my pendulum brother

by Mileva Anastasiadou

My brother lives in the past, but he comes often to visit us in the present. He never stays for long and, even when he’s around, he can’t sit and talk, as if he’s forgotten that people can speak without words. Mom may have run out of words since the disease took them away, but she still speaks through her eyes. She still listens, she sees, she feels.

My brother calls from the past. He asks me to tell Mom to prepare dinner and when I say Mom can’t cook because she’s sick, he acts surprised. He isn’t forgetful, but in the past, where he lives and he calls from, Mom isn’t sick yet, she cooks and she cleans and she takes care of us, and whenever he calls, she runs to the kitchen and makes his favorite pie.

My brother lives in the past, but he comes by often to see us. He runs around in the house, as if we have no chairs and there’s no place to sit. He doesn’t even look at Mom, like she isn’t here or like he doesn’t recognize her. He fixes what’s broken, then he vanishes into the past without even saying goodbye, and we’re grateful for the work, but we feel lonely without him.

My brother calls from the past. He asks how we’re doing, but he can’t handle anything other than ‘fine’ as an answer. It isn’t intentional, it’s not like he wears the past as a hat whenever he pleases, he’s drawn into it. He’s doing his best to drag us into the past with him, back to when all went well and no sickness could touch us, and he forgets that unlike him, we can’t oscillate and we’re stuck here, at a present that hurts.

At first, I blamed him, and he blamed me for blaming him, but now we stick together against the common enemy, because we need each other. I’m with mom all the time, and I envy my pendulum brother for being carefree most of the time and he envies me too for spending more time with Mom, and we both wish we could live with Mom on our terms at a place safe from time, but the past keeps dragging him back and keeps pushing me away to the present, like an unnecessary divide and conquer technique to exhaust us before the war ends.

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