By Aga Afeworki
Winter 2015 Kaplan Award Winner
I watched the clock intensely. I was waiting, so I had nothing but time. It was 2 o’clock and the little hand was taunting me like the low muttering chatter from a group of people you don’t like in the cafeteria. I had nothing other than the word “soon”, and soon meant never and never meant waiting. So I was waiting, staring intermittently at an old clock from some old garage sale. The clock was right above the television and I started to doze off about breaking news. This just in: your times up, no more staring at that old thing, no more thinking. He’s here!
The hours passed diabolically, and then someone knocked on the door. We rushed over but the door’s entry provided only a cramped area with little elbow room. I was rivaling with the fridge for space, and it wasn’t budging. I couldn’t get past everyone. I saw him walk in and we followed. He spent seven years in prison, though he was sentenced to 10. I could understand why people were sentenced, because existing in the confinement of a cell is an unforgiving measure of time. How a run-on sentence doesn’t reward the reader with the wrap-up, instead it continues endlessly. Only once they’re reintegrated, there often isn’t any punctuating closure, just ellipsis.
Everyone was present, so I tried clearing my thoughts.
We sat down on a day for thanks, waiting for the turkey to juice to completion. I fell silent when it was my turn to give gratitude. The question shouldn’t have been asked because we were all together. After dinner we moved to the living room to watch a movie. I was sitting next to him when he locked my hand with his. Finally we connected, but I shivered. His hand was trailed with calluses. I started to think again, only this time I reacted, too. My hand started sweating like we were outside, like it wasn’t November, like it was 88 degrees and I happened to wear a cable-knit turtleneck. All of what he experienced in seclusion appeared to me in dramatic exaggeration. I don’t know what he went through-I thought to stop my overwhelming. My thinking and sweating made him look at me. I missed you- I think he said. Not with his mouth or anything but with his glazed eyes. I remember that day for what he didn’t say. He didn’t apologize out loud. Instead he tended to us; he washed dishes, catering for his spent absence. He didn’t ask me about the days before that moment. The way a relative questions how you’re handling your formative teen years, only to shove some type of specific advice at you. He didn’t ask me anything; he just looked like he was breathing again. It was his first day back.
A month had gone by since he’d been home. One day he walked in late with a different burden. We didn’t talk about his troubles, unless they had traveled by mail. Distance seemingly made him more expressive. They were hard to absorb, the letters I mean, so I just looked at his drawings. He couldn’t escape his demons and I just wanted to know what they were. I had to find out.
I sat in a school club meeting for 3 hours; I had 20 minutes till I was free. Besides time always moved slower when you had plans, and on that Friday I had a plan to find out. I left the school lot, driving up the highway dangerous enough. I’m going to get a ticket. But I kept my speed. I rushed in to find he wasn’t home. That was expected. I reversed off of the long hill we lived on. Trees sequestered us from the main street, and I always hated reversing. I started searching the closest back streets, driving and turning in hopes of something. I turned off my headlights when I found him walking away from a person. The way you walk away from someone you’ll never see again. Someone he probably never knew before. He didn’t see me parked across the street watching him, so I left unnoticed. I think about that deep blue night a lot, cold inside an off car.
One year later
It was a couple days to my least favorite holiday, and I saw candy filling up walls at Safeway. Next to them, miniature sized animal suits displayed, some more popular than others. Why did people like to dress kids up like ladybugs anyway? I went home with some candy because, aside from personal feelings, I had to be prepared for the cavity-seekers, that just how it works. I looked at my phone and I had missed a call from him, it was 4:37pm and already dark. I called back four times without an answer. It was in that moment wherein I began to worry. Maybe I knew when I woke up that something was going to happen, but I didn’t act. That would be really messed up, to ignore concern in my pre-ulcer gut, but I must have. My sister called a few moments later and panicked while saying my name. My hand started to clam up and suddenly my right ear couldn’t hear. Her voice was muffled through a thick fog of fret. She was saying a lot. That happens rarely, only when she’s scared. All I could feel was the heat from my phone burning my ear. My face was hot and my body numb. I was slipping, and so was my phone. I tried sucking up air in my room that I was sure had no circulation. He had been picked up downtown for something serious; I knew this was his concluding punctuation-his period.
They said I wouldn’t be able to see my brother till he was old and grey-different, more than anything, because of his fate. Whether they were double or triple sentences it wouldn’t make a difference. He was gone again, and I had to get through it. The seasons changed and life returned to its manageable speed, but an uncontrollable guilt persisted. Time now acts as moments of irresponsibility. Not handling his case exhibits, his files, not contacting lawyers, advocates, organizations. Outside the pebbled concrete around him, reality begs me to be a part of the world in exchange for guilt, burdening guilt. A sense of distraction follows me when I’m not contributing to his release.
My brother always reminded me of time. A timer- ticking down the seconds before his stay was up. When I looked at him I saw time missed or our time apart or the countdown till he went away again. Our conversations seemed to be limited by time as though 24-hours were a detention cell with an automated voice reminding us: You-have-thir-ty-se-conds-re-main-ing. Our letters never came in a timely manner not like the movie-of-the –week’s montage full of reliable mailbox visits would make you believe. I always brood about time. You know what it’ll do, after 1pm its 2pm and you accept that. But they say time’s a human construct, and it doesn’t actually exist. I guess, sometimes- with apprehension- I feel like I imagined him. Memories so brief fade inexplicably and all that’s left are stories playing over in thought.