ALECIA
c.r. , Nico Nisen zen

Alicia is a short piece that delves into the maliscious mind of youth. "Now that the spider has lost its home and children, Alecia amputates with scissors." It is a telling portrayal sure to invoke some measure of condemnation and shiftlessness. Reader beware your butt cheeks are planted as you squirm for more and more.

     My sister Alecia is more than just a regular pest. Yesterday she put a hose to the neighbor’s garage, soaking the cardboard boxes, making electric slush of the computer and fax. I thought I saw her smiling, but no she was quite serious taking the task as an important one—she made sure she got everything.
     Alecia likes to be thorough with her victims. She doesn’t just take a leg off a spider. Alecia starts with the web; she takes a stick and swirls it around from the center out. The spider flees his broken home and she catches him in her fingers, lays the spider next to the egg sack, and crushed the sac before the spider can get to it. Now that the spider has lost its home and children, Alecia amputates with scissors. She watches it squirm and try to walk after each leg has been taken off. I think she is monitoring the threshold of pain. Alecia takes mental notes and then returns to work with the thorax and head. Like a good Christian, Alecia lays the spider’s remains to rest. Unfortunately, she often lays them to rest in my own bed.
     Mom says that Alecia just needs more attention than other girls do. Alecia thinks fine. When we were set down to learn chess my sister learned the movements of the pieces right away. Leon told us that the game was a very old one that sometimes kings would play to win land instead of letting their armies kill each other. Alecia learned the grid system and then beat Leon in less than a week. Alecia asked if the winning king, “got to do it” with the losing queen. Leon looked funny. I thought he was choking or something. Leon won’t play chess with us anymore.
     Mom says that she is getting ready for labor. Mom says that labor is a lot of work and that it stretches you all out. I asked her if it was like when the doctor took out my tonsils. Though I was asleep at the time, I sometimes think about him putting a large forceps in my mouth and grabbing them out. I think that my face would be kind of funny looking—worst than Jimmy Ryan when he swelled from a bee sting. Alecia asked if the new baby was going to be a boy or a girl. Mom said that she forgot to ask. “Why don’t you get an ultrasound Carroll?” Alecia likes to call mom by her first name. She thinks that she sounds older. Mom smiled and said that the lord would give them whatever he wanted.
     Sometimes I think that Alecia doesn’t believe in god. She visits my Sunday school often. This morning Alecia was in the corner because she had taken from the offering cup again. When her time was up Alecia became very quiet. Sister Young told us the story of The Prodigal’s Son. Alecia asked how the son was able to get so much money. Sister Young explained that sometimes parents offer and inheritance before they die. She explained that normally when someone dies we get things that remind of us of our love ones so that we can always have them near. I asked if it was like having ashes on a mantle. Sister Young smiled and said “ya, something like that.” I was proud of my offering to the lesson so I looked over at my sister to make sure that she had notice. Alecia was looking far away though. I could almost see her mind spinning over, her eyes taking in the input. I was worried; I had seen this before.
     When we got home from church, Alecia asked “Carroll” where was father (she always called him father). He is in the study dear. Alecia went to the study and closed the door behind her.
     “Mom?”
     “Yes honey…”
     “What’s a ‘in-herri-tance tax?”
     Mom stopped stirring her batter. “Did you hear that from your father?”
     I looked down, “no.”
     Mother looked at me for a moment longer and then returned to the batter, taking the whisk and swirling it faster.
      “Well, let’s see….it’s like….well it’s like now, with your grandma’s passing…”
     I looked in her eyes and she looked away.
     “Anyway like I was saying with your grandma’s passing we have received some money…”
     “Does the money remind you of grandma?”
     Mom looked at me. Her eyebrows winced her mouth hardened.
     “Do you want to hear this or not?!”
I nodded yes. Mom put down the bowl, wiped her hands on her apron and then grabbed me by the shoulders.
     “Sometimes you have to pay a little tax when you get some money. Do you understand?”
     I nodded.
     “In this case the money that is taken away is greater than the money received. Do you understand?”
     I didn’t but nodded anyway.
     Mom searched my face as if to get the words from my mouth and not from hers.
     “Sometimes the debt is very great. (pause) Do you understand?”
     Mom looked away.
     I thought about what mom had said. “So the debt reminds you of Grandma!” I had solved the puzzle.
     Mom told me to go to my room. When I got there Alecia was looking in a GAP catalog. I asked her what she was looking for. She said that all of the fashionable girls went to the GAP. I said that was stupid.
     “What did you talk to father about?”
     Alecia said that it was none of my business.
     “What’s the big secret about anyway?”
     Alecia said that secrets were kept between two people so that others didn’t know. Then she said that I was an ‘other,’ and that she couldn’t tell me.”
     “Fine." “Fine.” She repeated.
     I thought about the situation. I thought about all the times I had kept Alecia’s secrets and how I was always getting in trouble for it. I took the rap for the neighbor’s garage, the stolen money in church, and a lot of the awful things that came out of her mouth. I always kept the secrets. Mom would say that Alecia was an awful girl at times. I would never tell her that it was really my sister. Mom would say that Alecia needs counseling and stuff but would they send her, NO, it was always me that had to sit in that little circle and listen to those other stupid kids. “Mal-formed, Mis-behaven, Insolence, “ I bore the punishment for all that she was and all that she had done.
     I looked at my sister. Alecia looked up from the catalog and glared back.
     “You better tell me your secret or your not going to be invisible anymore.”
     I grabbed her by the neck then twisted and squeezed her gone. It was done. In the search for control we are often losing of ourselves.

Nco
Philipe Nicolini. Enjoys writing about his rural upbringing in California's San Joaquin Valley. Once sold into educational slavery in Tokyo, now rinsing his days in Seattle; Nco works by night. In the night there is calm.