In Continuum.

The Lion and the Crab

I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
And she's just like a maze
Where all of the walls all continually change

Ask anybody who has read one of those online horoscope compatibility websites, and they are going to tell you the same thing. If you put a Leo and a Cancer in the same room, you shouldn't expect either one of them to emerge out of that same room alive. While they are at it, prepare to call the ambulance because a lot of blood is going to be shed and somebody is going to get killed in there. I know that sounded like the teaser trailer of a drama serial, but that's really how it is like under the roof of my house, with my sister and I living under it together. This is especially so when my father is not around to pick on my sister, the conflicts then occurs between myself and the sister. And more often than not, we usually end up screaming into each others' faces or fighting around the dining table right before dinner.

At least that is the case about ten years ago, when we were still kids and our fists and nails were rather useful tools at resolving arguments. My parents gave up on us a long time ago, and we perhaps regretful of the fact that they didn't wait for a few months before giving birth to me. If I was bore a month later, the family would've had a lot more peaceful days than the ones that came to pass. Let's just say that in the Chin household, it is either the voices of my father and sister battling it out with his underwear and her hair brush, or the war between my sister's claws and my clenched fists. In the middle of it all, a bored mother watching the family fall into pieces. I am not painting a very good picture of my family, am I?

And I've done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hand
Now I'm starting to see
Maybe it's got nothing to do with me

It all seemed peaceful - almost too peaceful - in the picture with me lying next to my sister in the picture. I remember seeing it a few months ago while going through the old photo album, and saw the picture of myself at home for the first time. The hair on my head were sparse, and there was a golden bangle around my tightly knotted wrist. I looked like a bundle of sausages for some reason, with a shirt probably meant for a baby girl instead. My sister laid beside me - three years old then - smiling at the camera with this new born baby - her new found toy. She probably never expected the menacing side of this little bundle of horror, deceived by the innocent looks and the novelty of it all. She was obviously fascinated by me, when I clearly cared little about her presence. But you couldn't blame me for looking so bored in the picture (I yawned in one of them). All I was interested in were probably food and sleep, and nothing more than that.

Fathers be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters too

The monster was eventually unleashed as I grew up. In a heated argument between the children, I took a bite into my sister's stomach and left a bloody wound. Personally, I have completely zero recollection of that incident. But even twenty years on, my sister still brings up that issue, all the whole with her shirt lifted over her stomach to show us the scar. But it's not like I remember how or why I bit her in the stomach, perhaps I was just starved and famished. Or she might have stole my favorite toy off the shelves, who knows? When you are three years younger and three feet shorter, your teeth become your weapon of choice in the war against your elder sister.

We fought a lot, my sister and I. And the initial efforts to tame the crazy animals - children - were left aside to gather dust as they fought on. I destroyed my sister's kindergarten artwork, she refused to lend me her green bicycle, and I pulled her hair and pushed her off the swing in the front lawn. I was a brat, a truly blue brat, and it's not like I could have done anything about it. And it's not like my sister was - in any way - forgiving of my idiocy. She fought back, and she fought hard. I remember her pulling chunks off hair off my head and then showing it to me as a sign of victory when we moved to Singapore. Not to mention the time when I accidentally kicked her in the face after a game of Solitaire, she slapped me across the face and then it turned into a nasty brawl that was stopped only after my father intervene with his giant arms and ass.

Oh, you see that skin?
It's the same she's been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now she's left, cleaning up the mess he made

Today, we have drawn the line and are happy with each others' presence. We are still very much irritated with each other sometimes, but at least it is not impossible for us to be in the same room and not have us reaching for each others' throats every five minutes. Now we fight with the volume of our music, and if my music gets too loud for her, she slams her door shut as a form of protest, vice versa. It has been a lot more peaceful these days compared to the chaotic times ten years ago. But of course, that serenity is usually interrupted by my father's return from overseas, when he'd poke fun at my sister twenty-four hours a day, getting on her nerves. She fights back by spraying water on his half naked body in the middle of the night, then running away into the living room with my father bumping into walls of the corridor, all the time with his eyes half-opened. Joining my mother in the middle of it all, we laugh and joke about it from time to time. I, too, gave up.

Fathers be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers, who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters too

But I love my sister anyhow, despite of all the things we have did to each other. She still dances into my room and bites my ear, or does childish things to piss me off. In fact, the roles have changed, and the irritant of the past - me - is now the victim of the future - still, me. I guess in a way, we have come to terms with the fact that a Leo can never live peacefully with a Cancer, and we overcame those differences and drew our lines. As long as we stay within our limits, we should be save from each other.

Now and then, she messages me online for a favor while I do the same for her. I enjoy this mutual understanding and respect, and that creates a sort of balance in the family. Like I said, that balance is usually destroyed with the returning of my father. But at least between ourselves, I am able to look at her and say "This is my sister". Because I am proud of her, despite the fact that she slapped me across the face so many years ago. She can go as a lot of names in her social circle, some of her friends even think that I am her elder brother instead. But whatever it is, she is always going to be the one that looked upon the mini version of me with fascination twenty one years ago, the one that refused to lend me her green bicycle, and the one that fights with my father with her hair brush. Despite our differences, I can't tell you how much I love you my dear neighbor. The daughter. The irritant. The victim. The joker.

The sister.