Starry Starry Night

My madness papered the wall infront of me. An artwork of newspaper, printouts, medical records and swirls of yellow and blue string. In the middle of it all a photo of my brother. The pamphlet from his funeral. Rainer Goh, beloved son and brother. It had all brought me to this moment. The needle containing the virus lay empty on the floor. The fever raged.

People don’t look at other people. Our brain takes a shortcut, saves an inaccurate image in our minds and doesn’t look again. It’s fine, it saves time, it only mattered when you couldn’t see their faces again.

I wish I had memorised his face. All photos looked wrong somehow. Flat. They had failed to capture him. My mother chose this photo. He looked like a businessman in his white collared shirt. Tie tight under his neck. Respectable. Professional. Honourable. All things he was in life. But still, It was wrong. Wasn’t his tie always loose? Were his sleeves often rolled up? I couldn’t remember. No matter how much I strained a full picture wouldn’t form in my head.

I followed one string, an article citing the pandemic. The Eris Virus, shutting down cities, it read. Next, A miracle vaccine that cures the already infected. The PAN corporation set to make millions as governments from the world fight for the first batch. The thin yellow string curved to a bright blue pin. My hand briefly paused. That’s where the strange symptoms first came to light. The colour-shifting rashes, soft bones and headaches that made buildings shake. My finger continued to trace the thread, hitting yet more pins. The fever ravings about seeing ghosts. Brain chemistry changed. Certain abilities linked to their geographical locations. Variants.

All harder and harder to find. As if the reporters and witnesses dropped off the planet. But I traced it. I found it. The Hepa variant, key outbreak in Botley, England. I sold everything I owned, bribed the right people.

I got a sample.

I would see him again.

The door wedged shut with a chair. My phone smashed at the bottom of a bathtub full of water. I just had to wait. Sweat dripped down my back and the room swayed. My breath made ghosts in the air but my bones were on fire.

They would lock me up when they found me, I’d have to content myself on imagining things from my cell window. But I would see him, and that would be enough. I lay my body down, each joint screaming as I moved them into place. Laying on my side, one hand under my head, top knee forward. The recovery position. Safest place to be. In a few hours they would find my note. They would come and get me. Vaccinate me. I would live. But not until I was ready.

The door to my left rattled, the ornate handle catching on the top of the cheap Ikea chair as someone tried to turn it. No, they were early. Someone called my name, but it was like they were underwater. The door reverberated again, and the room rippled. Like the clear top of a lake as the first raindrop blemishes its surface. Again. The wood of the door, the plaster wall of pins and strings undulated. With each bang another wave coursed through the room. The wooden floor washed against me in waves. I began to sink. Then I fell.

When I opened my eyes I was staring at my mother. To the left of her a younger me sat, free from the scars and the dark circles under her eyes. I almost didn’t recognise her. To her right my brother.

Gege.

His hair the same black as mine, his eyes the same inky shade of brown. When I was in high school my friend had developed a crush on him. I never understood it, he was just my nerdy brother. I asked her why and she sighed, his cheekbones could cut glass. I saw the sharpness of them now. How had I never noticed that before? His tie was undone, his white sleeves rolled up. His expensive jacket slung across the back of the chair. My brother, stupidly optimistic, far too good at maths and science and all the things I was just average at. I saw it all. Everything a photograph couldn’t capture.

Across the dinner table untouched pork jiaozi and chǎofàn sat between them. I viewed it all as if I was a third person. Watching the movie of the worst day of my life.

“It is unlucky,” Mother tisked, “But ignore your mother, see how well that has worked out for you in the past.”

“What makes the car unlucky mother, the wrong colour red? is it the number plate? Too many eights? Perhaps you counted the wheels and they add up to four?”

“JieJie,” Gege cautioned me. I leant into the sound of his voice.

“Your car has four wheels doesn’t it? It’s not red, it has no eights in the numberplate.”

“She is correct, Muqin,” he said. Using his golden child moves to calm mother down. The Chinese was a nice touch. The other me shot him a conspiratorial smile over the table. “Jie Jie has done everything possible to ensure the car is lucky. She will have no problems on her journey around Australia.”

“You question your mother?” she pressed a hand to her chest, “Your own mother.”

The other me raised her hands from the table.

“I’m not hungry anymore”

“JieJie,” Gege said, “stay, eat”

“let her go, she looks like she has already eaten.” I felt the familiar pinch then. The anger that rose in the other me’s gut. But it didn’t show on her face. She stood, somehow keeping her face calm.

