sits at the far end of the room, where she can look into the gap of the kitchen, watch Annie work, calm and concentrating on the enjoyable for once, brow smoothed and movements sky writer fluid. The neighbor’s niece, the one with the fire fright and outer space eyes, sits next to her, head bent enough for a weeping willow sweep of hair to hide her face like that horror movie well crawler. But she’s too sweet for that, Little Asian can tell by the way she traces her doll’s face, lovingly conceals the tiny body from harm’s invisible and enticing tendrils, the unfamiliar.

They’re planted right next to the stereo, the one Elliot had spent the good part of the afternoon networking to perfection, his one lifeline, the reason he’d spent the hour following it’s mechanical completion dancing queen making a fool of himself around the main room. He always did fancy himself something of a Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Jon Bon Jovi, George Harrison idiot savant, promising to mix and blend their sounds into his first produced film, letting their songs tell the story: a life in lyrics. Now, though, the two girls have gentle music on, night palm tree swaying tunes that speak of whimsy and superhero ballads and nothing of the utmost importance, but soothing all the same. Baby Slant Eyes is enchanted by the way their bodies both just barely rock a horizontal line, Chinese kanji right to left, to the off-beats of Eric Clapton’s “Classical Gas.”

There’s a good amount of space between their mirror image of crossed legs, feet folded almost Lotus Position taut, but their silence is mutual, respected, and Chisachi doesn’t know what she’d say besides. She sees how Isaiah Paolini sends a glance their way every couple of seconds, between breaths like clockwork, and how grateful he is for this unexpected companionship, this burst of noise from out of the silent woodwork. Silly Big Brother Elliot takes to the newcomers so easily, wonderfully, new subjects to capture on filmstrip, and Too Much in One Day Shane likes another close to age male, a manly companion without a camera or blood ties. Knife Fighter Annie seems neutral enough from afar, an appeased sorceress in her brewing hole, a culinary apothecary, but Chisachi knows better than to judge the only sibling who pulls the blood from her tongue and makes her hold her breath until she’s seeing white spots underwater, just to get away.

“’Sachi, come help me.”

A twitch of the lips, clown paint tugging down before the metallic tongue bite comes; she hates the abbreviation. She gets up anyway, pushing up on the heels of her hand hard enough to leave markings from the floorboard outlines. On her feet, she pauses, lets the room rotate from the sudden vampire circulation that makes her head leave her body, before stopping to consider, slight pivot to look down, spot the top of a dark head, extends a hand in a Disney Aladdin do you trust me? mimic, full of Moulin Rouge we can be heroes promises.

“Care to help a girl set the table, miss?”

The boys laugh at something loudly together, a cacophonous sound, blend of male pitches formed of a mutual wonderment. It is neither raucous nor vulgar, rather like a mad tea party has swept them up, causing them to breach the silence of falling down the rabbit hole, ha-ha-ing away the dark, brothers in arms parading themselves in to conquer Wonderland. Chisachi squats down and angles her head, peeking in at the eyes fixed on something just beneath her still outstretched arm.

Snow White deep sleep whispered words rise to the surface, doe eyes hidden by splayed fingers, cupped hands: “Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.” And it continues, a little faster, tiny pauses, up to becoming a cut-paper shadow between eyes and effacement. It makes Chisachi flick her hair, Cheshire Cat grin. “You’re a Plath fan. Me, too. Although I prefer Whitman and Parker for sick days. O Captain, My Captain and such to salute my fever.” She’s babbling but she doesn’t care, that little voice is an encouragement, pains her cheeks with stretched teeth and lips. “Don’t worry about it, darling, what am I saying anyway, right? You’re my guest. Annie can be quite the cook when she wants to be.”

“Heard that, ‘Sach.”

“Love you too, Anne.”

They both cast simultaneous sidelong glances of irritated, sudden double eyelid eyes, fierce warrior woman sneers. Sisterly love at its best. But only one can brush it off, turning back to her self-proclaimed new friend, triumphantly declaring, “Sit tight, miss.”

