From my earliest memories, my sister kept notes.
Rarely longer than a few sentences, these would be carefully folded into smaller squares and stashed, like a squirrel might bury a nut. She would tuck them into pockets in coats and pants; she would slide them under statuettes on her mantelpiece; she would sandwich them between the pages of books. She kept an army of them under her mattress.
I liked to follow her when she went shopping, oddly enough. I had very little interest in the world of teen girls' fashion, but if you followed Heather, she would always be shedding notes. They fluttered from her purse when she dug in it for her credit card. Once I even saw one brush out of her hair. She never seemed to notice her lost notes.
I can't promise that I read them all, but I read as many as I could find. I waited until she left the house, and then embarked on extensive hunts. I even knew about the one sewn into her pastel stuffed bear.
What, you may ask, could interest a little boy so much in the thoughts of his sister?
Mystery, fantasy, the grotesque, the sexual, love, hate, -- wonder.
I still have a small collection of these pilfered notes. I keep them carefully bound in an album which I have even hidden from past wives. I will share a handful of them with you:
Father put his teeth on me. I'm lying. Fishsticks for lunch.
Algebra makes my brain itch. Numbers burrow into my skin. Everything but 0 and 8 has sharp little points.
Mother worrying is the ugliest color in the world.
The moon looks like it wants a good punch in the face.
Do not put a popsicle in your vagina. Bad idea. Not fun
i can hear religion dying
I long to be covered in jellyfish
squish squish squish
And my favorite:
i am certain nobody will ever love me i dont love me mom doesnt love me even my dumb little brother doesnt love me so i will bury myself in popcorn suicide by popcorn goodbye nasty word monster
This last may seem amusing, but Heather really did commit suicide, albeit by drowning. She was 17 years old.
I find her still in these notes, and take solace there, for I've never stopped loving her. If only she had known that her dumb little brother hinged on her every written word (nothing like the spoken words, which were all posturing high school slang). That when he reached a certain age, he thought of her while...
But now I know how to honor her memory. The secret is here: "goodbye nasty word monster." For whatever reason, Heather felt compelled to write these notes, rather than expressing her true thoughts to anyone. I have begun writing notes of my own.
In fact, I can't seem to stop. This is my 114th page today. I suppose I haven't eaten since Monday, and it's...now midnight on Thursday.
Should I stop? But I must not. My limbs are weak. Is this dread how she felt? Is 73 too young? I can see you now.
I can't describe it. A dark pull. A paper friend. A monster, howling for more.