From the bedroom window, I watch them chase my sister-in-law down the street. Their lanyards jangle as their shoes beat the midnight pavement after Michelle in her dressing gown, a periwinkle banshee, her shriek signaling once again the death of the woman who\u2019d found joy in vases of tulips, eating spaghetti, and playing Cluedo with her family. Her revival depends on the chasers who each take a limb and fold her ghostly body into the ambulance saying, “Sorry, Michelle,” just like every other time.<\/p>\n
My brother Damo watches the ambulance leave, and as the social workers talk to him, I know he\u2019s just nodding habitually. He\u2019s not being blas\u00e9; he\u2019s just heard all this before.<\/p>\n
If my niece, Aria, had been awake, I would\u2019ve watched The Simpsons<\/em> with her until she fell back to sleep. But Aria\u2019s thirteen now, grueling adolescence submersing her deeper into sleep. Smashing plates and unfamiliar voices haven\u2019t disturbed her. I\u2019m relieved, mostly for myself. I don\u2019t want to be alone with her, which I know is selfish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The first time Michelle had gone, Aria had been awake, a baby in my arms. Damo had listened to the social workers downstairs while I\u2019d rocked Aria in her room, humming Twinkle Twinkle. Then I\u2019d sang Hey Jude, because I also needed to be soothed. Michelle, who loves my brother, hosts fantastic Christmas dinners, and supported me when I came out, had raked Damo\u2019s forehead with her fingernails, lost the focus to make a sandwich, and screeched “faggot” as her spittle flecked my face.<\/p>\n Hey, Jude! Don\u2019t be afraid.<\/em><\/p>\n When baby Aria had drifted off, I\u2019d looked at her doll face, a tiny version of Damo. Maybe she\u2019d also be skilled with numbers and ruin film plots for me.<\/p>\n And what might she inherit from Michelle?<\/p>\n Take a sad song and make it better, I sang.<\/em><\/p>\n The social workers left, so I placed Aria in her cot and joined Damo on the sofa. I stared at the network of scratches Michelle had left on his forehead while he told me he was frightened that she had gone over the edge somehow, that she might never come back, that he\u2019d be a single parent, that the neighbours would gossip and their children would hear stories of the crazy lady taken away in the night. I imagined Aria\u2019s classmates telling her that her mother had screamed so loudly that all the birds had flown away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As Aria grew up, I collected the peculiar things she said to construct who she was and might become. \u201cIt\u2019s raining indoors again\u201d was innocent enough as condensation trickled on the inside of the window. \u201cI have a pet ghost\u201d managed to make us laugh one Christmas when Michelle was back in hospital, and Aria had stroked an imaginary creature weaving between her shins at the dinner table. She explained how the ghost wasn\u2019t very nice to her; told her she was stupid. We didn\u2019t laugh at that.<\/p>\n Remember to let her into your heart.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The front door closes, and I hear Damo sigh. I walk past Aria\u2019s closed bedroom door with the sign Beware of the Teenager<\/em>. When I get downstairs, Damo is on his phone, the faint music of Candy Crush playing.<\/p>\n “Aria\u2019s school has called me in for a meeting.” He doesn\u2019t look up from his phone.<\/p>\n “Oh yeah?”<\/p>\n “About her behaviour.”<\/p>\n “Bit of mischief?”<\/p>\n Damo pauses. “Not exactly. They said they\u2019re worried about some\u2026 oddities.”<\/p>\n There\u2019re no scratches on him this time, but he looks worse. Gazing at his faint scars, I wonder if he\u2019ll cope when his load doubles as also Aria drifts over the edge.<\/p>\n “Didn\u2019t you expect this?” I ask.<\/p>\n “What do you mean?”<\/p>\n Then you can start to make it better.<\/p>\n “Aria\u2019s been through a lot, Damo. They\u2019re bound to check in, offer teen counselling.”<\/p>\n “Apparently she\u2019s interrupting lessons, talking to…”<\/p>\n He trails off. I know who she\u2019s been talking to. The pet ghost doesn\u2019t weave between her shins anymore; it\u2019s too big for that. It sits with her on the sofa when she\u2019s watching TV, or in her room when she\u2019s trying to study. It whispers to her, makes her weep and cut, shows her things that make her cry out like her mother, like a banshee.<\/p>\n “We said all sorts of weird stuff when we were kids,” I say. “She\u2019s just imaginative.”<\/p>\n Damo gives a small, breathy laugh. “Yeah. I\u2019m sure you\u2019re right.”<\/p>\n “Absolutely. Schools fuss about kids nowadays. We\u2019re fine. Aria\u2019s fine.”<\/p>\n He smiles. “Yeah. We\u2019re fine.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We always whisper by the telescope. He grips my knee and hisses, “The universe is filled with hostile beings in billions of galaxies, boy. If we\u2019re watching them, what\u2019s to say they\u2019re not watching us, trying to control us.” His beer can tinkles with dregs, spittle flecking my smirking cheeks. I say that “We have roaring oceans, thundering skies, and bright cities. What\u2019s the point of staying quiet?” His grasp on my knee tightens, his silence sprinkling eggshells for me to tiptoe through. I nod, finger to my lips as he puts down his empty can and reaches out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" He was frightened that his wife had gone over the edge, that the neighbours would gossip about the crazy lady taken away in the night. I imagined his daughter’s classmates telling her that her mother had screamed so loudly that all the birds had flown away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":23823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[4402],"class_list":["post-22920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-https-bex350-wixsite-com-rebecca-klassen","writer-rebecca-klassen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22920"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23824,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22920\/revisions\/23824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Dark Forest Theory<\/h5>\n