This is the second story in this summer’s online Flash Fiction series. You can read the entire series, and our Flash Fiction from previous years, here.
The sister counted pigeons eating a balanced winter diet of discarded fruit and plastic. She was at her desk with the view of the park and on the phone with the brother. He was scolding her during their weekly check-in call. A desire rash began forming on her left knee. The latest, more of an auburn, complemented the earlier, pink splotch that covered her other knee. She rubbed salve on.
The sister, the younger of the two siblings, should have been applying for jobs. For months, the steady older brother in Hoboken with resources had paid her rent. He’d no intention of bailing her out again. He cancelled her high-speed internet—he had to draw the line somewhere. But he continued paying her phone bill. She resisted mentioning that he would bail her out. He worshipped the feeling. He would succumb to this need. She may have been the creative, jobless sibling living in a dingy beloved studio in faraway Brooklyn, but she understood the brother. Theirs was the sort of familiarity that could pass only between siblings, each competing to survive.
The brother had been the one to suggest that the sister use her phone as a hot spot. His knowing something about technology made him feel in touch, like a fresh teen-ager clubbing with the cool kids hellbent on dying young because that was the point. She thought the point was to be an artist. Hot spot, the term, had her thinking about Futurism, a movement in art that centered on hyper-everything—speed, youth, violence, industry—and which sought to burn the key-keepers to the ground.
You’re exhausting, he said during their call. He was right. She added a single thought, which was that wearing people out, stripping them of their energies, was how successful people such as the brother managed to pilfer all the resources.
The brother held an important position in a multinational company that he had a hard time explaining the purpose of. He lived an undisturbed life in a New Jersey palace with his expectant wife and their four children. He suffered from unhappiness. He worked countless hours. His body was failing him. That Christmas, the sister noticed hair- and penis-enhancement medicines in the cabinet when she’d gone to the far bathroom seeking privacy and connection by way of ketamine and the internet. How else had anyone made anything of themselves? he’d said of her discovery. The siblings stayed up all night long laughing.
The sister hung up on him. It was fine. The brother liked it. From her desk, her laptop took a bite out of her view of the park. Dozens of tabs were open, indications of potential. Outside, there was a lady with a stroller moving swiftly in the cold. The sister looked for clues in the woman’s body language, something adoring and sympathetic, but could not decipher whether this woman was the child’s mother. The sister would not have children. She was already in debt. Children—the ultimate signifier of wealth—had mouths she’d never be able to feed. Unemployment had altered her idea of what qualified as a life. For roughly a hundred and fifteen days, she’d eaten cold noodles, searched online for opportunities, and taken bathroom breaks to flirt on her phone with the editor of a prestigious magazine, which he’d been hired to rescue and did. Online was not really a suitable place to assess the merit of these exchanges. It wasn’t even a place. But the editor had said that the magazine’s craft essays paid. And he had her in mind to write one.
I’m your brother, the brother texted.
There was another woman with an infant walking in the park. This time, the baby was attached to the woman’s chest. A new desire rash quickly formed on the sister’s thigh. Another atop it. The doubling burned a reminder: barking dogs you’d forgotten to feed. She put her hand on the pink splotch. It grew wider. The brother sent a follow-up text—the sister should focus on elder care. She clicked with older people. Plus, the generations were aging more rapidly than ever. The elderly were outliving the young—surely there were bountiful steady positions in this sector.
He called. She answered. He was her only sibling. He’d paid to have someone deliver her citrus so that she could avoid scurvy. She was in no position to lose his financial support. Kafka starved to death.
Into her ear, he rolled out the words health-business sector, like he was ordering a dirty chai, as though he knew what it was.
The sister told him she was hard at work on an essay about the landfill that as children they’d pass and was passively flirting with the editor. Besides, she said to the brother, it was unlawful to prevent people from using the rest room, or from using their free time to pursue the subtext of life. Plus, it should be noted, she’d given up entirely any need to be loved. She wanted the editor to like her essays and to pay her for her essays.
A friend who kept a spare key to her apartment entered and said, What is going on here?
Succulents could live through the world’s end. The sister’s plants were shrivelling.
Have you noticed that small breasts are out of fashion? The sister’s breasts, too, were tinier than ever.
It’s time to leave, the friend said. Leave the craft-writing slash the job search.
The friend put a coat and a scarf by the door. Meet me at the place down the street for happy hour, dull as that might be, the friend said.
A slim flame of hope that would burn out completely when they got to the bar. Not only did the establishment no longer offer discounts on booze, but the free popcorn was now three dollars. In the past, that kind of cash—the right kind—would have got you a crisp beer and a soul mate.
At the bar, the sister drank club soda with a lime that she’d brought from her stash of citrus.
Do you have high-speed internet? Do you have babies in your park? she asked the friend, who lived in another borough.
The friend said she wasn’t sure about babies in her park and left. She came back with tequila shots, immediately asked how much the magazine paid for craft, and admitted that it could be a setup. The friend said she knew a private detective who owed her a favor. Then she noticed the sister’s rashes, which had begun inching up from beneath the collar of her shirt.
Hey, you seem to be turning pink.
My desire, the sister explained of her settled arm rashes, like tattoo sleeves.
Back in the sister’s studio, it had grown dark. The park lights had come on. The brother was calling. The siblings had already had their check-in call.
I’m downstairs.
It’s a walkup. I’m at the top.
Of course you are.
It would take him several minutes to get to her. He didn’t like to break a sweat. She closed her computer. She changed into a sundress to show off her colorful rashes, spots that just formed themselves. It was kind of miraculous when you thought about it.
The brother entered her apartment. He said nothing about her sundress. He asked for food. The sister noticed the black duffelbags limp on either side of his legs, little buzzkills. He rifled through her fridge. She handed him stale popcorn and offered him nutritional yeast. He ordered delivery, ASAP. She prepared a grapefruit to split. The sister insisted he call his wife—she was going to have a baby any minute. The brother insisted she tell him about the essay she was writing about the landfill of their youth. First, he needed a rinse. He welcomed himself to a towel and was intrigued to learn he’d have to go down the hall to accomplish this. What might be in store for him along the way? The sister really did love him. His intention was to be helpful. But she would never be able to wrangle free from the debilitating trap of debt that existed between them.
A desire rash crept into the sister’s mouth. She let it. Her entire person could become a single, compliant hot spot on her very own terms. From the brother’s phone, she texted his wife pleading for forgiveness: Let me come home, let me back inside the palace. The brother returned freshly rinsed, and the sister was nowhere to be found. There, in her absence, was a pulsating, hot-to-the-touch shape that continued to expand. ♦
This is drawn from “Day Care.”
