CHAPTER 8 -SIBLINGS
Of Thetans and Victims
My brothers, Pavel and Bryan, were two and three years older. If they had mustard on their sandwiches, I did too, though the sting of it contorted my small face. If they liked matchbox toys, I liked matchbox toys.
The only doll I liked was the one that made them laugh, the one that was my height. I named her the most beautiful name I could think of -Jala. Jala had large pores in her big plastic head, from which plugs of scruffy, sandy hair grew. I dragged her around the house by that hair, her feet thumping up and down stairs, as I looked for my brothers.
PAV
Pavel wasn’t belligerent like other boys. He behaved and did well in school, reading more than he was assigned. He avoided sports, excelled in art, and even made it into the local newspaper with one of his paintings. Mom let Pavel draw with markers on his bedroom walls: first animals, later UFOs.
When we were supposed to be sleeping, Pav and I snuck into the hallway adjoining our rooms and laid on our bellies in front of the humidifier that emitted a moldy smell. In the dim bathroom light, Pavel would distinguish from among a soup of letters —sounds and ideas cohering for me into the little epiphanies that reading is.
