When I Was Alphie

Chapter Thirteen / Ego Death

Chapter Thirteen / Ego Death

At some point, the secrets rattling inside of me would come pouring out.

It's hard, keeping secrets, hiding parts of you from the people you're surrounded by.

It's easy to lose touch with reality when outside you're called one thing, and internally, you know you're another.

It's hard to disassociate yourself from the facade; the ego folds in on itself into a confusing mess, unable to differentiate between fact and fiction.

Outside I am Alphie: brother, son, successor to a brother I never knew, prone to emotional outbursts, a pretty but sallow boy who needs constant guidance.

Inside I am Anna: daughter, sister, born independent of Christopher's legacy, unable to fulfill the desire and longing of my parents, filled with a tedious naivety towards the way the world will treat her when she reveals her true self.

In the back of the ambulance, I know nothing of who I am in the core of my being or who I am to the people who know me. All I've ever known is the flutter of my eyelashes as my eyelids close, the feeling of a mask engulfing the lower half of my face, the death-like grip of someone clutching my left hand in theirs while they weep. My back is straight, my spine pressing against the plastic padding of a stretcher, my brain rolling as I hear voices around me - too many questions - but make no sense of the language they use.

"Alphie Clause," a shaky voice confirms. "His name is Alphie Clause."

"Birthday?"

"I'm sorry..." the voice is high-pitched with anxiety, a feminine lilt behind the words suggesting the owner doesn't possess an Adam's apple. "I drank...I drank too much. His birthday is the same day as mine, September nineteenth...will he be okay?"

I do remember what it means to be okay: laying naked from the waist down on an examination table, squinting into the blinding fluorescent lights overhead. The doctor was palpating and fondling my genitalia to the point that I felt what lay between my legs was a new species; the shape, development, and appearance needed to be closely documented. "The hormones have done an okay job," the doctor informed me, finger lingering dangerously close to my asshole. "Have you been diligent in taking your Jatenzo daily?" I lied that I had, and the man cradling my inchoate dick let go with another, "Okay."

"He will be okay," a very authoritative voice reassures the frantic one. "He's in shock after his concussion. You kids need to heed the warning labels on medications, when it says don't mix with alcohol, it means don't mix with alcohol."

Who is he?

He?

My consciousness slips; my body deconstructs.

When Christopher was born, he was beautiful. A tuft of blonde hair, blue eyes, perfectly formed fingernails, limbs flailing as soon as he left the womb. He was a baby that took heavily after my mother in appearance, only the male version of her; perhaps this influenced my mother's strong favor towards him and the indescribable loss she felt with his murder.

When It was born, they were beautiful, too. It would learn that despite the ambiguity of their body, the fragility of their mind, and the medical labels they would be given their entire life, that someone would always be able to appreciate them for their obscurity. Perhaps not their mother, who appreciated that they had a strong leaning towards her genes but not the fact that they were neither male nor female, nor their father, who didn't understand why they would not behave like a normal boy. The appreciation would come after the rough undressing preluding sex, while the scribe at a physician's office took notes, as their dearest friend sang them to sleep, and when their brother grinned at them with a sparkle of love in his eyes.