Twister

by Sarp Sozdinler

Hands twirling, limbs afloat. Palms pressing against colored circles. Giggles ejecting our throats at intervals. The stomach acid ​s​urging up, clogging our windpipes. The survival of the fittest. We looked like a human caterpillar. Dad always loved that phrase, he spent his life looking for ways to use it in a sentence. We didn’t care much about language back then. Our laughter substituted our words, the shapeless smoke of our blunts the syllables. We did everything to hide ourselves from the outside world. Hide our feelings. We feigned new smiles with old teeth. We built a fort with couch pillows. We lined along the wall in Dad’s darkroom and said cheese to the camera. We went back to our rooms after dinner and played dead. We played Twister. We played charades. All until one day my big sister announced she was pregnant through a pantomime of her hands. Everyone froze. We held our breaths. We looked at each other to avoid looking at the door. Dad, more a weight than a presence on the other side. Accruing shadows in all the right corners. Ear against the door, sipping his wine. Watching over us like a little god.

Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, Fractured Lit, and Maudlin House, among other journals. His stories have been selected or nominated for anthologies, including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Wigleaf Top 50. He’s currently at work on his first novel in Philadelphia and Amsterdam.