Sister Dearest

     A scream tears through the room, leaving us vey nearly deaf in its wake. Almost drunkenly, my sister stumbles out of the tiny bathroom and into the nearly as tiny cabin room, already occupied by my mother and I. There's blood. Sister dear looks crazed, with wet, uncombed hair decorating her shoulders, and little else, standing naked and oblivious to the growing puddle the dripping is creating about her ankles. She repeats, "there's blood," and holds up a towel, still edged with creases from being folded on the rack, and true to her word, stained with ripples of deep red.

     Generally, we are simply amused by her, taking in her antics with gentle smiles, waiting to see what she does next. This time, all amusement is drained and replaced by silent shock. The blood blossoms through the damp terrycloth as the recent shower drips in the background. We all hang in terrified confused silence.

     "Are you bleeding?" An obvious first question, but one that has eluded us in its simplicity, my mother's the first to grab hold of the situation. Eager to hand control to someone else, my sister drops the towel and spreads her arms in display. It flutters to the floor, creating peppermint stripes of red and white. Her nakedness is displayed to validate her sanity; free of any cuts, gashes, or wounds of any kind. Still, we refuse to believe it, hoping to pin the accident on an owner, but the unclaimed blood screams up at us from its heap on the floor. We three stare at each other, looking from person to person for answers none of us know. From the next room, my father remains unfazed by the overheard scene my sisters created, suggesting, "Your nose?"

     "No," she protests, as she pushes both index fingers into nostrils to prove it. She removes them, and there's a moment before she notices the blood now covering them. She explodes into laughter, screaming, "Nosebleed!" and reclaims the towel, returning to the bathroom with her bloody nose. She's gone in a whirlwind, sweeping up all the terror that has settled into the room, and leaving me completely enraptured and still confused, spinning in the dust of her nonsense. Nothing new.