NPM 19

Here is a (possible) thesis preview:

The White Between the Frames

I am picked up from school by a relative. The last time this happened was the day my brother was born.

*

I am in the living room, the same look on the relative’s face now on my parents’, smiling with everything but their eyes.

*

I am in the hospital cafeteria. Everything was fluorescent white, metal tables and plastic dinner trays. I was arguing with Dad about the line between alive and dead. I want to say now that the food was terrible, but that’s not a memory, just what we expect to hear when someone mentions hospital food.

*

I am in my classroom in a fetal position on the floor. It’s recess, but I haven’t moved since story time.

*

I am in the room where he died. He is there, behind the machines on every wall, the clear plastic tubes, fluids suspended inside. I don’t remember the heart monitor flatlining the way it always does when someone dies, but I remember the white speckled tiles, the reflections from the fluorescent lights above, and feeling no difference in the room when my parents told me my brother said goodbye. I faced away, wondering why I didn’t hear him say it too.

*

I mistake silence for confirmation when I ask if I’m going to die next.