Once situated at the table, fitting in Eldest Brother on a plastic stool, Chisachi pulling out the chair from Elliot’s room, where he plans to spend many a night StarCrafting his way till dawn on his laptop, stereotypical and proud geek that he is. Glass bowl of grilled vegetables, platters of fish in a sweet sauce, rice with furikake bits topping it, dry flakes of emerald, Shane sums it up best: “Wow.”

The chef slides into the seat next to Isaiah, not noticing how his shoulder blades pull in towards each other, his elbow locks, his fingers fist over his thighs, completely on the defense. Littlest Sister is left to scrounge for paper plates, scoffing at the indecency of the place settings for so stubbornly extravagant a meal, snatching up the Ziploc of clear plastic utensils, letting them clink as she makes her way back to the table, sidling into her seat so fast it wheels away from the table. She winks at Lady Red Sox as she pushes herself back to the meal, passes out plates and forks, starts the round robin of dishes, Mother Hens them all into taking more than they can possibly eat in one sitting.

But, halfway through the dull clatter of plastic to stiff paper plates, polite introductory conversation that all dining room tables bring to the clashing of two distinct groupings of blood, Studies Fish can’t take it anymore. The side glances and pursed lips, the precise hand movements, the blatant distaste, look over up-down; it’s one narrowed flicker of the eyes too many — he stares Annie Shirokata in the eye with a vehemence that startles him. “Have I done something to offend you?”

Only once they’ve slipped out does he realize just what he’s said, flush blotchy red straight up from the neck, caught in the headlights dilated pupils. The rational part of his mind worships the man that is Shane for forcing Elliot to leave his camera back on the sofa for the actual dinner sit-down. But then is even more grateful when the boy speaks around his mouthful of zucchini and moonfish, statement shrugging with his shoulders, a wave of tone, “Annie hates everyone.”

Her voice is cold, stiff icicle frozen, warning bell ridden. “I do not.” Her neck is straight, stiffened and she sets her fork, pierced through a perfect, equally cooked from all possible angles carrot.

“Do you want me to amend that to ’extremely dislikes’?”

Shane’s voice is tired and fed up when he says, “Elliot,” in a passive warning that doesn’t get through.

“Grow up, Elliot,” Annie demands loudly, leaning forward and over the table, a loose strand of hair catching in the sticky white rice. “I’m your sister, not an ex-girlfriend of yours that you can just keep trying to destroy.”

His eyes flash, like autumn sun catching in the lens of his precious handheld, and he shakes his head in that gone too far that goes without saying. “She dumped me, Anne, and you know it.”

“My best friend’s sister, El; I trusted you.” Built-up animosity, betrayal that grinds hard against the brain stem, sends shivers down vertebrae, rots within the marrow, it all surfaces in that single moment.

“And I trusted you to side with me, Anne. That sure as hell didn’t happen. She was a lying, two-timing slut and you know it.”

“Don’t you dare—”

“ENOUGH.”

“Shane.”

And then it’s a three way explosion of rites and years and one-ups that suffice only in the heat of battle, when grounds are stable only because of the need to come out victorious, leave it all behind. Isaiah’s trying to apologize from the perimeter of the outbursts, and the two young girls are out of there.

“C’mon, miss, you shouldn’t have to witness this,” she’d whispered, taking her by the hand that had moved around melting eggplant and stray seaweed specks. She’d complied readily, ears ringing from the loud, heated voices, worry tying double-shoelace knots out of her intestinal tracts, nearly wringing a scream from her underused esophagus.

They sit outside, far enough from the house to shrink screams into pillow muffled strings of ignored nothings. Loose sand rolls beneath them when they take a seat next to each other, Miss Japan talking soothing nonsense to Ruby Red Sox Baseball Jersey, reciting Lewis Carroll babble verses to the strong pulse of the waves that lap shingle taps against the shore. Then they’re companionable silence wrapped once again, shining in dead moonlight, watching stars shift and blur against the mouse pad blanket of a sky. Chisachi settles herself onto her back, letting the grains of sand caress her scalp, smother hair follicles. She’s not surprised when Natalia follows suit.

