SELF IN EXILE

Chapter one 

You weren't always so sedentary. Not until the medication. And the datura. The stories our parents have told you about me are often conflicting, but they both remember me as a restless, hyperactive child. Depending who you ask, I started crawling on my third or sixth month, and was talking soon after. They both agree that I was trying to catch up with my twin sisters, born a little over a year earlier. But you have a different theory.

Your earliest memories are of the family dog, Flip. These snapshots are vague and formless, but have taken shape through old photographs and the memories of our parents. Flip's in almost every picture you’ve seen of me that was taken before her death, just before my sixth birthday. She was my first word. Apparently, our parents had a bet going about whether my first word would be Mum or Dad. But it was the dog. My surrogate parent. I'm pretty sure I learned to crawl by imitating Flip. Even after I learned to walk, crawling was my preferred mode of transport, until the school system beat it out of me.

ᛞᚨᛏᚢᚱᚨᚲᚺᛁᛚᛞ.ᚲᛟᛗ/ᛖᚾᛁᚾ