That Year

It was the year I kept my sister within my protective reach. The year that cold fruit tasted like nothing more than oblivion and nothingness, though it didn't stop us. In my sister's dreams, infants and those long gone came in her fever dreams, speaking to her in the smooth and cunning voices of the influential and misbegotten. By day, we'd talk about them, how it might be better to welcome rather than anger them. I would teach her to fold their wisdom into her life, like a guide to better living. Together on the couch, we were bathed in the blue cast of the television that droned on and on, as time drifted into a void. We allowed ourselves the stunning and beautiful nature of benign cluelessness. Our love of routine was not innocent, but kept the carrion birds at bay. The old cat, with perceived wisdom and narrowed eyes, kept watch over us. Licked a paw to rub over his withered ear, listened to our shallow breathing, the respirations of our distorted hopes and our incessant acuity. Our fragile bones were still growing that year, though they were tired, while something important passed between us, as if preparing us for a future beyond our youth that, despite all careful planning, we would never be able to understand.