Little Bro

Moving

       Dad had to move out of the office when the announcement came. First, I helped him unplug every last cable from his computers. The winding cords had found their way into nooks and crannies that dad's hands made look like hairline cracks on a sidewalk. Even my fingers struggled to reach one or two cords as I hugged the leg of his desk and reached for the outlet. But we were able to do it after a couple of different body positions. Then he moved the big computer to the spare table in the guest room. The basement still wasn't ready for him to set up his work space.

After that, Sofia helped him undo the desk itself. It wouldn't fit through the doorway even after mom and dad picked it up and turned it three different ways. Every time Sofia saw that desk it must have looked like Legos to her, a simple piece of furniture that anyone with two fingers could dismantle.

When that was finally done, we all made a little train of desk parts down to the basement. I hugged two drawers to my chest, Sofia wielded two long metallic legs, mom clasped the other two legs and the third drawer, and dad carried the long slab of black wood as we descended to the basement. I occasionally looked back to make sure dad was doing okay, but all I could see was a massive, black rectangle bobbing up and down, step by step.

A few days later, after Sofia rebuilt dad's desk faster than I ever finished one of my Legos birthday presents, mom came home with a bright orange bucket. Inside, what looked like small metal spatulas and flat wooden sticks were strewn about with a printed page titled, "Removing Wallpaper". Behind her, Sofia brought in what she called a "steamer". That afternoon, mom bathed the walls of dad's office in hot air, and then dad scraped off the first layer of wall with the small spatulas. I kinda liked the small bundles of roses that used to criss-cross the walls.

After a few weeks, no one really minded the abandoned office anymore. I was too busy watching Disney, mom was studying for work, dad was shoveling snow, and Sofia was busy doing math homework. Sometimes, when dad had to burn some wood in the fireplace and everyone went to the TV room, I snuck away to the office. The smoke and heat didn't reach all the way upstairs into the moon-pale room and neither did the wail of the TV or popping of the wet wood. Instead, my thoughts filled the noiseless space. I heard rain droplets, plopping into small lakes on cracked asphalt; I listened to winds sweeping by my ears, leaving them pink and throbbing; I even felt the harsh hum of an engine, powerful enough to fly. Have you ever been in an empty room before? Sometimes, it fills you with dread, like something lost; sometimes, hope, like something coming; sometimes, nothing at all, like something missing. I can only tell you all that because that room made me feel all three in a way. As I watched frost crawl up the window panes and slurries of snow fly past, I thought about everything that room meant. I couldn't really articulate everything I thought back then, just the really big stuff like my fears, but the room just understood me, it heard and felt my internal humming, shouting, yelling, singing, and hoping, all without ears. Somehow, I felt comfortable in that room, because it didn't really exist yet. Not in the real world at least.

"Migue... wake up" my dad softly said as he gently rocked my head awake.

I moved my arms away from my head and shifted under my blankets.

"Come on and get dressed, there's breakfast downstairs"

I half-mumbled a response as my dad left my bedside to wake up Sofia. He had always woken me up first; I came to believe it was because of how cranky Sofia gets in the morning. I, on the other hand, was an early-to-rise angel.

My metallic bed frame creaked and squeaked incessantly as I turned on my side and arched my back. Tension and blood filled my forearms, back, and legs while I held my first deep breath of the day. After stretching, I kicked aside my duvet and immediately closed my eyes for a few more seconds. No way was I about to begin getting dressed without at least giving my body a chance to acclimate.

A few minutes later, the creaking floorboards at the other end of the hall shot me straight out of bed. I quickly found a pair of jeans and a shirt about trading a dog for my sister. Or is it trading my sister for a dog?