Family

The cleft in the chin is supposed to show sexual prowess or prolific sexual activity of something. I have it, so does my father but somehow I can’t think of him through that lens, until I came across a picture of his youth on a domicile document (I have a choice of domicile, I can either make it Punjabi or Sindhi because I was born in Karachi, however all the other provinces seem to be short changed in almost all the quota systems from employment to scholarships so I’m thinking Punjabi may actually be the best way to go. I feel like I’ve betrayed something or someone by doing that) and he looked like an Italian mafia man, I kid you not. I can’t slot my gentle, dignified father into that image that actually seems to exude more of me NOW. Freaky. He looks exactly as I do in pictures, as if he’s just going to slap someone senseless or has just come from doing exactly that. It’s fantastic the grotesque transformation losing your only brother can wring on you, how much of your soul and life must be invested in your sibling for that to happen. You know what I’ve just remembered? How is class five at the Convent we were talking in the shade of some tree and I asked my best friend then (and surprisingly still here, I think I mentioned flying down for her wedding a couple of months ago) if there was anyone in her family she would give up her life for. She said her mother. By that time a couple of other ittle ones had also come by and were solemnly debating the question. Another girl said her father because she hated her stepmother (she used to tell us stuff like how her stepmother ate the maid’s children in the night and we used to listen earnestly and sympathize and never visit her house, I’m very disturbed now, I wonder where she is). Most people said their mothers and I stood there picturing gory scenes of death for my family members and didn’t feel moved to come in front of a bullet for anyone except my brother. I think that continued quite till I came to my teens. I used to throw famous hissy fits anytime my parents thought about sending him away to boarding school. Well we thought we were twins for a very long time and thought we had super powers because of it so maybe I was just worried about losing my powers. I’m not sure about the reason anymore but I still feel myself heckling and putting out claws the second I think he has been wronged. I can’t do anything about it anymore because he’d claw me to pieces but I like to think worrying helps intangible forces in the universe move for him.