I Am the Ghost Here

It is not until my older brother is thirty-three that I learn he’s controlled by a puppeteer. The truth comes out during a family emergency, when Jeff is unable to summon the puppeteer on short notice and must appear as himself for the first time. I don’t immediately recognize my brother as he hurries through the automatic doors of the hospital. He’s usually an alpha male, a founder who takes big strides and has a deep, booming voice, but this man is impatient, whiny, nervous, twitchy, weird. Normally my brother greets me with a compliment about my appearance. “Looking good, SunnyD,” he’d say. “Really fit. You’ve made some gains?” He’d nicknamed me after the drink I chugged after judo practice as a kid. I am no longer a jock, but the nickname stuck. This man doesn’t use my nickname. He doesn’t greet me at all. He slinks up to me with his head down, like I am unfamiliar, except he is the one who is unfamiliar.

“Is Dad okay?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply. “I’m waiting for an update. Mom’s in the back with him. We should know something in a few hours. Are you okay?”

“Fine, fine,” he says brusquely.

I ask my brother what is going on, why he is so unfriendly. He says that now is not the best time to get into it, that we should focus on my father’s surgery and forget about how weird he is acting. He slumps over in his seat as we wait for news. The hospital is noisy with other emergencies. I hear what sounds like a seizure. I hear the aftermath of surgery, screaming that sounds naked in its timbre. I thought a hospital would have better walls. I hope my father will not be screaming like that when he wakes up from his surgery.

“Remember when Dad accidentally ate one of your magic mushrooms and thought he went