November 29. 08. : first attempts [part 1]

The family has been up roughly since 3 am. At least that's when the first musings about leaving began between my parents over a cup of hot, low quality coffee. For me there was the sudden jolt to the awake state; my father’s hands quietly repeating my name while standing over the couch in the darkened living room. “It’s time to wake up Melissa, it’s time to go.”

I wanted to sleep through the long car drive, to some extent. Hopped up on a combination of gravol, clonazapam and the seroquel left in my system from the night before I hoped to weigh my thoughts down with these things. These designer drugs; all meant to stitch my eyes shut, to render me immobile while my brother stared out the window beside me. He had his ipod on, fidgeting with the technology. Trinkets- faster computers – crisper images on televisions – these have been his drugs for a lifetime.


On the hour & a half trip in the snow to London, my parents put on a mixed c.d. that was both requested and made by my brother. A mix of country music and pop rock & even though I would rather die than listen to the songs, I didn’t see the point in arguing. I would probably want to choose what we listened to on the way there if I was having brain surgery for the third time. So I snuggled deeper into the pillow I brought for the trip, continuing to flit in and out of consciousness, his hulking frame crushed into the backseat beside me. The smell of cigarettes being chain smoked in the front seats & the brief flashes of cold to let some air in afterwards kept me just out of the reach of sleep, no matter how many drugs I swallowed.
I looked over at my brother, curved and slightly crooked, at 6’6 easily a scary man but without the strength to back it up. He looked just like a child, even though I am the younger by six years. I wanted to pick him up and tell him it was going to be okay. We haven’t hugged each other in a very long time; I doubt we would start now. The ride kept on, and we sat there just like when we were kids, except less space & additional years.


To perk him up I mutter some trash talk about how the music on the c.d. sounded like shit. I attempt to poke at his ribs, but he only flashes me a quick near toothless smiles and groans at little at me, or maybe he’s just groaning at the pain in his head. His head is now shaven sheer, most likely my mother did it in the kitchen the night before: him hunching his large frame down so she could reach the top, the hair falling on the tile- less floor that was meant to be tiled last year or the year before that. The dog probably tried to jump at the hair as it fell to the ground. His head has to be shaved for the surgery but if you do not do it yourself then they will just shave the part that needs to be operated on. My brother still has sense of style, not wanting an uneven head of hair. Even though ever since the first surgery he has one because the scar will not let hair grow over it; a large gash where the incision was made, it still protrudes and aches, seemingly it throbs through the air like invisible sound waves, it’s an open heart thumping and pounding with no consideration for the body. He looks sad, worried, and forlorn; there are countless of synonyms to describe the fear right before a major surgery. I probably will never be able to use my vocabulary to define it; my ill attempts seem neither here nor there. So inept, I fumble with my thoughts as he looks out the window, watching the flat farm land swim by at 120 kms and hour.

I catch my father’s eyes in his rearview. He looks at me helplessly and I too return his gaze. I hope secretly in my head, hold a wish like a small child, that this time the scar will heal better and that hair will sprout from his wound. I know my brother would like that.


to be cont...