Gypsy

Someday I’ll tell you how I lost my voice, but I’m thinking, not today.

I always knew he had a soft hold on the world from the minute he was born. So I watched over him better than anyone else. Even better than our mother, who loved to tell trash like “A gypsy told me I’d have two children, and one of them will die.” I was sick of hearing that. Who needs to tell people shit like that? For one thing, why say such things! For another, the more you say things, the bigger and harder they become, and the more difficult they are to bring back under control. Anyway, while she was talking shit about gypsy curses, I was watching over him. I was his guardian, his playmate, his best friend, his protector. It was because of him I lost my voice, but I’ll tell you about that another time.

How can you tell if someone has a delicate hold on the world? I don’t know, its a feeling, like they’re floating, like they’re not quite on the ground. Like their body is not dense and thick like other people. I can see through them sometimes. Other people can’t. Some people say sickly and broken people are not long for this earth. But it’s not like that. I’ve seen sick and broken people chained to this place with concrete on top of that!

It was his fault I lost my voice, well, I really shouldn’t say that. Sorry. He wasn’t connected to this place, and that wasn’t my fault either. It was just written that way. Trying to keep him here, was like trying to catch fast flying bugs, or running after someone who is much bigger and faster than you. He stayed longer than I thought he could. His going leaves a hole in me so deep, if I filled it with ink, I couldn’t write enough words in a million lifetimes to use it all up.

—Ossibell