HOW TO TWIST GIRLS

Not like THAT, she says.

‌ ‌ Lean forward.

‌ ‌ Scrunch your knees.

‌ ‌ Tuck your head.

‌ ‌ My sister is teaching me to squish myself up as small as possible. She says it is a useful skill, and I must acquire it before I go away to school.

‌ ‌ If you get it just right, she says, no one can see you.

‌ ‌ I roll around my bed, condensed like a matzo ball. I roll off the mattress and keep rolling. Out of our room and down the hall, into the bathroom.

‌ ‌ My sister finds me, unravels me. Almost, she says.

We go downstairs for dinner. My sister limping, using me to steady herself. Our parents talk over our heads and we slurp noodles fast as we can, checking each other’s bowls to see who’s slurping fastest.

‌ ‌ Don’t do that, our mother says.

‌ ‌ We slurp harder.

‌ ‌ Be ready at 7 A.M. sharp, she tells me.

‌ ‌ I scrunch my nose.

‌ ‌ You are going.

‌ ‌ Mother has had it with me and so I am going. My sister can’t come with because of her ailments. Her ailments do not allow her to leave the house.

You’re really going? my sister asks.

‌ ‌ She is in her bed, and so am I. The machinery is everywhere.

‌ ‌ Is this one new? I hold up a thin little wire wrapped around her wrist.

‌ ‌ No, she says.

‌ ‌ I won’t be gone long, I tell her. I promise.

‌ ‌ I squish myself up beside her. We squish together, for the rest of the night, beneath a web of wire. When our mother wakes us, we’re sore all over. I have to crick myself open like a rusty door.

At school, I write letters to my sister, three a day. I tell her the people are dreadful, and no matter how tightly I squish, they can still see me, and I can still see them.

‌ ‌ The headmaster refuses to send me home, so I refuse to speak. Teachers try to get me to talk. I blink my eyes wide, like I don’t understand. Sometimes I open my mouth like I’m going to say something, and they get ready, then I snap it shut. Open and shut and open and shut. Like a fish.

‌ ‌ If you don’t speak, they say, we can’t help you here.

‌ ‌ I move little parts of my face. An eyebrow, a lip curl, a nostril flare.

‌ ‌ Don’t play with me girl, they say.

‌ ‌ When I finally speak, it is meaningful and it is loud. A scream, a howl, neverending, surging through classrooms, ear drums.

I am sent home, and Mother is not happy. Her face droops, like it’s going to slide off.

‌ ‌ Look what you’ve done! she says.

‌ ‌ What have I done?

‌ ‌ Look at the stress you’ve caused your sister!

‌ ‌ My eyes go to my sister, spooning oatmeal at the kitchen table. She smiles at me, mouth crooked.

‌ ‌ Her vitals went up today, Mother says. Up through the roof!

‌ ‌ Honestly, she says, running the sink water, drowning dishes in it. What are we supposed to do with you?

I was wrong, my sister whispers.

‌ ‌ She gets in bed, tangles with the wires of her machinery. Wires like spaghetti. There weren’t that many before.

‌ ‌ You don’t want to scrunch, my sister says. You want to EXTEND yourself.

‌ ‌ We spend the following day working on extension. There’s no school, because of her ailments and my delinquency.

‌ ‌ It’s simple. My sister flanks her arms out wide. You want to take up SPACE.

‌ ‌ But we’re small, I say.

‌ ‌ Yes, but––our particles can expand to fill negative space.

‌ ‌ Really? I stretch my legs, filling the gap between our beds.

‌ ‌ Absolutely, she says. I’ve thought a lot about this.

‌ ‌ You have?

‌ ‌ What do you think I do all day!

‌ ‌ This has always been my question. When I’m at school, birthday parties, soccer practice. She gets homeschooling packets, but does them real fast, a whole month’s worth, the day they arrive in the mail.

The next week is a series of trial and error. When extension is unsuccessful, we try horizontality, verticality, diagonality, reverse gravity. None of them produce the desired outcome. This outcome is not so clear to me anymore, but my sister is intent on it. Says we are going to be the best, most perfect versions of ourselves. Optimized.

‌ ‌ In the middle of the night, my sister jolts up in bed, causing her machines to beep like crazy. We have to twist, she says, then falls back onto her pillow.

How to Twist. I write the words on the wall with sharpie. Our mother does not like to come into the bedroom, to see the machinations of my sister’s ailments. Our father won’t mind.

‌ ‌ Motion, my sister says. Write down motion.

‌ ‌ This is not one of her good days. She is bedridden, so I am her scribe.

‌ ‌ No, she says, use the red marker.

‌ ‌ The red marker is dry, I show her.

‌ ‌ Red marker, she says, through gritted teeth.

‌ ‌ My sister gets angry on her bad days. She would get violent too, would like to get violent, if she had the strength. Instead she describes all the ways she might incite destruction.

