Αγάπη

To Anna. I love you more than the world. You are the best sister I could ever have.



Αγάπη: The act of a never ending, unconditional love. 

Love isn’t a heart, stained red. Love isn’t always kissing while watching a sunset. Love is a black void, sucking all of the life out of you. It has a way of crawling into your heart, sinking its claws in your heart until you can no longer push it away. And then, from its perch, it’ll squeeze, and you’ll finally realize that you weren’t the one to be in control, it was. Love is so much more than romance. 

Love never had any real meaning to me for many years. Whenever I thought about it, all I saw was Cupid in a white dipper, making people fall in love. But that is romance, not love. It wasn’t until long after that I could chase the image of my mind. A part of me knew that all along, but experiencing it, and then losing it, pulled it to life. 

***

I can overhear rain falling against the palm-leaf roof. I stare up at the square wooden intermittent beams in the ceilings.

I’m lying on my back, Carrie fast asleep beside me. I can hear her soft breathing, scarcely audible over the flooding rain outside. She is curled under the blankets. I have an arm around her small shoulders, holding her warm body against mine. I love you Carrie.

***

Carrie. I loved Carrie more than I could ever love anything else. She was my life. She was my love. She was my sister. I spent years trying to find the right way to explain it; the only word that I could find was Greek. Αγάπη: Never failing love, no matter their mistakes or flaws. I tried to describe it to someone once. I remember stumbling for words, in an attempt to describe how much I loved Carrie. “It's as if the sun fell out of orbit. Earth’s gravitational pull would cease, flinging it into space. No… Arrrgh. Imagine your stomach filled with acid, eating away at the flesh around it. The pain would be unbearable until you had nothing left. It would be as if a black hole formed in your gut. You would feel empty, incomplete. If I lost Carrie, my world would crash to pieces, shattering everything else around it until there was nothing but the gaping emptiness, eating at your mind. It would rage within your body, tearing away your heart, acid burning at your mind, pushing you into insanity.” The only word that came to mind when I thought of losing Carrie was insanity. I would forever lose myself. I love you Carrie.

I stand motionless beneath the rain, a numbingness creeping through my chest. I can feel acid burning within my body, tearing it from the inside. How could they take her? How could anyone be so cruel as to take someone so young? To cart them to somewhere else? Rain hits my bare skin. Tears begin to slowly prick my eyes. I can still remember her face in the back of the white truck as they closed the doors, shutting her off from me. I remember the burning in my chest as I chased the truck until it faded in the night.

***

Three-year-old Carrie runs barefoot through the thick green grass carpeting the field. The warm sun is high overhead, grinning over Carrie. She stops and gives me a mischievous grin before kicking off her shoes. I only shake my head, smiling. She runs around picking up a large flower and looking at it for a moment before grinning again and continuing running, clutching the primrose in her small fist. She catches her breath. She fills her pink chubby cheeks with air when a purple butterfly lands on her nose. Small Carrie goes cross-eyed, trying to look at it. The two of them stare at each other for a long moment before Carrie gives a small sneeze, and it flutters off. She chases after it. It finally flutters off and Carrie comes and collapses onto my crossed legs. Her eyes, the colour of clouds before a rainstorm, crested with dark, thick eyelashes, look up at me with an enormous grin. Freckles poke out from her tanned skin onto her full cheeks and button nose. She places a chubby hand on my cheek.

“You are my prettiest big sister,” she says with a wide grin.

“You don’t have another big sister,” I say, poking her soft belly.

She giggles, trying to push my hand away.

“You’re the best big sister Carrie could ever have,” Carrie says, chewing the inside of her cheek before giggling and throwing her arms around my neck. I love you Carrie.

***

How could the world be so cruel as to take her away from me? Black clouds swirl up above, rain pelting my skin. My eyes scan the field. The grass is dead, trees bare. Tears slip down my face as I remember. As I remember Carrie running after the purple butterfly. As I remember her warm body in my arms. I have to find her. I have to.

***

"Give it to use, Darsal," the man growls, "Give us the money."

"I don't have it!"

"Then we might as well take the next best thing," he replies, voice crackling.

That's when I see Carrie, being hulled into the white van. Tape covers her mouth and her eyes look at me in panic.

"Carrie!" I yell, voice tearing itself from my lungs, "Carrie no!"

I turn, punching the guy in front of me. The doors shut as I run after the van. I feel the wind bitting at my skin.

"Carrie, no!!"

I run after the van as if speeds down the street.

***

I miss you, Carrie.

***

Eight years later--

I walk slowly down the street, eyes rippling over the booths. Brightly coloured produce waits for me to choose. People swarm around me, jostling their bags of food.

"Darsal!"

I hear my name echo across the street. I turn slowly to see a figure darting between the people, running in my direction. My eyes catch the outline of a thin, dirtied figure. My plastic bag drops onto the road, fruits rolling away. Years, it took me to numb the pain of losing Carrie, but it all comes back to me, hitting me square in the face like a blast of iced air. My eyes focus on her face. This time, I know I can't doubt. She is older, but I can still see the same glint in her grey eyes. Carrie.

I love you, Carrie.