2004-08-26
If You Are Going To Die, I Can't Let You Die Alone. I'm Coming With.

hearing: nothing
reading: The Fellowship Of The Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
feeling: distant and removed

This evening, I was lazing and chatting on my computer, when a little msn messenger plus alert dropped down in the top right hand corner of my screen. I get used to those. They drop for contacts coming online, going offline, and changing their name by default. Then I have messenger set to watch certain people, and notify me of everything they do, including status changes.

I find it all very convenient, although the name changing alerts become annoying and redundant because some people change their name so often (no one in particular is implied). This alert was for a name change. It was for my sister�s display name change. Affixed to the end of her name in brackets was �dying in my room.�

Initially, a little dagger of worry and fear ran through my heart, but it passed with me scarcely noticing it. My sister�s is never serious. She is an enormous, elaborate joker and I assumed that this was one of her overwrought, sarcastic, emotional exaggerations. I was highly intrigued though. Not wasting a moment, I spurred myself up to her room to see what �dying� entitled.

I expected to burst in on her mixing a potion or burning a candle and chanting crazy, ridiculous incantations for effect. This was going to be a big joke.

I threw open the door, and peered inside her tent (currently, she has an enormous tent covering the entirety of her room. She has pillows heaped on the floor inside and she does everything in her room in there. Including sleeping. She sleeps on the floor in her tent) to find her, not fiddling with anything or playing with potions, but laying languidly on the floor with her face thrown in the pillow.

Again, daggers of fear and concern. I could tell, simply from the position and arrangement of her body, that this was no jest, that she was really in some kind of distress.

But I wasn�t sure, and I felt uncomfortable. To ease my discomfort, I picked up a stack of light, paperback school workbooks, and began tossing them at her, spewing out some nonsense or other and laughing merrily. She turned away and mumbled back at me, flailing her arms to ward off the books with little spirit and heed. I set down the books and with a cheery call of �Well I can see that you really are dying, so I�ll get your funeral arrangements settled�, I dashed out of the room and back to mine to ponder what to do next.

I was now deeply troubled and my thoughts spun with all the possibilities of her ailment, apparently emotional.

Timid and afraid, I finally went back up to her room to try and talk to her.

She was sitting up in her tent now, although her voice and her slightly puffy eyes betrayed that something near tears had welled to the surface. Whether she really cried or not, I couldn�t say. It seemed like I had not been gone long enough for her to cry and finish and let red, puffy eyes return to normal. I couldn�t put it past her though, because I have become extremely skilled in coming from a despairing sob to a cheery eye and smile in a matter of seconds. My eyes could recover extraordinarily quickly by training, so why couldn�t hers?

I begrudgingly climbed inside the stuffy tent (I am terribly claustrophobic so the low ceilings and close quarters of �tents� like these make me extremely nervous and restless) and shot her a serious, friendly, half jovial look and asked her how she was� after she said that she was alright, I said �no�really�how are you?� she insisted alright again. I climbed all the way into the tent and settled down next to her. She yielded a spot for me, although she seemed to be reluctant to have me there. She talked lightly and humorously. Never serious as usual. But, unless my imagination created it, there was something in her tone which wasn�t right.

I harped on with her about nonsense and how stuffy the tent was, waiting for the opportune moment to talk with her seriously about whether she was suffering from some sort of emotional ailment, when my mother burst in the room and made me go check and see if my brother had had a shower.

Indeed, he had.

When I returned upstairs, I found my sister disappearing into the bathroom.

I sighed in defeat and trudged back down the stairs.

The rest of the evening she seemed slightly forced.

Although again, my imagination might have created what it wanted to see.

I worry. I worry about her. She is never serious, and she will never talk�

Although I admit to not being very persistent. I am not used to intimacy with my family. It�s very awkward for me to reach out. I am used to being distant and removed. I am usually never serious either. It�s for subconsciously demanded protection.

I wonder whether my sister does much the same thing�

What fakeness concealing distresses, private joys, and faults, hidden under sugar coated guise of light hearted humor�

Nonsense = bedtime, or I will be sorry again tomorrow for the exhaustion my hours cost me.

before & & after