‌ ‌ Just one match, she likes to tell me. Just one match is all it would take to incinerate this whole house. And then I nod and make sure no matches are in the vicinity.

‌ ‌ I write down motion, pressing the red pen until a light semblance of ink comes out. My sister lolls her head, rests her eyes. They pop open every now and then, and I remind her what we’re doing. Then they close again. I consider holding the lids open for her. Dabbing her skin with Mother’s makeup, so she’s not as translucent. Combing her hair, so it’s not so stringy. Medusa’s snakes. She says she likes it that way. I kiss her on the forehead, and go downstairs for dinner.

How do you twist girls? I ask Mother. My sister can rest––I will take over her research.

‌ ‌ Have more peas. Mother hands me the bowl.

‌ ‌ I don’t want peas. I want to twist.

‌ ‌ Mother scoffs, spoons peas over my pasta.

‌ ‌ I slurp a noodle and feel it slide down my throat.

‌ ‌ Don’t do that. Mother saws my noodles with fork and knife. We found a convent school that will take you, she says. They ought to whip you into shape.

My sister doesn’t cry this time and neither do I. She says she’ll have it all figured out by the time I get back. But her eyes barely open, eyelashes fluttering desperately, trying to hold up the lids.

Soon, sisters are everywhere I look. Nun sisters. Little ones, stretched ones, tilted, spherical, trapezoidal. I think of all the possibilities for my sister and I––to optimize. I think of how I’ll get out of this new school, how I’ll get out quickly, before it’s too late.

‌ ‌ There is class then lunch then class then prayer. I pray for optimization and butter noodles that slide smoothly down my throat. My throat, my mouth, my stomach, my chest. It’s too much for one person. Take some, I want to tell my sister. I’ll squish myself small, make space.

‌ ‌ The head mother calls me into her office, says she wants to meet me, talk to me.

‌ ‌ I squint my eyes until the room narrows. I imagine my sister, her narrow bed, her narrow world.

‌ ‌ The head mother does a chest cough that goes on and on and sounds animal.

‌ ‌ I am squinting, but I see through my slits, the head mother coughing, coughing, and coughing, until she collapses, falls down dead at her desk. Or at least, dead enough to get the students sent home while she recuperates. The student body, headless.

I’ve figured it out, says my sister.

‌ ‌ Her head is in my lap. We’re on her bed like no time has passed at all. Except for the wires. I can hardly see her through all the wires. Her hair is somewhat gone, but the wires are plentiful.

‌ ‌ Twist, she says.

‌ ‌ Twist, I agree.

‌ ‌ Twist INTO each other, she clarifies. Her eyes close, her mouth softens, like reciting a prayer: limbs, fingers, toes, thoughts. Complete tangle.

‌ ‌ I mull it over.

‌ ‌ COMPLETE TANGLE, she screams, her voice hoarse.

‌ ‌ Yes, yes, I agree.

‌ ‌ My body isn’t useful, she sniffles. I hope you don’t mind me using yours.

‌ ‌ Course not.

‌ ‌ After dinner, she says, grabbing my head and bringing it down to hers. Our foreheads kiss.

‌ ‌ I leave the bed, but she doesn’t follow. Come, I say.

‌ ‌ Can’t.

‌ ‌ I’ll drag you on the carpet the way you like.

‌ ‌ She shakes her head. Can’t leave the bed.

‌ ‌ I’ll bring dinner up, I tell her, but she’s already rolled onto her stomach, face-down, snoring faintly.

Where have you been? Mother thrusts my dinner plate down.

‌ ‌ With my sister. I sit my body on the chair.

‌ ‌ Goodness. Mother pushes my chair in. You never let up.

‌ ‌ Where’s Dad?

‌ ‌ Where’s Dad! Mother sits, lets her head fall like the head mother.

‌ ‌ You’re being strange. I watch her face. Fallen, pressed against her dinner plate. It wasn’t my fault I was sent home, I say. I didn’t do anything this time.

‌ ‌ Yes. Mother looks up, points her pupils at me. No one can do anything.

Mom is worse than normal, I say as I get back into the bed of wires.

‌ ‌ My sister says nothing, latches onto me, begins tangling our bodies. Hers is small, smaller than before. Legs like toothpicks, fingers like flower petals. I feel vast and porous as she adheres to me.

‌ ‌ I’m in the hospital, my sister whispers, her body getting more and more tangled with mine.

‌ ‌ You’re in bed, I correct.

‌ ‌ The hospital bed.

‌ ‌ Be serious.

‌ ‌ I’m serious, she says.

‌ ‌ Fine. Why are you in the hospital bed?

‌ ‌ The points of her skeleton press into me. My body softens, letting her in.

‌ ‌ Well––she speaks, but the words seem to come from a space between us––my vitals.

‌ ‌ Are they dreadful? I stroke her kelplike hair.

‌ ‌ Dreadful, she nods, my head nodding with her.

