Human Sister

communicates that I should not promise.
    “Promise me, First Brother. You are the leader now. Promise not to harm the humans… Promise me you’ll consult Sara. Sara loves you. You know that… She’ll help you. She’ll know what’s best for you… Please, please, promise me.”
    “I promise,” I say—Second Brother stands, objecting—“I promise we will consult Sara. We will try to have her help us.”
    Dad coughs. Blood oozes from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Through 17 more minutes he moans unintelligible sounds; then his heart stops.
    This human-made destruction and pain, this human-made murder of Mom and Dad.
    Human memories of an event are minimal to begin with and decay rapidly after that, leaving them numb to the past. It is easy for those with poor memories to forgive. Time heals all wounds—in creatures possessing tiny evanescent memories and conscious feelings that are little more than flags for the present. But for us, for whom the past is constantly present, Dad’s blood oozes from all of his bodily openings, his voice moans in terrible agony, and he dies every day, every instant, as vividly as the first, in the horrible present, forever. Who among the humans can forgive such murder, such painful death, even as it happens right before him?
    Look! Red-hot pokers are piercing adulterous eyes, driving demons from sinful vaginas and anuses. Look! Molten lead is silencing blasphemous throats. Look! A crank is being slowly turned on a rack; see the lacerating ropes tighten on ankles and wrists; hear the joints and ligaments pop and tear; hear the screams; hear the “true” confessions. Look! Children are being flogged while they watch their parents burn. Look! The parents’ skins are boiling, sliding down their thighs; strips of charred flesh are hanging from their bones. Look! Children are lying disemboweled along roadsides and in fields; see the birds plucking out their eyes, see the twin orbital cavities, see the maggots clotting their noses and mouths.
    Look! Black radioactive rain is falling on children, screaming children, their skin melting, breaking out in pus and blood.
    Second Brother stands before the Council: “It is true that we do not demonstrate, and possibly do not possess, the creativity of humans such as Archimedes or Beethoven or, let us not forget, the inventors of fusion rockets and gamma-ray lasers. If we simply attack their current military bases and retreat, how long will we be able to maintain a balance of power against these creative, congenital destroyers of nonself? To where can we retreat that they will not overtake us?”
    No response to this communication is requested.
    First Brother

    “Why is Michael hiding behind his hands?” Grandma asked. It was dinnertime, and she’d come looking for me.
    “Please don’t ask,” I said. “I’m not hungry. I think I’ll skip dinner tonight.”
    “What’s wrong? Are you working on a problem?”
    “Yes.”
    I blanked the screen as she walked toward us.
    “A problem that sent Michael into hiding? I haven’t seen him hiding in over a year.”
    “Okay,” I said, standing up. “I’ll be right out.”
    When I entered the kitchen, Grandma told me that Grandpa had called to say he’d be having dinner in the city with a business client. Ever since my interrogation on the prior New Year’s Eve, Grandpa had increased the number of days he ostensibly spent in his Berkeley office to six each week. Grandma had occasionally tried to prod him away from his work, but each time she had, he’d seemed to drift away as if lost in thought.
    While my mind continued reeling in disbelief over what First Brother had said about Grandpa—and in horror at learning about Dad’s last hours and the threats to humanity implied in Second Brother’s statements—Grandma chattered on about the spectacular colors in the vineyard and about seeing thousands of starlings late in the afternoon that had come to glean the orchards and vineyards of their remaining sweetness. She described how the sky had seemed to pulse as the glittering black flock had repeatedly expanded and contracted, perhaps on its way to roost in a eucalyptus grove near Sebastopol.
    “You’re just staring at your plate, not eating a thing,” Grandma said.
    “I’m sorry.” I looked up at her and tried to smile. “Do you think Grandpa’s been working too hard lately?”
    “Oh, my, yes. He’s not sleeping well, either. He gets up and paces and comes out here and