[original] the freeways go coast to coast.
You are a runner and I am my father’s son.
31-days
pajarros de paraiso
or
birds of paradise
He lets his arm hang out of the Calais, his fingers running over the smooth paint on the door. Elena glances over and tells him he's going to get his hand ripped off like that. Her voice is an echo of their mother's and he has to hide a wince in a sneeze.
-Mira! Now you're sneezing all over the place. Stop being an animal and close your damn window, she said, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow prettily. Alejandro figured the reason Ismene and Elena had always argued so much was because Ismene had figured out Elena looked her best angry.
Alejandro doesn't take demands well, especially from bossy Latino women, so he completely disregards her and instead wipes his nose on his sleeve. He doesn't need to look at his sister in the passenger seat to know she's turning up her nose at what she views as a revolting, savage act. As if she hasn't seen far worse done by better people.
Through the rear view mirror he can see the top of his brother's head as its slumped over a dufflebag.
The road was long and winding, and he couldn't help but squint at distance, blurry point in the horizon, wondering whose door they were heading toward. They weren't alone, as the haunting voices of the dead trailed behind them, always. Mirta's menacing nagging hung off Elena's lips, the tattoo memory of genetics. Ismene lurked in the closed doors inside Elena's chest, taking up an entire room of the four Elena had available.
His thumb changed the radio station.
-& the thing that freaks me out, is i'll always be in doubt. it's the animal instinct in me.
Who could say what ghosts were clinging to Oscar, but Alejandro was fully aware of his own demons.
The gravel in the voice, the lilt of a foreign tongue. Too young to understand all the stereotypes this man perpetuated, too young to realize this was the only person he would ever use as a role model. -Papi, his own high-pitched throat had chirpped, Papi, otra vez. Otra historia.
His father was a big man, a thick man with a perpetual fuzzy caterpillar over his lip. There was no separation between his two eyebrows, and his gaze was serious but alive, unless there was alcohol around to deaden them. His dark eyes would look down, and his heavy hand would fall on Alejandro's head.
-Bueno, si. Que quieres oír hoy?
His father had not been granted any great abilities or skills, and had never had anything handed to him, if one didn't count his children. He'd built the world they would grow up in with his bare hands, working until his little clockwork body could no longer hack it, and it jammed.
They were all precocious children, and luckily for Elena, she was the sharpest of all of them, and rather than be overshadowed by her older brothers, she towered over them. Neither Alejandro nor Oscar had any particular inclination to look toward the higher forms of education. Alejandro was more interested in building things, in his own delights and the alluring scent between a woman's legs. Oscar liked books, but not studying. They each went from there.
Elena aimed so much higher, and Mirta latched on to that, maybe a little too intensely. She put so much of her heart into her daughter's success, that to see her shatter those dreams, that future long shaped within her mind's eye...it tore her to shreds. Their sister never witnessed it firsthand, as she was too busy gallivanting off with her new girlfriend and whatever distractions that woman afforded her.
It distracts him to remember, as if his mind is readying his hands for the same sort of swerving he was already doing down memory lane. But he can't get the images out of his brain, another batch of ink carved into his brain with a needle.
His mother cried a lot after Elena left home, and she talked to her sons more than she had in their entire lives.
-Do I deserve this?
-No, mama. No, of course not. Claro que no.
-Then why? ¿Porque me dio Dios ésta niña? Is this a challenge? I don't...I cannot understand it. Was I blind?
-No, mama. Elena...we didn't know either.
For their younger sister, there was always somewhere else. She couldn't be where she was, and not imagine somewhere better. Her feet would tap impatiently, until she could move on, and settle for a month or two before growing impatient with the strange rituals and habits of the native creatures there.
In her gypsy blood seemed to flow, maybe so watered down that it only came to the surface once every fifth or sixth generation. It would explain a lot, including Elena's proclivity toward the unnatural, as well as how she could always have dirt underneath her fingernails.
Elena changed the radio station, jolting Alejandro back to the modern era, where the brisk spring air began to reek of manure. They were passing farms, the fielding running outward seemingly endless. Elena changed it again, and again, until she settled on a song she found satisfactory. She settled into the seat, shuffling for a minute until she managed to make herself comfortable.
Her dark eyes turned to Alejandro, and he could feel them on him. He waited, his hands loose again on the steering wheel.
-Alejandro, tell me a story?
He paused, his mouth ready to smile and yet finding the situation too ironic and tragic in order to complete the expression.
