Open Again

First Place, Nightwriters 500-word short story competition, 1995

This annual competition strictly limits authors to 500 words and requires that every entrant begin with the same sentence. In 1996, the opening line was “I’ll never sleep in the open again.”

“I’ll never sleep in the open again,” Daniel said. “No more beautiful night sky.  Makes me sad.”

I wanted to yell, “Screw your damn night sky!”  But I didn’t.  Instead I struggled to focus on our old basketball hoop visible through Daniel’s bedroom window.  I refused to look at his IV tubes, his ravaged body.

My twin and I, we made an odd pair.  Daniel had always been muscular, classically handsome, and vaguely effeminate.  I had been a short, plain, often awkward tomboy.  He was sweet, generous, and unaggressive.  I was brash, competitive, even combative.  I preferred pavement and crowds; Daniel loved nature and solitude.  I wasn’t sure anymore what we shared.

I clenched Daniel’s hand, willing my health into him.  I’d always been the strong one.  As kids I’d given him a kidney.  Why couldn’t I give him something now?

My gut churned, so I said, “Remember fourth grade, when I beat up Bobby Peterson for calling you a faggot?”

“Sure.  You still slug people for telling the truth?”

More churning.  “Remember how I always dragged you outside to play basketball?”

“Incredibly boring.”  Daniel paused.  “But I liked your play-by-play.”

“‘Marvelous Martha’ dribbles right, gets a screen from the green Ford, executes a perfect give-and-go against the fence and drives by ‘Dapper Dan.’  The crowd roars!”

I stopped.  Daniel’s eyes smiled, then shut.

“Martha, let go.”  Dan’s breathing reached a quiet rhythm.  Another wave of anger, then panic, washed over me.  I couldn’t listen.  I stepped outside.

The porch screen door slapped quietly behind me.  Moonlight splashed eerily over the warm summer night.  Through long shadows of dead apricot trees I again spotted our old hoop.

My mind began announcing again: “Two seconds left.  We’re down by one.  Martha pulls up to shoot.  Time’s running–“

Suddenly something snapped.  I ran back inside.  Daniel had already disconnected his tubes.  I scooped up my weightless twin and eased us out into the open, through climbing-tree and apricot ghosts, down to the dirt court.  I sank down against the metal pole and maneuvered Daniel onto my lap.

He said, “Do the play-by-play, OK?”  But he dozed off again, so I waited.

I imagined myself playing; I wished myself into Daniel’s body.  I became large and well-muscled.  In his giant body I posted up, my broad back to the basket.  I grabbed the ball, protecting it with sharp elbows raised.  No one dare reach in.  I whirled, pivoting first left, then right; my elbows crashed, smashing through the endless line of cruel children, spraying blood from lips and noses.  Then I sprang, feeling each leg muscle’s coil and release.  I rose, higher, higher, sinewy arms extending.  In fury I found the rim and slashed the ball through.

Gently my feet floated back to earth, my heart bursting.  My body was mine again: small, plain, suddenly soft.  I heard someone weeping.  Daniel was more than quiet.  I clasped his cooling body tightly to me.