V. M. Kornfeld

Of Senseless Tragedy and the Chlorinated Universe in a Virginian Waterpark V. M. Kornfeld

I filled my mouth with hazelnuts, intent to portion them throughout one long drift around the lazy river. Yet ten-year-old wishes are often short-sighted, and I was lucky to make it an eighth of the way before finishing them. And what is the folly in that? There were always more hazelnuts in the resealable plastic bag, tainted only slightly by our pool water hands, and several collective loose teeth. There were always more hazelnuts and enough time to run—no, to walk just speedily enough that the whistle didn’t get you, even when you chose to run behind the lifeguards' backs, all the way up the ladder to the best waterslide.

Mama has the best CDs. Mixes her friends burned, Danny’s first album, the Black Eyed Peas before they were played at roller rinks and in animated action movies. She slides a mix into the player and life leans back. Chlorine hair and fingers wrinkled from the pool water. The inside of the car is too humid and warm, but better than the rain that drove us away from the water park just ten minutes before, and the heat is sort of like a stuffy hug, annoying, but not on purpose.

I am end-of-day-child-exhaustion as I topple to bed that night, and mama sings a song anyway, probably Sarah Harmer, or "Blackbird" by the Beatles. A bed is shared upstairs; it’s not our house, not really, just visiting, but when we’re here everyone in the house lives here. So we live there all weekend I suppose. Motley

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family. Crammed into not enough square feet. She visits here to visit a bit of her life that happened before I happened, but she shares it with me, because above all, she will give me whatever she can manage. Be it hazelnuts or memory or "Blackbird." Breakfast here means the sugary marshmallow cereal I was never allowed to have, and as much as I want of it. It’s not the colorful kind; it’s the version from the co-op store just a mile away, because this morning is a treat, but why add unnecessary food colorings to it? Legs are still too short to reach the ground fully beneath a mismatched chair, so my toes swivel all by their lonesome on the unfinished, never-to-be-finished floorboards. The boy who was my brother for a moment eats three big bowls of cereal. He never slowed down enough to let getting tall catch up, much more concerned with cereal than he was with being lean. Brother for a moment was the first person to show me how to steal snacks from a vending machine when nobody’s looking. He uses a strong arm and a curved stick to knock Twizzlers off the second rack, and I am forever more fascinated by taking without consequence. Mama refuses to refer to him in the past tense. The last boy I knew was the one at the waterpark, who ran too fast and got whistled at by pool guards. And he was big, but still small, in the sense that even big little boys are small. And in my head he’s still just a big little boy, with a penchant for free Twizzlers and sugar cereal. And in my mama’s head he’s probably still covered in flowers in the densely packed earth. And his own mama is still crying like she forgot how to not

cry.

And the time in between never did happen for me. And he is still the big little waterpark boy, but all boxed up now and covered in flowers. And his own mama doesn’t have

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to worry about him any more, and yet she’ll have to worry in a different way until the day she is covered in flowers as well.

I am nothing, if not the child who filled a small mouth with hazelnuts one day at the waterpark, and sugar cereal the next. And I am nothing if not my mother's son, and I refuse to refer to him in the past tense. What is a past tense worth, if we’re both still kids at a waterpark, which we always will be, one running and one walking as fast as I could. One stealing and one watching in awe. One eating three bowls of cereal and one eating two. I am no more real now than he was back then.

And the day is still exhausting. And the car ride home is still so warm. And we are brothers for a moment. And forever.

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