“Orion’s Belt,” she says softly, pointing out the row of three perfect stars, securing the hunter’s waist, hanging him in the dangerous Heavens to precariously and forever seek the Seven Sisters, giant beast of celestial clusters sealing him out. “The North Star,” is next to be uttered, a movement of her pointer finger, eyes following its path.

“North.” A soft utterance, strong word; it has meaning.

She turns her head to see the other looking straight back, eyes focused on the beauty spot that borders the lower rim of her eye, like a spherical teardrop, immaculate, almost microscopic, gone astray. Her hands slowly move to hold out her doll, received gently by the other, until they’re sharing the rag doll child, held up to the night sky, a sight to behold. “North,” she repeats.

“North,” she echoes. And then they’re both nodding, two girls nestled in the sands, a million miles away from the horrors of life they’ve decided to protect each other from, two mothers to a child with sewn lips and blank, unseeing eyes.

viva la visuals

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 07:41:24 GMT

So. Instead of meeting my wc goal by 9PM tonight, I was busy looking for some visuals for the three or so people who actually read this. Because, dammit, I am a visual person.

309 Coral Lane
Isaiah Paolini

When I started writing his character, really all I could see was Adam Brody, alias the OC's Seth Cohen, tending to a fish farm. The image kind of stuck.

Natalia Paolini

(I used to have a bigger/better photo of this, but can't seem to find it anymore.) I really like this picture of Alexis Bledel and the way her hair looks, as well as her skin and tight-lipped smile, matched pretty well to the attributes of Natalia.

311 Coral Lane
Shane Shirokata

It's a tie between Yamamoto Taro and Tamaki Hiroshi. (But I'm completely biased because I'm in love with Shogo Kawada of BR.) They both have utilize facial expressions so well, it's uncanny, which Shane tends to do as well. Plus they're both crosses of serious/funny, so, yeah, tie.

Annie Shirokata

Annie's pretty much bitchy most of the time, and she really doesn't mean to be. She just is. Of course, whenever you think Bitch + Japanese, Souma Mitsuko, played by Shibasaki Kou, is a given.

Elliot Shirokata

Pretty boy, I know. But I gave Elliot flyaway hair and a geeky softness. I'm not sure where Ryohei from w-inds popped up as my mental image, but he definitely has the hair down.

Chisachi Shirokata

The lovely Maeda Aki, because both Chisachi and I copy her hair style blatantly. She's very modestly cute and I think she was basically the model for Chisachi in the first place. (In the end, this family is very Battle Royale role model dominated/oriented.)

Misc.
Helen Horcrest

Unconsciously, I formed Helen around Meryl Streep in general. Something about her sometimes harried dignity and that voice of hers. Plus, with advertisements for Prime everywhere and Chelsea squealing "I love Meryl Streep" whenever said actress is mentioned, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Robin Reyes

Rundown: Age 34. Works graveyard/swingshift for the forensics lab downtown, doesn't do field work, runs the DNA lab, submits articles to science journals and considers it fun. Geeky and a little wild to keep himself sane. He has Tuesdays off, which is when he usually sees Isaiah and Natalia down at the State of Mind diner. He's basically Isaiah's only friend outside of work.

Ralph Macchio. Yes. When I started to describe him, his very first appearance in the fifth section, I just couldn't help it. Bryan Cardona came to mind at first, but much older. Same Hispanic-Korean mix of skin and eyes. And that covers all the major Asian mix, doesn't it? I like to think I'm well-rounded. :P

I haven't gotten around to Helen's husband or father (both still nameless), as well as ~~Isaiah's nameless cop friend and~~ Chisachi's soontobe new friend, the mystery high school senior girl, also nameless and descriptionless. But visuals will be posted accordingly.

Whoa. OK. I'm an idiot.

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 05:39:52 GMT

ARR.

I forgot to include Isaiah's dog in part three.
So I need to pull off a lame excuse in the next part.
...I could go back and try again, but somehow pet interference in the third part just doesn't sound as good to me as it should.

ARR. ...Dammit. Well. Goal for tonight is to get to 9,000. We'll see how that goes. My idiocy aside.