Of Scheming Siblings, Wrathful Wishes, and Catastrophic Consequences

The flames flickered, the wax dripped, and the icing melted on my birthday cupcake as I sat all alone in a rundown cafe, scoffing bitterly as I wished myself a wonderful year ahead.

My parents, for what seemed like the thousandth time now, had proven their preference for my simpering suck-up of a sister yet again. Ever since my mother had given birth to the little devil, she and my father had shoved me aside like an outgrown, unwanted piece of clothing. While they bought my baby sister Emma brand-new rompers and frocks, I was forced into second-hand garments. While they drove Emma to preschool every morning, I travelled the five kilometres to school on a rickety old cycle. While Emma was showered with attention and affection, I was ignored, dismissed, told that I was “far too old to expect constant entertainment”. For five years now, I’d watched, helpless, as the scheming shrew usurped my position in my family.

But today, I decided, it had gone too far. It was my fifteenth birthday, and my parents had taken my sister out to a Build-A-Bear workshop, forgetting to wish me a good morning, let alone a joyful birthday. The situation would be ridiculous if it weren’t so devastating.

I checked my watch - it was eleven o’clock, the exact time I had come into existence fifteen years ago. Then, I blew out the candles on the sugary confection in front of me, and wished with all my might for Emma to disappear - to go somewhere far, far away and never come back.

After hours of silently stewing in my misery, I paid my bill, left the restaurant, and strolled down the street towards my neighbourhood. My parents were probably back home by now, taking an endless stream of photographs of “the lovely little darling” as she messed around with another new toy. I wondered if they would even notice my return.

When I entered the house, however, it was empty. Perplexed, I called out for my parents, but received no response. Whatever could be keeping them out so long? It had been more than three hours since they’d left, and they still weren’t back. I phoned both of them, but to no avail. Eventually, I flopped down onto a sofa beside the window and peered out every few minutes, hoping to catch sight of their car pulling into the driveway. Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of an automobile driving down the narrow street leading up to our gate. I bolted outside, desperate to see my family. But to my shock and horror, the vehicle reversing into our drive was not my mother’s cherry red mustang. It was a police car.

A willowy woman in a cop’s uniform approached me warily. “Are you Mr. Gardner?” She enquired. I nodded, too nervous to form words. “Well then,” she responded, “I’m going to need you to come with me.” I followed her into the police car, terrified. “What’s going on?” I asked, as soon as I had found my voice again. “I think it’s best you hear it from your parents, dear,” the woman replied sympathetically. But why was she sympathetic? Was there something for her to be sympathetic about? What could have happened that called for her sympathy?

The drive to the police station seemed to last years, although realistically, I knew it was an hour at most. I chewed on my nails, tugged at my hair and fidgeted in my seat all the way. When we finally reached the precinct, I darted out of the car, not bothering to wait for the policewoman to follow me. I had to know what had ensued, right away.

The receptionist, taking in my frenzied appearance, wordlessly showed me into a lounge decked with colourful curtains and flamboyant cushions. In direct contrast with the general cheeriness of the atmosphere were my parents, huddled together on a couch as if they’d seen a ghost. “Mum!” I exclaimed, feeling relief, then confusion, and finally even more worry wash over me. “Dad!”

My dad glanced up at me with haunted, unseeing eyes, but my mother continued to stare at the ground as if frozen in time. Dread began to seep through my skin, squeezing the air out of my lungs and trickling steadily down my spine. Something was terribly wrong.

“Dad, what’s happened?” I asked, panicking. When he didn’t reply, I turned to the secretary who had led me to them. “Please tell me what’s happened!”

“Mr. Gardner,” the lady began cautiously, “I’m so very sorry, but your sister... well, your sister’s dead.”

I stared at her disbelievingly, incapable of comprehending her words. Emma wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be. She was alive, and she’d come waddling through the doors any second now, whining that she was hungry. This lady was barmy if she thought Emma was really gone.

“Your parents were searching for decorations for your birthday party later this evening,” She continued. “It was a surprise, apparently, organised by little Emma.”

So they had remembered my birthday. It seemed a silly thing to fixate on, but it was the only thing my shellshocked mind could grasp at the moment. My parents were planning a party for me. Emma was planning a party for me. Realising that the woman was still speaking, I shifted my focus back to her.

“The girl spotted some fancy streamers in a shop window, and the next thing your parents knew, she was halfway across the street, right in the path of an SUV.”

“They tried to rescue her,” she continued. “She was rushed to the hospital, and for a while it seemed like she had a chance of survival. The doctors truly believed she was steady, but at eleven o’clock, her heart unexpectedly gave out.”

“It’s ironic,” Mum finally spoke, her voice scratchy and hoarse. “She died at the very same moment you were born fifteen years ago.”

I didn’t reply, too occupied with making sense of the whirlpool of thoughts and emotions flooding my brain. Emma had died. She had disappeared. She was gone forever, never to return. I had wished for that, hadn’t I? I had wished for her demise at the exact timing of my birth, and my wish had come true. So why wasn’t I whooping in joy? Why did I feel instead like the weight of the Earth had been cast upon my shoulders? And why did I want, more than anything, to hurt myself just as much as I’d hurt my innocent little sister? I had no answers.

The situation would be ridiculous if it weren’t so devastating.