The Wicked Sister

My brother always reminds me of the cartoon I no longer watch. Here’s how the story of the cartoon goes. There is this new pet dog which comes home and does things to get all the love from the owner until one day the old pet dog leaves the house. It’s supposed to be a comedy show, but I’ve never found it funny. Mommy finds it funny; daddy finds it funny; but I don’t. I’m always angry with the new pet dog.

My brother has this round face; so round that if I pluck his head out, I can even draw a perfect circle on the paper out of it. He also has these big black eyes just like the marbles I use to crush the insects with and the soft pink lips which might never have touched anything other than my mommy’s chest (Yes, that’s where his face is buried always). I wish I was this beautiful. Mommy once told me I was like him when I was a baby. Round face, soft lips and big eyes. But now, as a ten-year-old, all I have is a small, oval, ugly face with pigtails at the back of my head. That’s the only hairstyle I know to braid.

I look at him now. Sleeping in the crib which looks like a small cage, wearing a white romper with full of small candy prints on it, he is a beauty - his round belly raising up and down and up and down and up and down, eyes shut (although I can picture those big marble-like eyes inside his eyelids), fists half closed, legs angled inward, face turned to one side, his cheek gently resting on the soft cushioned pink sheets. His cheeks. Look at his cheeks. So puffed out. I’ve always wanted to plant gentle kisses on them. Or I could even cut them into pieces just like the cake I had on my last birthday. It tasted good. How about his cheeks? Do they taste good too? I imagine the dripping blood, his blood, on my hands and on my lips and even on my teeth. Oh, I will look like the girl with the red lipstick from the killer movie which I watched yesterday on the orphaned smart mobile. It’s always readily available on the coffee table in the living room.

Daddy knows I use the mobile phone, but never said anything.

Mommy doesn’t even know I operate it. I giggle. The only sound which echoed across the small room. I must admit. It sounded so eerie.

I cup my hands over my mouth, stifling the sound and glance at the silhouette of my mommy who lies on the bed nearby. The yellow sodium light from the street outside squeeze through the sole window and illuminates the room mildly. She doesn’t move. I know she won’t.

Good. I look back at my brother, whose face glistens midst the darkness around him. I bring the knife I’ve been holding for a long time on the other hand to his face and stroke his defenseless cheek gently with the sharp edge. I haven’t cut the cheek yet, but a slim red stroke appears on it. I tilt my head and smile. I slowly poke now, the point of the knife digging into the soft flesh, inch after an inch.

The idea of killing my little brother popped into my head only a few days back when I stumbled upon a cartoon called ‘The little pest’. A 1930s classic cartoon. A good one. Definitely a good one. Here’s how the story goes. There’s this guy called scrappy. Angry scrappy. And this fellow, his brother. Annoying brother. Just like my little one. Scrappy tries to go fishing with his dog, but his brother tries to come along. Scrappy doesn’t like that, but this little fellow keeps following him. Scrappy shouts at him, pushes him and even punches him and he falls a few feet away (Now, this is the funniest part. I always laugh until tears roll down my cheeks whenever I watch this scene). At one point, when he is totally fed up, scrappy throws his brother into the water and he walks away while his little brother cries for help. I paused there.

I would always pause there. I’ve watched that cartoon a countless number of times since then, almost every night and I would always stop there and imagine killing my brother in all possible ways.

Choke his slender throat? No, I don’t even know if he ever has a neck. It’s always like his chest right after his chin.

Push him into the water? No, I don’t want to be Scrappy.

Beat him to death? No, I will be bored.

Dump him in the useless cupboard at the storeroom? No, I can’t see him die.

Smash his pot like head with the black suitcase my daddy carries to office? No, it’ll be a mess.

Prick his eyes with the compass I have in my geometry box and bleed him to death? No, I would prick myself with that.

Gouge out his eyes, my favorite ones, from the sockets and slit his throat with the kitchen knife? Now, that’s what I am looking for. So simple. So elegant.

And then, I would giggle and watch again from the start.

But that was only a few days back.

It was actually a year back when I saw my little brother for the first time. He looked so ugly then. So small and messy, wrapped in layers and layers of soft clothes, all pink and blue. When mommy, daddy and he came home(Mommy told me he came from her stomach just like I did, but I never believed her), I did not know what I should do with him. Daddy told I got a brother and

I could play with him and it would be fun, only it wasn’t. I tried to play with him, but he could not even stand on his own legs. So, I dragged him out once and left him on the street when I was so bored and fed up with him. What was I supposed to do with the brother who couldn’t even walk, let alone run and play?

That night, both mommy and daddy hit me with the belt, iron-buckled, a dozen times and left me in the living room just like how I left my brother on the street. They never told me what I did and why I was punished. All I imagined then was how my little brother would've complained to my parents.

After that night, I was given a separate room upstairs. Daddy told me I was a big girl now and I should sleep alone. I thought it would be fun. For the first few days, they let me in when I knocked their (once mine as well) bedroom door crying in the middle of the night. But soon, they stopped opening the door. They just pretended they did not hear me. I know that because I saw for myself when I peeked inside through the keyhole. For some reason, daddy was on top of mommy while my little brother cried in the same cage-like crib at the corner.

I kicked the door, punched hard on the wood, screamed, shouted. I wanted to tell daddy I did not want to be a big girl anymore. I wanted to be the same small girl who sleeps with her mommy and daddy, cuddling them, just like the normal girls do, who don’t have any little brothers to hate. But none heard me midst the cry of my little brother.

From then on, day times were worse. In the mornings, I would cry, beg, tell daddy I was not able to sleep, tell him an old lady would always stare at my window, standing on the middle of the road for hours and hours. Daddy would come and check outside and tell there was nothing and I should be a brave girl. He would then scuffle my hair and go for the job. Mommy never asked me what happened ever.