“Jiejie,” Gege tried again as the other me slipped her coat over the clean unblemished skin of her arms and neck. “Jiao, stay.”

Yes stay. Don’t leave, don’t get in the unlucky car. Stay please! I screamed it, but of course she couldn’t hear me.

She turned and the room went black.

With a rush, I was outside, my hand pressed to the door of the red Tesla. Tears bit at my reflection’s eyes. No longer a third party. I took off my coat, anger making me too hot. No, id done this dance before, relived this moment far to many times. A prisoner of my past choices and actions.

“Toss me the keys, ill drive!” I looked up to see Gege running across the lawn towards the car. How many golden boy points had he lost running after me.

Tell him to leave, tell him to go back inside.

“Like I’d ever let you drive my car.” I heard myself saying. Opening the doors with a beep, we both slid in. The car started without a sound. And we pulled into the quiet traffic of upper class suburb.

“I don’t know what mums on about. This car is giving.” He said, fiddling with every button he could reach. I slapped his hands away.

“I’m starving,” I said.

“Drive through?”

“You read my mind.”

“It’s a twin thing,” he shrugged. I smiled at the familiar joke.

Soon the new car smell was glazed with the delectable scent of greasy food, chips and burgers. I drove with one hand, eating fries with the other. The streetlights passed by. We had no destination, just driving under the starry night sky. We passed through the city and drove out towards the hills.

He blew the paper cover of the straw at me.

“What are you twelve?” I said throwing the paper back. It spiralled lamely into my lap.

“Pathetic!” he cried. We were climbing up a steep pass now, cypress trees had been planted along its sides, like tall soldiers guarding the roads edge. In the valley the small city of Perth glittered.

Keep your eyes on the road.

My eyes snapped back. There were no other cars, just a silent moonlit ribbon of pavement.

No that couldn’t be right.

“I love this song,” Gege laughed. He turned the music up and started to sing. So, so, badly. I laughed.

Stop now, pull over, get out of the car.

But I didn’t.

Instead, the music stopped and his voice was the only sound in the silence. The dash blinked, lights dancing on and off.

The wheel wrenched sideways, spinning out of my hands. We drove straight through the flimsy metal barrier and over the edge of a sheer cliff face. The world stopped for a moment. The car suspended in the air, the stars shining above, the ground below. I could almost see the swirl of the wind. Then time came back in a rush.

The car hit the ground, the windshield smashed and it rolled, again and again, until just as suddenly it stopped. A cypress tree cut into the sky to my right

I hung above my brother, lines of fire cut up my arms now coated in red and dripping. The paper of the straw drifted through the cabin in a gentle twirl, landing next to his lips. It didn’t move.

“Gege-“ I tried to say, but I couldn’t get enough air into my chest. A red stain coloured the glass where his head lay.

My bloody hand reached for him, grazing the fabric of his shirt. Leaving blooming roses of red in their wake. Glass glittered in the streaks down my arm. His near black eyes looked grey.

I just needed to get him out of the car, someone would have seen the crash, an ambulance would be coming.

“Gege-“

I saw this every night when I went to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes.

I reached again. My ribs screaming with the stretch.

But this time it was different. As my body laid on the wooden floor and my soul replayed the night, my shadow detached itself from the arm. Glinting with stars like hidden shards of glass. It reached for him too.

Light leaked out of his dull eyes, rising like dust on the wind. It swirled towards me, spiralling up my arm, like a warm breeze. Yellow, like the bright gold of a sunflower.

More and more, gold then blue then white then black, the cabin filled with eddies of colour. An aroura borealis in the cabin of a broken car.

Have you ever had a dream, where you knew you were talking to somone, but they looked different. But in that dream you knew exactly who they were.

This was my brother.

The strokes of light spun out of his eyes, nose and mouth. Leaving his body. Until it was empty. They brushed against my cheek. The shadow of stars tried to grab at the swirls, everywhere he kissed my shadow he left a burning star.

Tendrils curled around the broken window and drifted softly into the night sky.

No, don’t go. Don’t go, don’t go.

Red and blue lights flashed against the cypress tree. But the strokes of paint that were my brother continued to climb. Swirling around the moon. He became part of the stars.

The world rippled. I pulled an agonising breath into my lungs and suddenly I was back on the wooden floor.

Gege hovered around me now, spirals like currents of wind on the night air.

Someone called my name again but I ignored them.

Gege was here.

I lifted my arm and the lights floated around me.

Gege was here.