brothers and sisters, real and imagined

yesterday a half-Canadian madwoman threatened me with walking pneumonia, and this morning i woke thinking of two people:

the first was my brother, who recently recovered from a bout of bronchitis in North Carolina. we spoke at the tail end of his ailment, and i wondered if perhaps i had caught his illness through some sort of bizarre karmic telephonic connection. it seems unlikely, but if i have learned anything from the half-Canadian madwoman (or her spouse), it is that stranger things have happened.

the second thought was of my sister, whose chronic chain-smoking has decimated her lung capacity to approximately the size of two thimbles each. the one exception to this rule is her incomparable, inexhaustible ability to dance until sunrise. i have often wondered about this paradox, and the only plausible solution is that she is, in fact, some manner of mutant go-go girl, transported from the distant future:

my sister, dancer and possible time-traveler

in this future, San Francisco has slid into the sea, Chicago has collapsed into Lake Michigan, and New York has finally been gentrified beyond the point of recognition. it is a dystopia to rival Orwell's, and Baltimore, once shunned for its druggy murderousness, has risen from the ashes to take the mantle of America's sole bastion of hipness.

this is the world of my sister.

this is the world to come.