‌ ‌ And how are mine?

‌ ‌ Perfect. She burrows into me. You’re perfect.

‌ ‌ Liar.

‌ ‌ I can’t wait to be so perfect with you, she says, threading her silly string arms around me.

‌ ‌ Your arms––I don’t want to say it aloud but I can’t help it––Why are they so mushy?

‌ ‌ The vitals. Dad’s holding onto them.

‌ ‌ Dad’s not home, I say.

‌ ‌ Of course he’s not home, she hisses. Sissy? she sniffles. Her arms constrict around me, stronger than they seem, a blood pressure cuff.

‌ ‌ I grimace.

‌ ‌ It’s going to hurt, she says, head digging into my chest. It’s the cost of optimization. Her rib cage slices into mine.

‌ ‌ Twist! she says, giddy. We’re twisting!

And then she isn’t in bed, but hopping around inside my head, leaping around my brain matter. Like the ballerina she always wanted to be. I panic, squirm, a bug on its back. I brush away blankets and wires. No trace of her remains. My skull is heavy. I grab onto it, try to hold it still, quiet her down. She’s excitable, freed from her ailments, born anew inside my optimal body.

‌ ‌ Her toes wiggle, tickling my brain. I stand up and cartwheel, skip, sprint down the stairs, everything she tells me to. She’s operator. We run to the kitchen table. We lift chairs, then set them back down, because we can. We can! she reminds me. We step out the front door, breathe in the fall air, the grass, the trashcan smell.

‌ ‌ Mother’s on the driveway, packing up the car.

‌ ‌ There you are, she says, face red and splotchy. Get in.

‌ ‌ Things aren’t looking good, she says as she propels the car down the road. Things––her face bursts––aren’t looking good at all.

‌ ‌ She talks the whole way. We tune her out. My sister and I are busy taking in the world. I show her everything she’s been missing. The vandalized stop sign at the edge of the street. The road kill from yesterday. The mean little boy at the corner who sticks his tongue out.

The hospital smells foul. My sister and I do not want to go in, but Mother pulls our arm. We do not like being pulled. My sister makes me thrash to get away, but Mother drags harder. We are dragged through hallways, up elevators, into a room of white white nothingness.

‌ ‌ The room holds our father, a nurse, a bed, and––my sister’s body. It does not look particularly lifelike. The sister inside my head doesn’t even recognize it. She’s bouncing like my brain’s a trampoline. My head starts to ache.

‌ ‌ Mother falls into our father, and I go to the body. I poke it. It’s ashen, dusty. I scrape my finger along the skin and it yields to me, peeling off like plastic.

‌ ‌ Foul, I tell the sister inside my head.

‌ ‌ I know, she says, sprawling out. That’s why I’m in here.

‌ ‌ True.

‌ ‌ Don’t ever have ailments. She stomps on my skull.

‌ ‌ I won’t.

‌ ‌ She stomps some more.

‌ ‌ You’re hurting me, I tell her.

‌ ‌ She stomps, kicks, bangs. Squishes, expands, goes diagonal, vertical, horizontal. Sister too large. Head swelling, sweltering. Then it falls, like an empire, like a sandcastle at the beach. Down I go along with it.

I wake in a waiting room chair, head on Mother’s lap. She pets me like a kitten. Her tears rain onto my forehead and I blink them out of my eyes. My sister is inside my head, but she’s quiet.

Things go on like this. Somber, silent. We ride home, Mother, Dad, me. I search for my sister, but she’s hiding. Twisted in deep.

‌ ‌ We sit for dinner, slurp in silence.

‌ ‌ Dad goes back to the hospital. Mother and I say nothing. I want to disappear. I go up to the bedroom, try to remember my sister’s instructions. Lean forward, scrunch knees, tuck head, fold limbs. Condense. Believe that I can disappear, believe that I am already gone.

‌ ‌ …

‌ ‌ ..

‌ ‌ .

‌ ‌ My body rolls around the bed, squished into itself, just like she told me. It stays squished for a long time, almost forever. Then it starts to unravel. Like a balled up spider, limbs unpeeling. The legs, my legs, leaving the bed, finding the floor. The arms too, mine, spreading like bird wings. Eyes flicking open. My sister is back. My sister is stronger.

‌ ‌ She navigates our body down the stairs, wraps our arms around Mother, eats a helping of noodles, and exits the front door, does a lap around the block. Sticks our tongue out at the little boy on the corner. Thinks about how free we feel, how optimized. All the things we are going to do, see, become. But it’s only one body. There’s not room for two of us.

She reenters the house, sits on Mother’s lap, strokes Mother’s hair, tells her it will all be okay. She kisses Mother on the cheek, a wet kiss, full of life and saliva. The overhead lights flicker, and I wonder where I am. Dad bursts into the house, in a panic, in a state of dread, tells us she’s gone. Then the lights go out, and it’s only darkness.