Crossing Borders

My sister sometimes goes off on dreamy tangents and wants me to join in. It's cute and amusing sometimes, and I know they are like fairy-tales starring us, so I play along. I nod my head and she maps out different scenarios for our lives. The one she played last weekend for me, we were running away, as a sort of brother and sister Bonnie and Clyde, she robbed a bank, stole my mom's new car, and bought fake identities for the both of us. We were going to live in Mexico! She was going to start a little cafe by the beach, something cute and touristy, and I was going to sell my paintings online. I smile as she lays back into the deep cushions of the sofa, it seems to amuse her when I tell her things like, "oh, I would love to live by the beach," and "it wouldn't take much money to live comfortably in Mexico." We went on vacation there once when we were young with my Grandparents, she's wanted to go back ever since, "paradise," she calls it. My sister is a little immature for her age, and hell-- it's not her fault, she was never really allowed to go out of the house much. She gets friends and our rents will tell her, "bring her to our home," never really allowing her to go out of the house unchaperoned. It's all "humiliating," as she calls it, so she's learned to amuse herself with telling stories & writing, yoga, reading, basically anything you can do at home. She's getting pretty good at telling stories, I've always thought she'd make a great fiction writer someday, until the day when she came into my room with a bombshell. She is turning her latest story into a reality. She has did something wrong, something very illegal, and she wants me to be her accomplice. "Let's runaway," she gushes, "hurry, pack a suitcase!" Watch the story unfold.