Time as an Excuse

My eyes are on the fork that has pierced through the piece of cake. Fair enough, she baked it. But she can’t have it all. She likes to be playful. I wish I could be playful with her. From the expression on my face, I can see that there is a feistiness, this stubbornness to hold onto what is mine.

“I’m going to eat your cake,” My sister says, then laughs an evil laugh, that makes her even cuter.

 She’s wearing pink cotton pants and a black shirt with Dracula on it, which is a contrast to her usual style of all pink, with the occasional purple for variety. 

I can see her outfit in the body that is in front of me, her body unmoving, stuck in time. We are like spirits, it seems, I can see my sister, looking confused. No, I can’t see her. I feel her confusion. She is beside me, I feel her energy, though there seems to be no sense of physical space between us.  

“Did you do this, so I wouldn’t steal your piece of cake?”

“No, Sandra. It appears as if we are in a different realm. Perhaps it is a dream of sorts.”

“My name isn’t Sandra, Gerald. By the way, I’m divorcing you.”

“I’m your sister. We can’t get divorced. Why name me Gerald?”

“Yuck! There’s dust on your feet.”

Maybe, I should have squeezed some time to clean between researching for my novel. I was reading Plato and noticed the philosophical conversation about the just city goes on for the whole book. Obviously, it’s dramatic and not necessarily how Socrates presented his ideas. Perhaps he was able to be uninterrupted while he reflected and conversed on such noble topics as justice…

Cathy is clicking her fingers in front of my face. There is a swirl of the creamy color of her skin and a cracking noise.

“I’m divorcing you!”

“It was your turn to sweep!”

“You shouldn’t walk barefoot.”

“Fine. Clearly, we’ve been stopped for a reason.”

“So you can see how dirty your feet are and wash them.”

My sister stays on comic mode most of the day, except when she first wakes up and doesn’t feel like talking. I’m the serious one in the family. I find comic mode for too long tiring. Why didn’t I stop when I was in my room reading. I would have taken it is a chance to contemplate the questions I dismiss before even giving them a chance for reflection because I deem them too irrelevant, too far from my core truth. I don’t have enough time in my lifetime to live every part of life.

“Why are you quiet?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Do something.”

“What do you want me to do? Dance for you? That is what mum used to say when we told her we were bored.”

“Do something.”

I can feel her shaking me.

“Stop. That’s enough. We have to figure this out together.”

“You figure it out. I’ll watch TV.”

“You can’t. The TV is stuck on an ad about… I can’t tell. I remember when we used to watch TV and memorize all the ads because we had no choice.”

“You sound like an old lady.”

“You know there’s only nine years difference between us.”

“Still. You’re an old lady.”

She’s fun to be around. If I relaxed and wouldn’t be stuck on my serious mode. If I gave more time for fun in my schedule.

“We have to reform our ways,” I say.

“I’m listening.”

She sounds earnest, which is odd. Then I find her pecking at the cake with the swirl of her fingers, as if they were a fountain of existence continuously evaporating and coming back to substance so that it can evaporate again. A gentle fire staying alight.

“Are you hungry? Can you even feel hunger in this state?”

“No. I’m bored.”

She stands next to me and is perfectly sensible for a few seconds. We’ve used time as an excuse. She starts bumping into me.

“Cathy, stop! You’re going to knock me down!”

“But you’re a spirit. You can’t get hurt.”

“We need to have a conversation. A serious one.”

“Do you think I can fly?”

“Come on Cathy.”

“But you’re always serious.”

“It’s just the way I am.”

“You’re being lazy. Having fun is an honest business. Learn from me. Listen. We’re going to fly and go to a bank. We’ll take all the money, bring it here. Then we’ll figure out how to continue time again.”

“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

“That makes no sense. Who’s the teaching here?”

“But robbing a bank isn’t fun.”

“You’ve got a lot to learn. If you don’t find it fun, look at it this way. With the money we’ll be able to travel, go expensive restaurants.”

“But then our reason for not stealing is not our desire to live by what is right but our fear of being caught. What makes a good life, Cathy?”

“I’ll stop you there. We’re wasting time! Things might go back to normal again.”

I’ve been doing something wrong. I’m the eldest. And I’ve been a bad example. I’m not idle. I always keep myself busy doing productive things. I’m living my dream of being a writer. Yet me sister is with me in this scene. My dreams are not more valuable than the time I spend with her. My whole dream, or reality, my life, is not made up of the things I tick off on my schedule. She’s a part of my life. She is my life.

She always gets her way. Always gets the last piece of chocolate, the last bowl of ice cream. She won’t take my piece of cake. I rip the cake with my hands and stuff it in my face, chewing while I smile, triumphant. There is a small piece of cake attached to the fork. She swirls the fork around in mock grace and then places the piece of cake in her mouth. She looks down on me and shakes her head.

“You’ve forgotten your manners,” she says.    

“If I were to rob a bank, there would be no other person I would want to rob it with,” I say.

“Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know.”