Zot

By Nan Wigington

He sat on the lip of the kitchen sink, one hand hidden in the white abyss.

She gonna tell?

My sister grabbed my arm, pinched. Her answers then were always dark and mean.

My brother lifted the joint, put it to his lips. Smoke curled around his nose, seemed to come out his eyes, ears.

My dad was two months dead, my mom one hour into a night shift. Behind my brother, the window outlined, amplified a storm. Thunder there, here, slapping the panes of glass, making them shiver. My brother took another drag, puffed his cheeks, blew the fumes into my face. They sank like a knife into my lungs.

The lights went out.

Let's play Zot. My brother tapped me on the head. She's it.

My sister put a flashlight into my hand. Like they could've planned it.

Eyes closed, I counted the space between one flash to one clap. Maybe I didn't count. Maybe I just said I'll show them ten times.

My sister was easy.

Zot!

Behind my father's piano. The flashlight's beam circled her, head on her knees.

Fuck you, she said as she got up, brushed past.

You'll never find him.

I went to the closets, shook the sleeves of stranded shirts, kicked at abandoned shoes. In the basement, there was nothing but dirty laundry, old decorations. I lit up a porcelain pumpkin face, the arm of our aluminum tree.

Then I realized where he would be, where he would come some nights just to watch, wait for me to wake. I pictured him under the bed. I moved slow. How I wanted to be the monster first. I opened my bedroom door, but he...

Zot, he shouted, hitting me squarely in the face with his fist. He broke my nose, my glasses.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. he said. He laughed and laughed.

I bled.

My sister and I still talk. About geraniums, dogs, kids. She has two of each. I have nothing of anything.

I haven't seen my brother in 20 years. I don't miss him. Although I find myself now and then behind a man smoking, fractal fumes curling beyond his shoulders, reaching back toward me.

Mostly I hesitate.

Once I shouted,

Zot.

But the man who turned wasn't him, could never be him.

THE END

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