The Summer of Discontent, Circa 1994

Oh, my sister, dear. My sister, so.

I had blood all over my hands and the scent of what I did to you. It smelled so very good and I wasn't sure whether it was the concoction of all of the damage I had done or the memory of what you looked like just before I opened the bathroom door.

There was a summer many years back, thirty to be exact, when you still knew how to smile. I had grown to resent you over the years, for giving up on that look and for giving up on me. Often, when we would meet, I would find a movie score and run it in my head, again and again, hoping that I could make something magical out of this. But even I was hopeless now.

The water in the tub was a whirlpool of discontent and of abandoned dreams--mine and yours all the ones we never found the time to believe in. Once I scrubbed it down, I propped you up and just started stacking everything. Books. Oreos. Coasters. I stacked them up good and tall, so you had something to look up to.

But when you get around to washing those pages off, let me know if I can join you. And maybe when we get our voices back, we can sing each other's praises.

Oh, my sister, dear.

My sister, so.