he came home one night with a hand wrapped in gauze, blood seeping through; he winces through the pain, the half-smirk that all children know masks weakness. if she was alive, i imagine that she would have been hysterical, but all i do is look. it's difficult to look and wonder simultaneously, i realize, curiously detached from his performance.
my sister assumes the role. what happened? what happened? what happened? I look, my brother wonders.
he had slipped up from his other day job, working behind the fishheads buried in ice; behind the counter with the boss to whom he had lied to in order to secure this job.
I'm a professional - he said
show me - she said
he used to take us to the place, because we had no food left at home. though we never had anything to eat, we were never hungry. leftover pieces of sushi - made shoddily but with the deep pity-love from a father who lived for his children, gifts from well-wishing korean housewives with too much food and spoiled children, children who had never felt want. we didn't mind; cooking saps vitality, especially alone, and so did that fucking eternal winter - it's amazing what you can grow to love, though.
I don't remember eating together as a family even once in those years. Where was I? More importantly, where would we eat? I honestly don't remember. busy with dark matters, moments made opaque by winter.
He had cut himself with the knife used to cut the sashimi. he needed a change of gauze, so he slowly unwrapped the old one; I watched, a deep deep scar jotting between his thumb and index, bursting bright red blood atop of crumbling dull black crust.
He smiled again; he wouldn't be able to work again for a while. And I think, he had looked heavenward, and found no one there.
One on the hands, one of the side, one of the feet, one on the brow - how marvelously appropriate.
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