My Brother's Back

by Annie Su

I had an older brother, but he is missing.

That year, when I was 6, on every hot afternoon, we always enjoyed ourselves fishing, swimming, and singing by the river just behind our great house. I usually enjoyed sitting behind him on the hill by the river and watching him fish. He would raise the fishing rod with his hand, throw the line through the air around him, and sink it into the running cool river water. And the top of the thread disappeared below it. I liked to watch his brown skinny back, which had been kissed by the sun for eight years, rise and fall smoothly as if two white invisible wings supported it. His back was comparable with the mountain far away but it was just in front of my eyes. While a flock of swallows flew above us, the golden sunset cast the shadow of its fingers on my brother's back.

But he was missing before the summer ended. Nobody knew what had happened. And I could only miss him in my dreams, in which he would appear again with a golden and mountain-like or wing-like back.

One summer when I was 14 years old, one familiar hot afternoon in the southern countryside, I could remember the day when we had a temple fair in my town. I hurried to take in my lunch, a bowl of cooled Tainan noodles, and then pulled my father toward the fair while my other hand was grasping a straw hat. That's an annual temple fair in my hometown. The country people crowded here, offered sacrifices, worshipped and got blessed. On the square in front of the temple hall, there were three young men who were making strange body moves. It's show time for the Ji-Tongs to conduct a "conversation" with divinities by beating sacred swords and spears against their naked brown backs. They waved their swords regularly and danced up and down. They were silent, dancing and moving, sometimes forceful, and sometimes peaceful. And crowds were keeping quiet while appreciating such sacred and unbridled "conversation."

Suddenly, one familiar sight caught my attention. That's a smooth and healthy back, just like the one I had met in my dreams for 8 years. His young back recalled my memory of a landscape of the mountains and a cool river, a flock of flying swallows. When the blood oozed out from his clean back, my father stretched his hands and covered my eyes. I would never forget that something terrible had impressed me deeply, when the crowds were getting more and more excited.

After we went home, I felt dizzy and faint. That night, I had a serious fever and a nightmare. The picture of the young man's back kept coming to my mind. He waved the sword in his hands, danced and repeated his strange action again and again. There were only he and I on this spot; my father the crowds, even the temple had gone. Just he and I stood silently. His back was covered with fresh dark blood, from his hair, his shoulders, his arms, all over his back, his legs, and then down on the ground. The blood was flowing toward me slowly, but I couldn't cry out or move. I was almost scared to death. And, at the end, he turned his face to me. At the sight of his eyes, I screamed and then woke up.

I did know--my brother has been missing when I was 6.

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