Daddy was the one who would help me in getting ready, sometimes smiling, most of the times hitting and slapping and pinching and twisting my ears, my arms, my butt and sometimes even my inner thighs. He would drop me at the school where I never had friends. No students sat with me at the desk. No teachers asked them why. Some called me a garbage as I stunk and looked like one and some called me a devil as I had red eyes. I hit eighteen girls, tore a dozen shirts of boys of twice my height and even managed to pull down my teachers’ sarees a couple of times just because I thought it would be fun. Daddy had to come to school thrice for my in-disciplinary actions.

In the evenings, after I came home, only mommy would be at home, taking care of my little brother who always cried and peed and slept on her shoulders, his arms wrapped around her neck, his legs dangling down near her slender hips and she would ask me to do my homework. She has never sat with me, so I had to do the homework for myself, scribbled the words ‘karing’ and

‘afecsion’, did the math ‘5+2=8’ and ‘9*9=99’.

Every day, I would wait for daddy to come home, but he always came home late with wobbling legs and sweaty shirt, went straight to his room stinking. I would never see him until the next morning. One night, I still remember, I heard daddy shouting at mommy when I was looking at the same old woman in the street staring at me. I kind of got used to her. Daddy opened my bedroom door, came in and told he would sleep with me that night. I smiled, actually elated, and left him most of the space in my crumpled bed.

That was one of the few nights I slept peacefully. I did not see the old woman and I did not hear any voices. After ages, I woke up only in the morning, only after the sunlight hit my face. When I sat up and looked around, daddy was no longer there. I wanted daddy to sleep beside me every day. And I thought I found a way. All I had to do was to make daddy angry with mommy and he would eventually come to my room to sleep beside me. I tore away some files which daddy thought were important, broke his iPhone twice and put the blame on mommy and even mixed a fistful of salt or chili powder, whichever came to my hands first, with the lunch mommy prepared for him. As expected, as planned, the fight broke out every day, but he never came to my room anymore. Instead, he went out even in the nights and never came back until the next morning.

Mommy never cared.

I cried. And the old woman started visiting me again and my sleepless nights came along with her.

Soon, I stopped crying and spent most of the nights watching cartoons and movies, mostly horror, sometimes thriller on the smartphone which no one bothered to touch. I learned to browse and stream movies online and sometimes, I ended up watching movies with men and women with no clothes doing something which I never understood. When I got bored, I would even try to talk to the old woman who never replied. It was only in one of these nights, I happened to watch that old cartoon which injected the idea of killing my brother. But yesterday night was different. Something happened interestingly. I was in the kitchen, searching for the kitchen knife when a small black insect bit my arm. I don’t know what insect was that, but it was just back and ugly and I did not like it. It flew and landed on my thigh this time. I could not take this thing anymore. I slapped hard, it’s teeny tiny body crushed partially between my thigh and the palm. It did not die. That was what I wanted. I dropped him on the slab nearby, plucked off his legs one by one, then his flapping wings and then at last his head from the body. I smiled, brushed his body parts away, resumed searching for the knife when another insect flew over my face. I was annoyed. I killed him too. And then came another. And another. I was fed up. I knew killing one by one would only be a waste of time. No matter how much I killed, it kept coming. I looked around and at the far end, at one corner of the window, I saw the nest of the insects. I abandoned my little mission of getting the kitchen knife and embarked on the new mission of destroying the nest. I snatched a hit spray from the shelf and squeezed the entire bottle out, spraying straight onto the nest until I watched the insects falling one by one. I did not stop. I knew where the kerosene was. I snatched the can, sprinkled some kerosene on the already dead nest and set it ablaze until it was nothing. That was when the strange thought hit me. What if my brother was like one of these dead insects? What would I do if another brother like him came out of my mommy later? That was when I took the decision.

My little brother wakes up. I stop digging the flesh midway and blink at him. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he blinks at me back with the same marble eyes and smacks his lips. He then yawns, stretching his arms a bit, eyes closed and looks at me again while I gently pull the knife out, leaving a tiny crevice on his soft cheek. Here you go, I’ve given you the dimple, my little brother. He giggles as if he hears what I think in my mind. Or does he think everything happening here is a joke, that I am a joke? It doesn’t agitate me. It only calms me. I know what to do with this fellow. I drop the knife on the pick sheets, slide my hands under his armpits and hoist him up. He wiggles his legs and starts crying. He is a bit heavier than I anticipated and I land him on my hips. I have to leave this room as soon as possible. I look around for one last time, jog to the door which is already ajar, go out, close it behind me and climb upstairs to my room. Upstairs, I open up my bedroom door and go inside. I smell urine and something rotten. I don’t mind. I close the door behind me, shut tight, clasp the double locks and look around. The same sodium light from the street struggles to cast some light inside the room but only fails. I walk to my bed, kicking away the only Barbie doll I have, with one-eyed, half shaved hair and gently lay my brother on my bed. Phew! Relief. I glance out the window, where I still see the same old woman, this time a little closer, draw the curtains and slid beside my little brother who is still crying. I shoo him, pat on his chest, belly, but nothing seem to stop him crying. I know what to do. I remember now. Mommy does that to stop him crying. If Mommy can do, I can do too. I sit bolt upright, remove my favorite red frock over my head, throw it somewhere near the door and lie beside him again. I roll on my sides, grab at the back of his skull, so small and tiny and press him towards my chest. “Shhh. Mommy doesn’t come anymore. Now be a good boy and sleep.” I whisper, thinking about my dead mommy downstairs. I don’t know if he has stopped crying, but I am sure I don't hear anything. That relieves me and I let myself sleep after a long time.