-Alright, yeah. What do you want to hear?
31-days
pajarros de paraiso
or
birds of paradise
He lets his arm hang out of the Calais, his fingers running over the smooth paint on the door. Elena glances over and tells him he's going to get his hand ripped off like that. Her voice is an echo of their mother's and he has to hide a wince in a sneeze.
-Mira! Now you're sneezing all over the place. Stop being an animal and close your damn window, she said, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow prettily. Alejandro figured the reason Ismene and Elena had always argued so much was because Ismene had figured out Elena looked her best angry.
Alejandro doesn't take demands well, especially from bossy Latino women, so he completely disregards her and instead wipes his nose on his sleeve. He doesn't need to look at his sister in the passenger seat to know she's turning up her nose at what she views as a revolting, savage act. As if she hasn't seen far worse done by better people.
Through the rear view mirror he can see the top of his brother's head as its slumped over a dufflebag.
The road was long and winding, and he couldn't help but squint at distance, blurry point in the horizon, wondering whose door they were heading toward. They weren't alone, as the haunting voices of the dead trailed behind them, always. Mirta's menacing nagging hung off Elena's lips, the tattoo memory of genetics. Ismene lurked in the closed doors inside Elena's chest, taking up an entire room of the four Elena had available.
His thumb changed the radio station.
-& the thing that freaks me out, is i'll always be in doubt. it's the animal instinct in me.
Who could say what ghosts were clinging to Oscar, but Alejandro was fully aware of his own demons.
The gravel in the voice, the lilt of a foreign tongue. Too young to understand all the stereotypes this man perpetuated, too young to realize this was the only person he would ever use as a role model. -Papi, his own high-pitched throat had chirpped, Papi, otra vez. Otra historia.
His father was a big man, a thick man with a perpetual fuzzy caterpillar over his lip. There was no separation between his two eyebrows, and his gaze was serious but alive, unless there was alcohol around to deaden them. His dark eyes would look down, and his heavy hand would fall on Alejandro's head.
-Bueno, si. Que quieres oír hoy?
His father had not been granted any great abilities or skills, and had never had anything handed to him, if one didn't count his children. He'd built the world they would grow up in with his bare hands, working until his little clockwork body could no longer hack it, and it jammed.
They were all precocious children, and luckily for Elena, she was the sharpest of all of them, and rather than be overshadowed by her older brothers, she towered over them. Neither Alejandro nor Oscar had any particular inclination to look toward the higher forms of education. Alejandro was more interested in building things, in his own delights and the alluring scent between a woman's legs. Oscar liked books, but not studying. They each went from there.
Elena aimed so much higher, and Mirta latched on to that, maybe a little too intensely. She put so much of her heart into her daughter's success, that to see her shatter those dreams, that future long shaped within her mind's eye...it tore her to shreds. Their sister never witnessed it firsthand, as she was too busy gallivanting off with her new girlfriend and whatever distractions that woman afforded her.
It distracts him to remember, as if his mind is readying his hands for the same sort of swerving he was already doing down memory lane. But he can't get the images out of his brain, another batch of ink carved into his brain with a needle.
His mother cried a lot after Elena left home, and she talked to her sons more than she had in their entire lives.
-Do I deserve this?
-No, mama. No, of course not. Claro que no.
-Then why? ¿Porque me dio Dios ésta niña? Is this a challenge? I don't...I cannot understand it. Was I blind?
-No, mama. Elena...we didn't know either.
For their younger sister, there was always somewhere else. She couldn't be where she was, and not imagine somewhere better. Her feet would tap impatiently, until she could move on, and settle for a month or two before growing impatient with the strange rituals and habits of the native creatures there.
In her gypsy blood seemed to flow, maybe so watered down that it only came to the surface once every fifth or sixth generation. It would explain a lot, including Elena's proclivity toward the unnatural, as well as how she could always have dirt underneath her fingernails.
Elena changed the radio station, jolting Alejandro back to the modern era, where the brisk spring air began to reek of manure. They were passing farms, the fielding running outward seemingly endless. Elena changed it again, and again, until she settled on a song she found satisfactory. She settled into the seat, shuffling for a minute until she managed to make herself comfortable.
Her dark eyes turned to Alejandro, and he could feel them on him. He waited, his hands loose again on the steering wheel.
-Alejandro, tell me a story?
He paused, his mouth ready to smile and yet finding the situation too ironic and tragic in order to complete the expression.
-Alright, yeah. What do you want to hear?