BILLIONS OF WAYS ELIZABETH O’BRIEN
My sister, Sil, she can frazzle me like nobody else: whining how the comet shimmer tails are blinding, or my corona’s too too hot. She thinks the ones on Blue love her better than me, ‘cause she’s cool silver and (to hear her) that’s superior to hot hot gold. I’m like fire, I say to her, which those little ones knows is a big deal; they danced and threw their hands up when they first got a blaze going to roast on. So let it go, little girl, let it go. She says she’s made of lightning, but come on, when do you hear the little ones thrill over lightning? They screech like dustfields and dive for cover and damned if they shouldn’t; one good crackle burns them to bits. She frazzles me good, little Silver; and you want to know the truth, it’s just as much her fault what happened as mine. Pop used to say, Let it go, be nice to her. He’d remind me that she’s the little one. And I know he’s right, and I try. Oh, do I try. Sometimes I can tune her out; I like to watch the ones on Blue, the way they swarm the green and slipper the blue just at the edges. Funny to hear them figure things out; so much they figure so wrong. They think Pop made their oh-so-blue Rock all at once. Ha! That’s not how it happened, things flying from Pop’s hands fully formed, no! He mashed out a hunk of warm rock and then brewed a thick stew to pour on it, and he said to me and Sil, You keep an eye. Left Sil and I to light up the Blue: Sil on one side and me on the other, and the Blue spinning slow in between us. Then off he went mashing out more lumpy rocks, saying, this one I called Red, this one I call Purple, and so on. He swirled gassy trails and sped off to start new galaxies, with this one not even done yet. He’s been gone since—who knows where—leaving us alone in the empty sky. For the longest time it was just me and Sil and 78
Berkeley Fiction Review
